Weekly Music Roundup: Dawn Richard, Saul Williams, and New Julius Eastman

This week, Juneteenth releases from Dawn Richard, Taj Mahal, and Saul Williams. Plus new music from Benjamin Clementine and a new recording of old music by Julius Eastman.

Dawn Richard Releases Collaborative Single with Durand Bernarr

New Orleans singer and electronic music producer Dawn Richard had a notable week: her lawsuit against disgraced (and imprisoned) rapper/producer Sean “Diddy” Combs was tossed out this week because it was filed after the statute of limitations expired (although the court noted an alternative route through the NY State courts), and she moved right along with the release of a new song called “baby, can we?” The track is a collaboration with Grammy winning singer Durand Bernarr and sees Richard returning to the sensual soul and R&B that characterizes her pop music. The end of the first verse seems to be riffing on the old Aretha Franklin song “Day Dreaming,” and she and Bernarr swap verses before coming together. Richard has done several albums of ambient electronic music in the past few years, but this song continues her recent return to the warm, funky sounds of her hometown. 

Saul Williams Combines Music and Poetry on New Single

There’s a fine line between rap, poetry, and spoken word. In Saul Williams' work, there’s often no line at all. We’ve heard him collaborating with everyone from contemporary classical composer Ted Hearne to Janelle Monae, and his own music is no less eclectic. This week he released “Conspiracy,” a single from his upcoming album Leap Life. Williams created the alternative hip hop beats and cinematic keyboard track that back up his meditation on life, death, and meaning – “individual lives, not long, not guaranteed,” he intones; “not weighted against intention.” Meanwhile, in a bit of luxury casting, fellow poet/spoken word artist Moor Mother provides a more anxious vocal counterpoint. 

Leap Life comes out on August 28; Williams’ book Songs My Mother Taught Me comes out on September 8. 

Benjamin Clementine Returns With “Pizza Mind”

British singer, pianist, and actor Benjamin Clementine burst on the scene in 2015 with his album At Least For Now, which won the prestigious Mercury Prize despite no one being able to say exactly what kind of music he was making. At its heart, Clementine’s songs revolve around his often startling lyric imagery and his piano playing, which seems to draw on Erik Satie, Frederic Chopin, Nina Simone, and Philip Glass in equal measure. He also cuts a striking figure – a tall Black man with prominent cheekbones, who usually played in a long coat with no shirt underneath. It was just a matter of time before the movies came calling, and so while I was initially shocked to see him on the big screen in the first Dune movie, it quickly felt inevitable. Fortunately, he’s continued to make music, and this week’s single is “Pizza Mind,” and it is not the novelty song that title might imply. It’s a pun on “peace of mind,” and a useful image to discuss people who want, even need, something desperately, but want it without having to, in effect, knead the dough and do all the rest of the work to make it happen. The arrangement is mostly a lilting, Dave Brubeck-style piano, although there are some other keyboards adding to the texture. There’s been no announcement of a new LP yet, but we can always hope… 

Morgan Freeman Announces Big New Blues Project

Oscar winning actor Morgan Freeman is also a big fan of the blues, and has owned the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, MS, since 2001. Now he’s teamed up with the Chineke! Orchestra, a mostly Black orchestra based in London, and a stellar lineup of American blues musicians for Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, out on August 7. Freeman acts as producer and narrator through a 12-song journey that looks at the past hundred years of the blues, especially the Delta blues he grew up with. The album was announced today, alongside the release of the first single: it’s the legendary Taj Mahal doing “Death Letter Blues,” a great song by Son House. Somehow, Taj Mahal and Chineke! manage to create an orchestral version of this dark tune without sanding down the original’s gritty edges. Other tracks will feature vocals by Keb’ Mo’, Shemekia Copeland, and other blues luminaries. 

Wild Up Continues Survey Of Julius Eastman’s Music

Julius Eastman was a thrilling and provocative presence on the New York new music scene in the 70s; he wove his identity as a gay Black man into his music, especially in works like Evil N****r (he did not use asterisks) and Gay Guerrilla. Eastman suffered a period of mental illness and homelessness in the 80s, and when he died in 1990 at the age of 49, his music was presumed lost. But a remarkable revival of Eastman’s music has taken place in this century, and the LA new music group Wild Up has been recording many of his works in a series that now numbers five volumes, with today’s release of Gay Guerrilla. This is, according to conductor Christopher Rountree, “the top of the mountain” when it comes to Eastman’s music. A rollicking piece that blends Minimalist repetitions and rhythms with open scoring (i.e., the instrumentation is not specified in the notation) and space for improvisation, the work is full of surprises, like when Eastman introduces the famous Lutheran hymn “A Mighty Fortress” halfway through the piece. For all his confrontational titles and avant-garde leanings, Eastman was also deeply concerned with music as a spiritual endeavor, so this sort of mashup actually appears in several of his works. Wild Up’s performance is beautifully shaped, and Rountree joins us on tonight’s edition of New Sounds (at 11pm on WNYC or anytime on www.newsounds.org) to talk us through this recording.