Weekly Music Roundup: Monsieur Periné, The God In Hackney, and Goldfeather

Week of May 1: This week, things get weird in songs by The God In Hackney and Goldfeather, and a half century of dance moves from Alex Anwandter and Monsieur Perine. Plus, a new Doc Watson tribute album, and more.  

A History Of The End, by The God In Hackney

“It was just a prototype,” sings Andy Cooke at the start of the new album by the UK band The God In Hackney. Thus begins a tale of unintended consequences and a changed world. The song, “In The Face Of A New Science,” is art-rock as wake-up call, with the band playing the role of the trumpeter on the town walls sounding the alarm. (A trumpet is part of the band’s heady mix of understated vocals, brooding piano, celestial electronics, and nervous drumming.) The God In Hackney draws on many musical sources – krautrock, free jazz, trip hop, and many more – but rather than mix all those colors together (which all too often leaves you with a brownish gray), the band seems more inclined to careen from one style to the next, so the album, The World In Air Quotes, has almost nothing else that sounds like this track, and almost no two tracks that even sound like the same band. It’s almost willfully weird, but when it works, as it does here, it’s pretty magical.  

Indie Disco From Chile’s Alex Anwandter

Film director, singer, songwriter, South American gay icon – Alex Anwandter has worn a lot of hats over the years. Later this month he’ll be releasing an album of dance music called El diablo en el cuerpo (“the devil in the body”), and the new single he’s released is a collaboration with the Puerto Rican duo Buscabulla, a familiar name here in New York because of their long stay in Brooklyn in the teens. It’s called “Mi vida en llamas,” or “my life on fire,” and it is a strobe-lit duet between Anwandter and Buscabulla’s Raquel Berrios over a big production full of disco fabulousness. 

The full album is due on May 26. 

Classical Hyperpop?  Goldfeather’s Songs Defy Category

Goldfeather is the work of New York singer, violinist, and composer Sarah Goldfeather and producer Mike Tierney. The new Goldfeather album is called Change. Those are the facts; everything else is up for grabs. Goldfeather’s songs are as crazy as they are catchy, with the kinds of kinetic electronic sounds and often processed vocals that you find in so-called hyperpop, but with the sorts of unexpected twists of song-form that you’d expect from a contemporary classical composer. There’s a little bit of Everything Everywhere All At Once here – in the sense that anything is possible and that sounds from one universe seem to be leaking into another. Each song is a three minute rush of conflicting emotions over sonic exploration; and the album concludes with this track, “Beautiful Tree,” which sounds somehow different from the others. It takes a moment to figure out why: under the patter-song vocals and manic-calliope electronics is a tune that might, in another very different universe, be some kind of folk song. The eventual appearance of a banjo (!) seems to confirm this unlikely conclusion.  

The Clientele Release First New Song In Six Years

London band The Clientele have never just been a rock band; they’ve drawn on French surrealism, quoted English poets in their songs, and generally found ways to make their sometimes melancholy but usually catchy indie pop stand out. Now, they’ve finally announced a new album, I Am Not There Anymore, due on July 28, which promises to include elements of jazz, contemporary classical, and electronica. The first single is “Blue Over Blue,” which has a sunny vibe only slightly undercut by the glitchy electronic noises that rhythmically dot the landscape. A droll video of the band (now a trio where they were previously a quartet) adds to the song’s off-kilter charm. 

Celebrating 100 Years of Doc Watson With A Treasury of American Songs

This year marks the centennial of Doc Watson, the singer and guitarist who was a major figure in the folk music revival of the 50s and 60s, and a new album celebrates the occasion with a stellar lineup of musicians playing a few of the many songs that Watson championed. While the big names like Dolly Parton and Rosanne Cash will get most of the attention, I’m drawn to this version of “Little Sadie,” a song that Watson recorded a couple of times, by Chris Eldridge, the guitarist from the groundbreaking string band Punch Brothers. The song, also known as “Cocaine Blues” and “Bad Lee Brown,” is a classic murder ballad: a tale of a man who shoots a woman (it is implied in some versions that she was a prostitute; in others it is the shooter’s girlfriend or wife) – while under the influence of alcohol and/or cocaine. Eldridge’s version hews closely to Watson’s, using a familiar melody with obvious roots in the folk music of the British Isles. 

Guitarist Matthew Stevens, who produced the album, joins banjo wiz Nora Brown and Tennessee singer/songwriter Valerie June for a live performance of Watson tunes in our Thursday edition of Soundcheck, available at www.newsounds.org or wherever you get your podcasts, first thing Thursday morning.  

Monsieur Perine And Ana Tijoux Collaborate On Thumping New Track

Colombian band Monsieur Perine has released their first new album in 5 years; it’s called Bolero Apocaliptico, and its songs often refer, obliquely or directly, to a looming climate disaster while at the same time giving the impression of dancing at the edge of that precipice. The band draws on a century of Latin pop trends, and often uses traditional South American string instruments, but this track, “Cumbia Valiente” (“brave cumbia”), uses the pounding cumbia dance rhythm that has become so popular in recent years. The song features the Chilean singer and rapper Ana Tijoux, and her voice seamlessly blends in with the band’s own Catalina Garcia, just as the very contemporary dance beat easily becomes a part of the Monsieur Perine soundscape.