Weekly Music Roundup: Vince Staples, Zoh Amba, and Beth Orton
Photo of Zoh Amba by Eleonore Hendricks
This week, Vince Staples on the power of music, Zoh Amba’s new sound, and Death Cab For Cutie’s return. Also, new music by Beth Orton and Hercules & Love Affair.
Rapper Vince Staples Draws On Rock and Dance Music in Cry Baby
Cry Baby is the new album by LA rapper and singer Vince Staples, and it is full of the sounds of rock, punk, and dance music. Staples has made no secret of his love of this music over the years, but this album pushes further in those directions, and finds Staples easily inhabiting the space between rapping and singing. The single “Cotton,” aided and abetted by a striking video, is at once a song about Black resistance and also a celebration of the power of music. One of numerous tracks on the album to begin with the sounds of guitar rock, it has a sturdy dance groove that supports Staples’ gently chanted refrain, “Music makes me feel just like cotton/pick me up when I feel like falling.”
Zoh Amba Changes Gears In New Album Eyes Full
Tennessee-born Zoh Amba made their reputation here in New York as a ferocious improvising sax player. But their new album, Eyes Full, presents Amba as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Here are songs that look at the lives of people living on the margins, with guitar work that ranges from John Fahey-style fingerpicking to shoegaze-inflected distortion. There are moments where Amba’s quavering vocals remind me of Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker, if she were fronting The Pixies and exploring that band’s full loud-soft dynamic. But there are also songs like this one, “Another Time,” which has a yearning country-rock sound that perfectly complements Amba’s pleading vocals: “I hope you find a pair of tender eyes/to guide your damaged soul.”
Beth Orton Takes A Walk On The “Otherside”
British singer and songwriter Beth Orton has just released another song from her upcoming album The Ground Above; this is the album’s closing track, which starts with a steady pulsing piano accompaniment and inexorably builds, as the instruments and vocal layers pile up, to a big, gospel-inflected climax. The folktronica sounds of Orton’s early work give way here to something more akin to late-era Beatles, and her band, which includes Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Teeny Lieberson adding backing vocals, proves to be up to the task of providing the album with a fitting conclusion.
The Ground Above comes out on June 26.
Death Cab For Cutie Release New LP
Ben Gibbard and the rest of the band Death Cab For Cutie are not immune to the craziness going on around us, which is why the song “Stone Over Water” is a standout from their new album, I Built You A Tower, out today. “I’m trying to hold it together/I’m trying to sleep through the night,” Gibbard sings, over a typically simmering indie pop rhythm that will remind some listeners of the band’s breakout hit “Soul Meets Body.” But this song is definitely made for these times, as Gibbard wrestles with problems both universal (“this year’s been a slog”) and personal (“temples fading to grey”), with his friendly vocals somehow making it seem like things could still be all right in the end.
Hercules & Love Affair Kick Off Pride Month With New Single
For almost twenty years, Andy Butler has been making queer dance music under the name Hercules & Love Affair. This week, for the annual celebration of Pride, he announced a new EP, Danseur Pt 1, and released the single “I Get High.” The song is a collaboration with the Icelandic singer who goes by the name Hips & Lips, and it looks back to the disco-era collaborations between Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer. Danseur Pt 1 comes out on July 15, and Danseur Pt 2 will be out of September 10.
