Weekly Music Roundup: Rosalia and The Weeknd, Courtney Barnette, Etran De L’Aïr

Week of Nov. 15: This week, a duet from Rosalia and The Weeknd, musical reassurance from Courtney Barnett, and remembering an earlier epidemic with Emily Wells. Plus, Tuareg guitar magic from Etran De L’Aïr, and more.

Rosalia And The Weeknd Duet En Español

Grammy-winning singer Rosalia has moved pretty far from her flamenco roots into more straight-ahead pop in the last couple of years. And dealing with the resulting success has apparently inspired her new song, “La Fama” (“Fame”). The song leans heavily on the bachata style that started in the Dominican Republic and was made famous by bands like Aventura; it gives the track a slinky vibe that perfectly matches Rosalia’s story of an ambiguous romance with fame. Joining her is The Weeknd, whose Spanish is pretty convincing. Possibly more convincing than two famous people complaining about fame. And while Rosalia seems genuinely conflicted about the topic at hand, it doesn’t mean she can’t also have some fun with it – see the song’s glossy, high-camp video. 

Rosalia’s next album, Motomami, comes out in February. 

The Pandemic Inspires A Plague Album By Emily Wells

In February, the violinist, singer and composer Emily Wells will release Regards to the End, an album made during the pandemic but based on an earlier epidemic: the songs are inspired by artists who were tied to and in many cases victims of the AIDS crisis. She’s just released this poignant track called “David’s Got A Problem.” It’s a plaintive, understated tribute to the artist and activist David Wojnarowicz, who was considered controversial, in part, for calling out government inaction on AIDS at a time when people didn’t particularly want to hear it. (He died of AIDS in 1992.) Much of the song consists of Wells’ lyrical singing and gently tolling piano; her violin adds an ethereal quality when it finally appears, late in the song and well in the background.  

Courtney Barnett Knows The World’s On Fire, And That’s Okay

Many of Courtney Barnett’s songs present cool, wryly observed thoughts about our day to day lives.  That, combined with her deadpan vocals and hooky guitar writing, has catapulted her to the upper reaches of the rock game. Her new album, Things Take Time, Take Time, has an almost Buddhist quality to it: a lot of these songs mention big ideas, like life and love and death, but instead of wrestling with them in typical songwriter fashion, Barnett seems to have a calm, accepting approach to the great universal truths that underly the things she actually wants to talk about. Things like getting a text back from someone she’s interested in, or watching the goings-on in her neighborhood. This track is a good example of Barnett’s apparently newfound equilibrium; “Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To” is a genial, midtempo rocker that dispenses lines like “we don't deserve nice things” and “watch the world burn”; but that’s all okay, because, as she sings, “I’m looking forward to the next letter that I'm gonna get from you.” 

More Tales Of The Mundane, This Time From Nilüfer Yanya

Unlike her Aussie counterpart, London’s Nilüfer Yanya does not greet the day’s mundane business with equanimity. Her new song “stabilise” is about feeling trapped, and realizing that the only one who can make things better for you is yourself. The song has echoes of the indie rock of the ‘00s (hints of early Bloc Party and later Interpol), with a driving guitar part and Yanya’s melancholic, almost chanted vocals. 

“stabilise” is the first single from Yanya’s sophomore release, Painless, which comes out on March 4. 

IDLES Release A New Album With A New Sound

The British band IDLES has become known, and loved, for delivering biting but positive social commentary in a blast of punk energy, usually with a big singalong chorus. Their new album Crawler certainly has moments that fit the bill, but the band is also casting a wider sonic net and, for once, looking inward rather than at society at large. Crawler is about addiction, responsibility, and forgiveness – it’s typically big-hearted while pulling no punches. Just take the opening track, “MTT 420 RR”: no pummelling drums or screaming guitars, just a sense of creeping menace as singer Joe Talbot, showing uncommon vocal restraint, intones the phrase “it was February; I was cold and I was high” over a dark, electronically-altered soundscape. It’s one of two songs that deal with a road accident; crawling from the wreckage of his own addiction is a recurring theme in Talbot’s lyrics throughout the album, which may prove to be the band’s most fully realized project yet.  

Ben Lamar Gay’s Weird Trip Down Memory Lane

The composer/improviser/multi-instrumentalist Ben Lamar Gay is part of Chicago’s vibrant experimental music community, but he used to spend his summers as a kid with his great aunt in Alabama. “Aunt Lola and I would stand still and listen together,” he writes. “We would immediately become aware of the winds approaching through the wavering pines, quail sounds and the chatter of distant cousins just up the road.” Now that sounds very idyllic and pastoral, which makes this track, called “Aunt Lola and the Quail,” all the more surprising. A steady, ominous drum beat underpins wisps of cornet and electronics as they flit around; horns eventually enter with a winding, serpentine theme; vocals, when they finally arrive near the end of the song, are just a kind of chanted series of nonsense syllables. The overall impression is dark, and slightly creepy – an impression only strengthened by the video. It’s another compelling look ahead at Gay’s next album, Open Arms to Open Us, out November 19. 

Tuareg Guitar Magic From Etran De L’Aïr

Etran De L’Aïr is not just another of the many Tuareg electric guitar bands that have captured the attention of the global music scene in recent years; this family band from Niger’s historic city, Agadez, plays a faster, more dance oriented style than the loping blues we’ve come to associate with bands like Tinariwen, the longtime scene leaders. Etran De L’Aïr (“the stars of the Aïr region”) draw on traditional rhythms of wedding music, from both the traditionally nomadic Tuaregs and the Hausa and other ethnic groups in their culturally diverse hometown. “Adounia” is the first track released from their forthcoming album, called Agadez, which comes out on February 18.