Weekly Music Roundup: Vicky Tafoya, Marcus Strickland, Katie Melua

Week of Jan. 16: This week, time-traveling songs by Vicky Tafoya and Rachael & Vilray; and big questions in music by Marcus Strickland, Katie Melua, and Lonnie Holley. 

A New Song By Vicky Tafoya Has A Vintage Sound

California’s Vicky Tafoya has a thing for the sounds of decades past. She’s been a doo-wop singer, and her new 45 (yes, we’re doing 45 rpm singles again) is steeped in the sound of the bluesy soul, or soulful blues, of singers like Etta James and Bettye Lavette. Predictably, it’s being released by Daptone Records, the label that almost singlehandedly led the soul revival of the past 15 years with Sharon Jones and the like, through their Penrose imprint. “Love Don’t Treat You Fair” seems to be the B side, with the equally bluesy “The Moment” serving as the A side. But love’s unfairness is music to our ears, as Tafoya mourns her unrequited love with great soul, over the creeping tread of a band that’s in no hurry to lift her spirits. 

An Afrofuturist Celebration Of Life On Earth By Marcus Strickland

Sax player and composer Marcus Strickland is best known as a jazz musician, but like pianist Robert Glasper and trumpeter Chief Adjuah (aka Christian Scott), among others, Strickland has developed a style of Black World Music that encompasses hip hop, soul, Caribbean music, and electronics. His band Twi-Life has just released a new album called The Universe’s Wildest Dream – a reference both to how improbable our own existence is and the idea that we might actually decide to take care of the planet that houses us. The track “Infinity” features spoken word by Jamaica’s Ras Stimulant, whom Strickland found on YouTube, as well as a funky bass, and some spirited interplay among the members of the quartet. Behind all of it is a glittering, starlit electronic sound that transports the whole thing to a cosmic realm. 

Hear Strickland’s Twi-Life in a live set in our studio: 

UK Star Katie Melua Ponders Family And Career In “Golden Record”

Katie Melua is not nearly as well known here in the States as she is in the UK, where all eight of her previous albums have been top 10 hits and she is one of the country’s best-selling artists. Born in Tblisi, Georgia, Melua has on occasion made detours into things like Georgian choral music or classical works, but her new single, “Golden Record,” shows that her pop instincts remain as finely-honed as ever. The song is a first glimpse at her next LP, Love & Money – her first since becoming a mom (a pregnant Melua adorns the cover). The song may specifically be about Melua’s newfound happiness at finding a life/work balance, but with its anthemic chorus and its repeated suggestion that “maybe it’s heaven,” it has an uplifting message that seems likely to have a more universal appeal. 

The video was filmed in Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio, where the album was made.  Love & Money comes out on March 24. 

Ezra Collective Covers Fela Kuti’s “Lady”

The London band Ezra Collective has just released a cover of “Lady,” a track from the songbook of the Nigerian bandleader and singer Fela Kuti. The band has always drawn heavily on the Afrobeat sound that Fela developed in the 70s and 80s, and with Ezra’s bandleader, Femi Koleoso, behind the drumkit, they offer a reminder of the often hypnotic, sometimes incendiary interplay between Fela’s horn and voice and the great Tony Allen’s drumming. But up front are the horns, playing in a call and response fashion; it evokes the sounds of Fela’s singing and the women’s chorus that replies to him in the original. And at six minutes, Ezra Collective’s “Lady” doesn’t overstay her welcome, clocking in at less than half the length of the Fela version.  

Rachael & Vilray Do The Time Warp Again

The late Stephen Hawking wrote that faster-than-light-speed travel was impossible because it would also mean traveling through time, and we’d be overrun with tourists from the future. But the duo known as Rachael & Vilray have proven that a different kind of time travel is possible, as they write and perform songs that sound like they emerged from a wormhole back to the days of Tin Pan Alley. Rachael is Rachael Price, lead singer of the jazzy soul-pop band Lake Street Dive; Vilray – just Vilray – is a Brooklyn singer, songwriter and guitarist. Both love the sound of the music of the ‘30s and ‘40s, and their first LP together included two songs from that period and ten more that just sounded like it. Now they’re back with I Love A Love Song!, and once again you have to listen hard to catch the little hints that these songs might not be as old as they sound. “Is A Good Man Real” is a good example: the swing band arrangement and Rachael’s vocals all suggest the 1930s. The line about narwhals (“the unicorn of the sea”) might give you pause, but the real giveaway is “Once he’s had three martinis/He’ll let you take the wheel/Oh is a good man real?” That kind of responsible behavior probably wouldn’t have made it into Cole Porter’s notebook.   

Rachael & Vilray play live in our studio and talk about their work on this Thursday’s edition of the Soundcheck Podcast – you’ll find it both at newsounds.org, and any other place you get your podcasts then.