Weekly Music Roundup: Beabadoobee, Sonny Singh, and LA LOM

This week, an Anglo-Filipina tribute to California from Beabadoobee, Punjabi music from Queens by Sonny Singh, and instrumental Latin soul from LA LOM.  Also, Laurie Anderson, and Moor Mother with Masayoshi Fujita.

Beabadoobee Releases Rick Rubin-Produced LP

Now a seasoned music veteran at the age of 24, the Anglo-Filipina singer Beatrice Laus, who records and performs as Beabadoobee, has just released her third album, called This Is How Tomorrow Moves.  Fans who’ve grown to know and love her intimate, almost diaristic songs will still find much to like here, but there is also evidence of an artist who broke out online in 2017 now breaking out of the confines of small-screen music-making.  The album was produced by Rick Rubin, who over the years has gotten the best, and often the most surprising, music out of Metallica, Johnny Cash, The Beastie Boys and so many others.  Many of the songs here offer a more confident sound, with Beabadoobee singing over the often amped-up sound of her band.  The experimental touches we heard on her last record, Beatopia, are still evident – see the surprising twists in the harmonies of “The Man Who Left Too Soon,” for example; but in general, Laus and Rubin have clarified the song structures, with sparkling results like this tribute to the London artist’s current location, “California.”

Beabadoobee plays at SummerStage in Central Park on September 11 and 12.

Sonny Singh’s Upbeat Song For The Downtrodden

Trumpeter and singer Sonny Singh, whom we’ve heard with the NY-based Punjabi dance band Red Baraat, has just released a new single.  “Jaano Jot” will appear on Singh’s solo record Sage Warrior, due on September 6 along with a book of the same name by the best-selling Sikh-American author and activist Valarie Kaur.  Although the song has a decidedly uptempo sound, with bright horns and a reggae-inflected rhythm section, its message is one of support for the oppressed, and the lyrics come from the 16th century founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak: “Know the light within all, ask not of caste / there are no hierarchies in the world beyond.”

Sonny Singh plays an album release show on September 6 at Drom.

LA LOM Offers A Sultry Summer Soundtrack

LA LOM stands for Los Angeles League of Musicians; it’s an instrumental trio of guitar, bass, and drums that started as a hotel band, playing background music for hotel guests.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the foyer – people started paying attention, and the background band became very much a foreground attraction.  It’s not hard to hear why: LA LOM plays a twangy, timeless blend of 60s pop and soul, Peruvian chicha (the psychedelic folk rock of that country from the early 70s), spaghetti western soundtracks, and all manner of Latin rhythms. Now, they’ve toured with Vampire Weekend, played arguably the hit set at the Newport Folk Festival, and are off to London for the Pitchfork Festival there.  Today is the release date of their debut, self-titled LP, and it seems like the perfect accompaniment to a late summer barbecue, if you don’t mind a little dancing around the hot grill.  Listen to leadoff track “Angel’s Point” (many of the tracks are named after places in and around LA), and you’ll perhaps hear what lured unsuspecting hotel guests in Los Angeles to start hanging out in the lobby.

Laurie Anderson Releases A Part Of Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight, And Her Next Album

On August 30, Laurie Anderson will release Amelia, a half-hour piece of storytelling, sound design, music and song, based on the final flight and still-mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937.  For now, she’s put out a single, called “India And On Down To Australia,” although “single” is a weird word to use for this excerpt from a continuous work.  Amelia is built around actual transcripts of Earhart’s logs and letters, but at various points the storytelling shifts from Anderson’s trademark speaking voice – restrained, sometimes clipped, sometimes wry – into actual songs.  This is one of them, built on an earlier unreleased track called “Rumba Club” (listen and you’ll see why) that provides the basic rhythm, and featuring Anderson’s highly processed vocals, eerily shadowed by the unmistakable voice of Anohni, who is featured in most of the “songs” from the piece. 

Listen on September 4 to hear Laurie Anderson discussing Amelia and presenting the work on New Sounds. 

Moor Mother Joins Marimba Player Masayoshi Fujita

The Japanese marimba and vibraphone player Masayoshi Fujita draws much of his musical inspiration from nature – in fact he recently moved his family, after more than a decade in Berlin, to the Japanese coast near Kyoto to live and work within nature.  The result is his upcoming album Migratory, due on September 6.  Mostly instrumental, with electronic touches that somehow heighten the organic nature of the music, the album is a gentle celebration of nature in general, and birds in particular.  But a chance meeting with Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa), the spoken word artist, produced this newly-released track called “Our Mother’s Lights.”  Moor Mother has proven to be a powerful vocal presence, whether in jazz, hip hop, punk, electronic, or contemporary classical music.  Here, she dials down her volume, but not her intensity, and the song becomes an urgent plea for community, and communal action.