Weekly Music Roundup: Alvvays & The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers
Week of July 17: This week, one musical controversy burns while another is put out. And some new releases.
Radiohead’s Tel Aviv Concert Sparks Controversy
On Wednesday night, Radiohead will play its first concert in Israel since 2000. Not everyone is happy. Roger Waters, the architect of Pink Floyd’s greatest albums of the 1970s, has twice decried the group’s decision to play in Israel, most recently on a Facebook Live interview hosted by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (referred to by the initials BDS, because after all, BDSM already means something very, very different). Michael Stipe, the longtime frontman of R.E.M., replied with an Instagram post standing by Radiohead’s decision to play in Israel. Battle lines have formed: on the one side, those who point to the debilitating effects that Israeli control has had on Palestinian lives and society, and who feel that artists should join those boycotting Israel until Palestinians have equal access to jobs, medical care and the like. On the other side are those who feel that depriving people of music because of what their government is doing would be unfair. Thom Yorke, Radiohead’s singer, released a statement saying “We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.” It’s a great line, but it’s unlikely to mollify the band’s critics, who may point not to Trump’s America but to South Africa before the end of Apartheid as a more appropriate comparison. But of course, that boycott was broken by Paul Simon, who went to Johannesburg to make his epochal Graceland record. It is a thorny issue. In the meantime, the concert is scheduled for Wednesday night, and tickets (about $135 for “regular” seating) are limited to 4 to a customer, although as of Monday evening the event had not yet sold out.
Court Dismisses Ornette Coleman Lawsuit
In 2015, we reported on a lawsuit filed “on behalf of” Ornette Coleman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz sax player and composer, against a small record label called System Dialing. Coleman was in failing health at the time and passed away a short time later; the lawsuit was initiated by his son, the drummer Denardo Coleman, and alleged that the release of a trio record by Ornette and System Dialing’s Jordan McLean (trumpet) and Amir Ziv (drums) was unauthorized. McLean has long claimed that Ornette was enthusiastic about the prospect of a release and that the trio actually played together several times with that in mind. Last week, the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice (i.e., it cannot be re-filed; it is permanently dismissed) by a US District Court judge. The reason? To quote the court’s decision, “The defendants request that this case be dismissed with prejudice on the ground that Coleman has failed to prosecute his claims against them. The defendants’ motion is granted.” Two years after filing the suit, Denardo Coleman had still not officially had himself appointed administrator of his father’s estate, nor moved to enter arbitration. The court’s decision concludes “If Coleman is appointed the estate’s representative and elects to commence arbitration proceedings against the defendants, the arbitrator will be able to decide whether those claims are timely.” That seems highly unlikely at this point.
There was never a lot (or really, any) money at stake here, but there is a record that includes one of the giants of American jazz. That record is New Vocabulary, and this track is from it.
The Wisdom Of The Selecter: “Nobody’s Nobody’s Hashtag”
The British band The Selecter is preparing to release its new album, Daylight, in October. The Selecter was and is one of the premier bands in the style known as 2-Tone, which started in the UK in the late 70s as a mix of ska and punk. Now, Pauline Black and her mates have released the album’s first single, called “Frontline,” and it casts a jaundiced eye at consumerism and social media, and especially at how the two have become so closely linked. The video amplifies the song’s message to the point of absurdity, which is part of the fun.
The Selecter plays at the Knitting Factory of August 9.
Trio Da Kali & Kronos Quartet – Just Singing And Dancing In The Rain
I love a well-done music video as much as anyone: high production values, professional cinematography, maybe a narrative or even a counter-narrative to the story in the song… but sometimes, all you need for a great music video is a good song and a guy with a camera standing on the side of a muddy road in the rain. Behold “Eh Ya Ye,” the first single from the forthcoming collaboration between Mali’s Trio Da Kali and the veteran, ever-intrepid Kronos Quartet. Although Trio Da Kali has already put out a self-titled album, this Malian group was specifically formed to collaborate with Kronos. In September, that collaboration will finally be released. The album is called Ladlikan, and the meeting of traditional Mande instruments like the balofon (the xylophone-like instrument) and the bass ngoni (a type of lute) with Kronos’ violins, viola and cello is completely convincing. But your ear will probably be drawn to the voice of Hawa Kasse Mady Diabaté, who has been called “the Malian Mahalia Jackson.” And your eye will definitely be drawn to the four dancers who, one by one, dance through the rain and the mud, and the occasional car or motorcycle.
Alvvays Offer Glimpse Into Their Next Album
The band Alvvays is from Toronto, but their music – a mix of psychedelia, pop, and occasional detours into shoegaze-y distortion – suggests they’ve been listening to a fair number of Scottish bands, like The Jesus And Mary Chain, or Teenage Fanclub. Their debut album in 2014 attracted a lot of fans, and on September 8 they will release a much-anticipated follow-up, called Antisocialites. The focus will still be on singer and songwriter Molly Rankin, but the band is in fine form and guests (including Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub) drop in occasionally too. So far the band has released a single track and video, called “In Undertow,” a breakup song where the breakup is still in the process of unfolding. Rankin’s lyrics are both sharp-edged and drily witty, but the video, I will confess, underwhelmed me when I watched it – until I read Rankin’s description of it as "aquacosmic psych meets public access TV."
Eagle Rock Gospel Singers Have Guts, No Glory
The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers’ name refers at once to an old, deeply-rooted form of American music and to an LA neighborhood that has become a superheated location for hipsters, foodies, and artists. The duality works for this quintet: their first album, 2015’s Heavenly Fire, was simply brilliant in its mixture of irresistible gospel harmonies and gothic indie rock. On Friday, they released their sophomore effort, called No Glory, which seems to have moved from the unsettling shadows that made the song “Heavenly Fire” so compelling into something more sun-kissed. Even the darker tracks, like “Haunted,” sound more like The Mamas & The Papas than Siouxsie & The Banshees. All of which means a song like No Glory’s title track might actually fool more people into thinking this is just pop music.
