Weekly Music Roundup: Nas, Mitski, and Sufjan Stevens

This week, Nas turns 50; Mitski finds love in an inhospitable land; Sufjan Stevens wonders if he’ll find love anywhere.

Hip Hop Is 50, So Is Nas

Grammy-winning rapper Nas marked his 50th birthday in style, by releasing a new album, Magic 3.  Like the first two volumes in the Magic series, it was produced by Hit-Boy, who has collaborated with Nas on a string of albums, including the Grammy winning King’s Disease.  The new LP opens with a statement of intent, from both rapper and producer.  “Fever” starts with a delightfully obscure but grand orchestral sample from a 60s psychedelic rock band called Bit A Sweet, and when Nas comes in, he reflects on his milestone.  “Celebratin’ years of flows and crazy wordplay,” he raps (accurately enough), and later, “I’m officially OG.”  The catchy chorus has some call-and-response vocals, with Nas urging everyone to “represent for me/fly from infancy to half a century.”  The generations of hip hop fans who fell under the spell of his 1994 classic Illmatic will find it hard to argue with that.

Mitski Goes From Strength to Inhospitable Strength on New LP

Mitski’s new record is called The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We.  Don’t be fooled by the forbidding title, though; this is some of her most engaging, intimate, yet somehow also expansive music yet.  The lyrics generally deal with – well, not love, per se, but what love leaves in its wake.  Memories, regrets, relief, freedom – the songs zig and zag through all of them, and the arrangements vary from the acoustic guitar-with-chorus on “Bug Like An Angel” (slightly reminiscent of The Polyphonic Spree) to the grand orchestral climax of “When Memories Snow” (strongly reminiscent of Ennio Morricone’s “spaghetti western” film scores).  There is a definite country twang to some of the tracks as well, but the album leaves us in shoegaze territory, with this song called “I Love Me After You.”  Here the guitars are electric, and buzzing with distortion, and the drums’ steady tread might have an ominous color to it.  But even here, in the album’s most inhospitable sonic environment, Mitski’s vocals remain gentle, carrying on the character’s interior monologue until she goes beyond words and launches into a vocalise that effortlessly soars over the din. 

Yo Yo Ma Plays Bach’s Suite #1 For Unaccompanied Cello – With Accompaniment.  Sort Of. 

The six suites for unaccompanied cello by Bach remain a pinnacle of the classical repertoire, so it’s no surprise that Yo Yo Ma would return to these pieces throughout his career.  This week, Sony Classical announced an upcoming reissue of his first recordings of the suites from 1983, and released a video of his most recent recording – done in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.  The video finds the star cellist and global music ambassador performing next to a gently flowing stream, surrounded by trees and the occasional calls of birds.  The sound is bewitching and the cellist performs with his signature mix of elegance and joy.  Most impressively, he maintains his composure and his technique while a camera gets up close and personal throughout (and well done to the cameraperson who moves in at the beginning without adding any stray sounds); best moments might be the grin he flashes at the camera after the familiar first movement, and the relaxed ending.  

Sufjan Stevens Is A One-Man Orchestra On New Song

Intimacy and grandeur have often coexisted in the music of Sufjan Stevens, and that is the case in his new single “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”  Beginning with Stevens’ willowy voice and a simple plucked accompaniment, the song adds instruments and voices until its repeated question morphs from an admission of individual uncertainty into a shared communal hymn of sorts.  There are a few other voices layered in the song, but all of the instruments were played by Stevens himself – which is true of the full album, Javelin, due on October 6. 

(More) Music From An Infamous Mississippi Prison

Parchman Prison, formerly known as Parchman Farm (but still definitely a prison), has a strange history.  It has long been notorious for poor conditions and even worse treatment of its inmates, some of whom seem to have been sent there for dubious reasons.  Two of the latter, the bluesmen Son House and Bukka White, are examples of the other part of Parchman’s history: music.  Alan Lomax went to Parchman Farm in 1947 and recorded prisoners there, among them a raw but obvious talent named Tangle Eye.  Now, producer Ian Brennan has released his own collection of Parchman Prison songs, all recorded at the prison’s Sunday morning service – “these were voices unchained,” Brennan says, “if only for those few hours.”  While Brennan has won a Grammy for producing the Tuareg guitar band Tinariwen, as well as other “proper” albums, he’s made his name by making simple, unadulterated, often imperfect recordings of music made by people who are overlooked or locked away by society: Malawian prisoners, Ghanaian “witches,” people with Down’s Syndrome, the persecuted albino community of Tanzania, and many others.  A highlight of Parchman Prison Prayer “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning” is a song called “I Give Myself Away, So You Can Use Me” which begins as a solo voice (and quite a good one) with simple, out-of-tune piano accompaniment.  As songs go, it’s pretty bare bones – just the title line, repeated over and over, but accruing something like power and perhaps even a sense of release as other voices join in.

Anoushka Shankar Debuts New Song With Nils Frahm

Sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar, like her legendary father Ravi, has had a career with a global reach.  Past projects have included collaborations with flamenco, electronic, rock, and jazz musicians; her new single, “Daydreaming,” is a collaboration with the German keyboardist/composer Nils Frahm.  Frahm has been one of the central figures on the European “neo-classical” scene, and here he contributes a spare, repeating piano part that suggests the chiming of bells, while Shankar’s sitar offers a contemplative, slowly unfurling melody.  It’s from her upcoming mini-album (four tracks) called Chapter I: Forever, For Now, produced by Arooj Aftab and due on October 6.