Weekly Music Roundup: Punch Brothers, Marlowe, and The Hold Steady

Week of July 23: This week, returns for Pussy Riot, Cat Power, The Hold Steady, and public radio host/musician Chris Thile, plus new music by producer L'Orange and rapper Solemn Brigham as Marlowe. 

Pussy Riot’s “Policeman” Series Includes World Cup Disruption And A New Song

Even if you were among the relatively few humans not watching the World Cup championship game last Sunday, you probably heard about the pitch invasion – when four people ran out onto the field in the middle of the second half of the game. As is customary, the TV cameras immediately cut away, not wanting to reward this sort of thing with global publicity. But it turned out not to be drunken hooligans; it was members of the punk/protest art group Pussy Riot. Calling their action “Policeman Enters The Game,” they posted a video explaining that they were protesting Russia’s culture of surveillance and imprisonment as tools of government repression. (And their camera stayed on the four as they ran around the field. Best moment: one of them high-fives France’s star winger Kylian Mbappe.) They drew a comparison between the good cop, who upholds the law and is a part of the community, and the bad cop, who is essentially a spy looking for any trace of discontent. (I’m paraphrasing; Pussy Riot’s English is charmingly fractured.) That theme extends to the group’s new single, called “Track About Good Cop” (see what I mean?), which is a surprisingly bouncy slice of electropop, featuring some fun dance moves and lines like “me and the cop/we’ve turned from enemies into a duo” - as well as some warnings about the darker side of policing in Russia. 

The Hold Steady Release New Song, Get Shot In The Shoulder

Brooklyn indie rockers The Hold Steady don’t make songs; they make short audio movies. Craig Finn sing/speaks his way through character studies, portraits of people on the margins of society, and scenes that practically play themselves out in your mind. “The Stove & The Toaster” is a new single that they’ve just released in advance of a small but mostly sold-out tour. It is a heist story, and you can tell from the opening verse (“it’s gonna be easy, it’s gonna be simple”) that it ain’t gonna end well. And indeed, when the titular kitchen appliances don’t turn out to be what’s expected, things go south real fast. But Finn’s droll delivery makes it all okay, and the addition of some Dap-King-style horns makes it way more than okay. 

Marlowe Offers Breathless Rapping And Classic Hip Hop Sampling

Marlowe is a duo, consisting of rapper Solemn Brigham and producer L’Orange. Their new album, simply called Marlowe, is a dizzying musical trip full of the kind of inventive use of musical and vocal samples that made the work of De La Soul, or Steinski, or any number of other early hip hop albums so much fun to drill into. The overall mood is vaguely psychedelic, with vintage voices from various media flitting about and strong echoes of '70s soul in the production. Solemn’s rapping seems to spill out of him in a stream-of-consciousness flow that refuses to acknowledge bar lines, punctuation, or at times the need for a human being to draw breath. They’ve posted all the lyrics to their songs on their Bandcamp page, and it is refreshing to hear a rapper who is able to suggest weighty issues (equality, truth, identity, community) even as you read along and wonder what the heck he is actually talking about. Multiple rhyming schemes weave together, and there isn’t a curse word or even an N-word in sight. Meaning that if some hip hop radio station were curious enough, and daring enough, they could actually play this on the air. How about that? The album has several standout tracks, including “Things We Summon” and the surfy “Palm Readers,” but my favorite is “Lost Arts,” with its sauntering gait and interplay of sampled and live vocals. 

Cat Power Announces A New Album This Fall

The singer and songwriter Chan (pronounced like “Sean”) Marshall has been making albums under the name Cat Power since 1995 – although she hasn’t released anything for six years. That will change on October 5, when she releases Wanderer, an 11-song collection that she says will describe “the course my life has taken in this journey - going from town to town, with my guitar, telling my tale.” Cat Power’s journey has at times been a tortuous one, with periods of substance abuse and mental illness leading to an erratic history as a live performer; but she has always been a compelling songwriter, and a richly emotive singer. So far, she hasn’t released a single from the album, but a short trailer features several layers of that distinctive voice singing a cappella – the tune almost sounds like it wants to turn into the brooding folk ballad “In The Pines,” perhaps as if arranged by Julianna Barwick. It is an intriguing glimpse at what’s to come.

Cat Power performs in New York on September 30 at Forest Hills Stadium, as part of The National’s “There’s No Leaving New York” weekend festival. 

Punch Brothers Release All Ashore

Even after 10 years and six albums, it’s still not easy to describe Punch Brothers. The all-star acoustic band looks like a bluegrass ensemble but plays music that draws on classical composition, jazz improvisation, and progressive rock structures. They’re also capable of laying down a funky groove or resurrecting an old-timey sound. Each of the five musicians is a virtuoso of the highest order, but public radio listeners will be most familiar with singer/mandolinist Chris Thile, who took over A Prairie Home Companion when Garrison Keillor left and now hosts the show under its new name, Live From Here. (Heard Saturday evenings at 6 on WNYC-FM. Force of habit: I just had to get the promo in…). On Friday Punch Brothers released their sixth album, All Ashore, which finds the usually ebullient quintet in an unusually restrained mode. There is still incredible technique here – it’s just not on display the way it usually is. And the songs tend to be more reflective. Thile has written that the album is “a meditation on committed relationships in the present day, particularly in the present political climate.” That’s pretty sobering stuff. Fortunately, the band’s energy and wit can’t be fully repressed. The track called “Just Look At This Mess” uses a slow, slinky rhythm and some neat falsetto harmonies to suggest a kind of bluegrass version of classic R&B. 

Punch Brothers play in NY at the Beacon Theater on July 28.