Weekly Music Roundup: M.I.A. Has a Gospel Album, Reyna Tropical Releases New Single, and Massive Attack Collaborates with Tom Waits
This week, listen to the gospel of M.I.A., Reyna Tropical’s border-crossing cumbia, and protest songs from Pynk Beard and Tom Waits with Massive Attack.
M.I.A. Releases Her “Gospel” Album
The always-provocative rapper and singer M.I.A. has released M.I.7, her seventh album, and her first to explore her recent turn to Christianity. Although she’s been described as a “born-again Christian,” some of the videos that accompany the new album suggest she’s been particularly interested in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. M.I.A. anticipated backlash from fans of her tell-my-truth, bad-girl image, and that seems to have happened at least somewhat; but it pales next to some of the conspiracy theories she’s espoused online. Which is fairly ironic, given that one of the messages of M.I.7 is to turn away from the material/digital and lean into the natural/spiritual. The album has some experimental moments – trumpet interludes, for example, and a song that begins with hocketing (splitting a melody up so two or more singers do alternating syllables). This track, “Calling,” is one of several featuring the Sunday Service Choir, the group put together by Kanye West, or Ye, for his Christian-themed record, Jesus Is King. In fact, the choir carries the first half of the song. For an artist who has always been very much a subject of her own work, M.I.A. is positively self-effacing here, and when she does eventually sing about herself, it’s to tell us that “People I knew know me no more/That's where God kept me to make me grow.”
Reyna Tropical Collaborates With Xiuhtezcatl
Reyna Tropical, the indie-Latin-rock band from LA, is one of the projects of Fabi Reyna, the dynamic singer and guitarist who also founded the music magazine and website She Shreds (devoted to women guitarists and bass players). The group’s new single is “Camino,” or “road,” and celebrates the connections between different parts of Latin America, especially Mexico and Colombia, two countries associated with the boom-chi-cha rhythm of cumbia. The song is a collaboration with Xiuhtezcatl, the Mexican-American environmental activist and hip hop artist. His voice alternates with hers on the verses, and they come together on the chorus over a swaying cumbia groove to sing (in Spanish) lines that reflect their shared concern for the state of the planet: “The earth is calling, I’m on my way.”
I’m With Her Offer A New Take On A Paul Simon Classic
The multiple Grammy-winning folk trio I’m With Her consists of Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz, and Sara Watkins, all of whom have had notable careers separately. Today they released a live album called Sing Me Alive. All three women are successful songwriters, and much of the live set naturally features their own music. But a highlight is an unexpected cover of Paul Simon’s “The Obvious Child.” The original, from his Rhythm Of The Saints album, had a strong Brazilian flavor, including a big samba drum ensemble near the end. I’m With Her do a version that is both creative and clever: the three-part harmonies are rich and lustrous, the second verse is delivered almost like a round or a canon, and the drum ensemble is alluded to in some muted guitar thumping near the end. Through it all, Simon’s melody remains intact, carrying some of his most elliptical yet memorable lyrics – “the cross is in the ballpark/why deny the obvious child.”
A Quiet Protest: “Ice On The Road”
Pynk Beard is the stage name of country singer/songwriter Sebastian Kole, best known for writing songs for people like John Legend and Alessia Cara, among others. This week he released “Ice On The Road,” which is an anti-ICE protest song that chooses not to shout or hector, but to mourn and to ask important questions. To us, “where are your neighbors, and when’d you last see them?”; and to those who invoke Christianity and patriotism to defend ICE’s actions, “have you met Jesus, and what was he teaching?” and more tellingly, “and did you believe him?” Kole, a preacher’s son, appears in the video with his pink beard amidst news footage of ICE activities, some of them all too familiar.
An Unquiet Protest: “Boots On The Ground”
Tom Waits lends his gruff, one-of-a-kind voice to a new song by Massive Attack, the trip-hop pioneers making a long-awaited return to songwriting. “Boots On The Ground” is striking for the contrast between Massive Attack’s skeletal beats and spectral piano on one hand, and Waits’s foul-mouthed fury on the other. He sounds like he’s practically spitting his lyrics, which sarcastically examine the activities of a government seems more focused on a hypermasculine show of strength than protecting its citizens. It’s damning, unsettling stuff.
Alabaster DePlume Shares Hypnotic Single, “Glass”
The London-based improvising sax player, spoken word artist, and composer Alabaster DePlume (aka Angus Fairbairn) is releasing an EP of instrumentals for Record Store Day tomorrow, called Dear Children of Our Children, I Knew: Epilogue. This week he put out the single “Glass,” featuring the ubiquitous New York-based multi-instrumentalist/producer Shahzad Ismaily on bass. The piece creeps along on the steady tread of an electronic loop, with DePlume’s sax barely rising above a whisper – the breath control is impressive – and sketching a lovely, serpentine melody.
