Weekly Roundup: Lomelda and Zeal & Ardor

Week of Sep. 7: This week, a Hollywood blockbuster’s soundtrack, obscure Memphis soul uncovered, and a strange but powerful gospel-metal mix.

Lomelda’s New Album Looks Near And Far, But Mostly Near

Lomelda is the work of Texas-born Hannah Read. She has a remarkable voice – it seems fragile at first, but it will surprise you, as you’ll hear towards the end of this track, called “Hannah’s Sun.” Her songs can swing from softly sung ballads to roaring guitar-based rock; and those songs can cover topics like family, music, creativity, and most notably on this new album, Hannah Read. The album is called Hannah, and in addition to “Hannah’s Sun,” we get tracks called “Hannah Happiest” and “Hannah Please.” But we also get the apparently definitive song title “It’s Lomelda,” a tune that namechecks favorite bands like Low, Yo La Tengo, and Frank Ocean. Parsing the connection between Lomelda and Hannah Read is probably something fans will spend a lot of time doing. Me, I’m starting with this lovely song, “Hannah’s Sun,” even though I don’t fully understand it. She (Hannah?  Lomelda?) seems sad, but determined and “tryin’ to shine.” The improbable flute-based arrangement somehow works as well, and really flowers in the song’s second half.

Metal Band Zeal & Ardor Offers An Elegy For A Nation

Zeal & Ardor usually tours as a 6-piece band, but it is essentially the work of Manuel Gagneux, who has come up with a distinctive, melodic brand of metal. He is the son of a Black mother and a Swiss father, and his new batch of songs looks at the state of race in America today. He does not seem to be optimistic: the EP, which will come out on October 23, is called Wake Of A Nation. The first track, “Vigil,” is available to hear now, and it is a pointed, powerful work with a strong gospel flavor – which somehow feels right even when the tremolo guitars come screaming in. The lyrics are a heartbreaking collection of now-familiar phrases from police-and-Black interactions gone horribly wrong: “I can’t breathe, it’s a cellphone, please don’t shoot, I need to get home,” Gagneux sings. “Vigil” alternates between a spare piano accompaniment and a full-on, processional band sound; the unlikely mix of musical styles may sound weird in theory, but in practice it is deeply affecting. 

Travis Scott Contributes A Song To The Film Tenet

Perhaps you’ve heard that Hollywood is banking on director Christopher Nolan (Inception, Interstellar, etc.) to bring us all back to the movie theaters with the new sci-fi spy thriller Tenet. The film opened this past week, and its soundtrack is an often pummeling affair by Ludwig Göransson (who also scored Black Panther). But as often happens these days, a song with an A-list pop figure was needed for the closing credits. Enter Travis Scott, whose rap/sung vocals are often highly processed on his own records. This makes him a natural here, since the film is about different strands of time moving in different directions and Göransson’s music uses sound in similarly inverted ways. In fact, he sprinkles little shards of Scott’s voice into moments of the film score itself as well. Anyway, the song, called “The Plan,” is a collaborative work that features Scott’s manipulated vocals over a music track that is indicative of the rest of the score. The song’s been available for a few weeks online, but is just now available as part of the whole soundtrack.  

New Compilation Unearths Memphis Soul Gems

The Last Shall Be First is a new compilation of Memphis soul drawn from the archives of the JCR Gospel label, a tiny record company that seems to have been a division of the slightly less tiny D-Vine Records. These recordings seem to be a DIY affair, many done by a Pastor Juan D. Shipp, who may or may not have known how to produce a record. Take the track called “Keep On Pushing,” by the Calvary Nightingales. Look them up; go ahead, do a deep internet dive on the Calvary Nightingales. You’ll find nothing, except items promoting this upcoming CD. But look up the Calvery Nightengales – yes, that’s right, with both parts of the band name misspelled – and you’ll be able to at least get confirmation that this was a real group. The song has the raw sound of 1960s garage rock, especially with its electric guitar opening, and a call-and-response between the lead male singer and female backing singers that almost sounds like ska or early reggae, but with a far different groove. Then, about a minute and a half in, a different lead singer enters; but his moment in the sun is short, as the song suddenly starts fading away a minute later. The whole thing is so raw that you wouldn’t even think it was a professional recording.  But boy is it good stuff… 

The Last Shall Be First comes out on September 18. Maybe we’ll get a little more detail on the band and the label then. 

London’s Theo Alexander Mixes Piano And Tape Loops

Theo Alexander is a young musician from London, born to a British-Chinese family. His music has a mixed heritage too: Alexander is clearly influenced by the sounds of American composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich, but spent time on the London noise rock scene as well. So his music on his new EP Animadversions blends Minimalist-style repeating cells on the piano with a constant recycling of that material on four-track cassette loops. This allows him to quickly build up a wall of rhythmic sound, and to play with your ability to distinguish between what’s live and what’s on tape. The track “Disappearing Altogether” is both welcoming and insistent. It also presents itself as a kind of four-square, apparently simple set of musical fragments – until you get lost in the kaleidoscope of cross-rhythms as the piece chugs along. 

https://theoalexander.bandcamp.com/

French Duo AaRON Collaborates With Jean-Claude Van Damme

Jean-Claude Van Damme is about to turn 60, but he can still kick your ass. For proof, just watch him in the new video for AaRON’s single “Ultrarêve,” in which he shows off his dance moves (okay) and his martial arts forms (super okay). He can still swing a foot as high and hard as when we were all calling him “The Muscles From Brussels.” He even does a bit of lip syncing to the song, and a little air-keyboard playing. Which reminds me – the song. AaRON is a French electronic pop duo, and this track is from their forthcoming album Anatomy Of Light, due on September 18. It’s a pulsing, dancey tune with a hint of melancholy, and it is not the first time they’ve worked with a film star. They enlisted John Malkovich to be in their 2015 video for “Blouson Noir,” but this time, apparently, it was Van Damme who approached them about doing the video. The actor’s daughter directed it and his son was the cameraman, so it was a family affair, and it appears a good time was had by all…