Weekly Music Roundup: Willie Nelson, Shilpa Ray, Congotronics International

Week of May 2: This week, Made In America: music from Cuba, Colombia and Mexico.  Also, the return of Willie Nelson, and Shilpa Ray takes on the patriarchy. Plus, new music by Congotronics International.

Willie Nelson Releases New LP “A Beautiful Time”

Willie Nelson turned 89 on Friday, and celebrated by releasing his gazillionth album, called A Beautiful Time. The red-headed stranger of 50 years ago is now a gray-bearded icon, familiar far outside the country music world, and this new album hews closely to the gently swinging country sound that he’s been mining for so long. There are songs about memory, old flames (real and imagined), and a cover of “I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends,” made inevitable by the line “I get high with a little help from my friends.” The singer/guitarist/marijuana activist is in pretty good form throughout, and one standout on the album is this track, “I Don’t Go To Funerals,” a wry, jaunty tune about staring at the end of life and rather than wallowing in sadness or nostalgia, looking ahead to that great gig in the sky, to borrow a phrase from Pink Floyd.  

Shilpa Ray’s Searing New “Portrait Of A Lady”

We first met Shilpa Ray when she was leading her band Beat The Devil, which was the result of growing up in an immigrant Indian home where Western pop wasn’t allowed and sneaking out to rock shows. Over the years she has documented parts of her life with her striking vocals – which range from world-weary to cathartic – often accompanied by the Indian harmonium. Her album Door Girl offered a warts-and-all view of the night life on the Lower East Side, culled from observations and personal experiences as she worked at the door of the club Pianos. But her new LP, Portrait of a Lady, is her most personal record yet. An unflinching look at sexual assault and abuse – both on an individual and a larger, society-wide scale – the album pairs often dreamy pop confections or familiar punk riffs with scathing titles and frank, sometimes darkly funny lyrics. “Heteronormative Horseshit Blues” sounds like a David Lynch fever dream version of a 60s pop ballad; with its reverbed electric guitar and rich, velvety singing, the track could potentially ease right by – but lines like “I let you shove my face into a concrete floor” grab your attention and don’t let go. 

Cuban-American Soul-Funk From Jose Conde

Cuban-American multi-instrumentalist Jose Conde has long been a part of the Afro-Cuban jazz scene, but his upcoming album, called Souls Alive in the 305, delivers on the album title’s promise by going further into the sounds of soul and Latin funk. Using vintage synthesizers and organs, Conde makes the first single “Dale Pa ‘Ya” into something that has clear roots in Cuban party music but which also has a classic disco-funk flavor. It features vocals by Cuci Amador, and as for the title, Conde explains “DALE PA 'YA means GET OVER THERE!!! WHERE? OVER THERE! Empower yourself and say  DALE PA 'YA and dance!”

The album Souls Alive in the 305 comes out on May 20; Conde and his band play at Joe’s Pub on May 24. 

It's An Afro-Colombian Dance Party - In Queens

Rebolu is an Afro-Colombian band that uses the rhythms of Colombia's Caribbean coast to deliver stories of the immigrant experience, the good and bad. Based in Queens, the band is preparing to release its album Mi Herencia (My Heritage) with Smithsonian Folkways records on May 13, and they've just put out the single called "La Sorpresa (The Surprise)." It's a bouncy, almost frenetic dance number with the repeated chanting of various female names serving as a kind of makeshift chorus - a party tune that brings the energy of Carnaval to New York.   

Congotronics International: The Global Supergroup Eleven Years In The Making

It all began with a tour in 2011 that paired a bunch of indie/art-rockers with two of the leading Congolese bands.  Konono #1 and the Kasai All-Stars had burst upon the world music scene with their trippy blend of thumb pianos and other traditional sounds with a distorted, DIY sound system whose parts came from a junkyard and an auto parts store. Western artists like the American band Deerhoof, the Swedish duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, the Argentine singer Juana Molina, and Matt Mehlan of the group Skeletons all became fans, and joined in the Congolese groups’ 2011 tour. This unexpected supergroup was called Congotronics International, and over the next decade, a combination of live recordings and remote studio work would yield a trove of musical collaborations combining the sounds – and rhythms – of Western and Congolese pop. The resulting album, just out, is called Where’s The One? (the title is a reference to the musicians trying to find the downbeat in the mix of rhythms), and it includes music from all of the principals, recast and reinvented by this fascinating collective. This piece, “Ambulayi Tshaniye,” was originally from the Kasai All-Stars, but this version begins with chiming electric guitars and Molina’s crooning vocals; eventually the Central African instruments enter and set up their trancey percussive sound.  

Another Modern Take On Balada Music From Adrian Quesada

Just a few weeks ago we got our first taste of Boleros Psicodelicos, a lysergic, languid extension of balada – a Latin American style of the 60s/70s - by guitarist Adrian Quesada. The co-founder of the soul band Black Pumas released that first single, “Mentiras Con Cariño,” in collaboration with Puerto Rican star singer iLe. Now we get “El Paraguas,” featuring the lyrical croon of NY’s own Gabriel Garzon-Montano. In fact, he’s singing his own lyrics, written as a nod to his late father: the umbrella (paraguas) of the title refers to drawings his dad used to make of people holding umbrellas with the rain falling under them. The song has an easy swinging rhythm, made slightly, and delightfully, weird by the Vincent Price-summoning organ at the end.