Weekly Music Roundup: Lin-Manuel Miranda's Own Hamildrop and Black Thought
This week, Lin-Manuel Miranda is Hamilton again, Black Thought goes solo, and Aesop Rock goes duo.
Lin-Manuel Miranda Returns As Hamilton! For One Song, At Least…
As you may have heard, Lin-Manuel Miranda has been releasing a monthly series of videos and/or songs called “Hamildrops,” each of which raises money for various worthy causes and which includes a wide assortment of musicians from across the sonic spectrum. (Past weekly roundups have included the Decemberists doing “Ben Franklin’s Song,” an “outtake” from Hamilton, as well as The Regrettes girl-group redo of the song “Helpless” from the musical itself.) The Hamildrops series concludes next month, but for November, Miranda has re-assumed the role he created, of Alexander Hamilton himself, in a new collaboration with 91-year-old Broadway legend John Kander. Half of the songwriting team Kander & Ebb, he wrote the song “New York, New York” (as well as the musicals Chicago and Cabaret). The new song, “Cheering For Me Now,” is a big Broadway belter – as well as a celebration of immigration, America, and most of all, New York City. In this scene, Hamilton marks the New York state ratification of the US Constitution, but Miranda’s lyrics rapidly move into imagery that’s deeply resonant with our time. (“I came here with nothing, like hundreds before me, and millions behind me”; “today we’re a country – let’s see how that goes.”) And the video, beautifully shot in black & white, is itself a love letter to New York.
Black Thought Of The Roots Issues A Solo EP
The rapper and actor Black Thought (born Tariq Trotter) is best known as the co-founder of The Roots, along with drummer Questlove. While the band holds down its nightly gig with The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Black Thought has begun releasing solo work. This summer it was a solo EP called Streams of Thought. Today, it’s Streams of Thought, Vol. 2. Working with producer Salaam Remi (best known for his work with Amy Winehouse and Nas), Black Thought offers a compelling mix of classic soul, Motown, doo-wop, and old-school hip hop. The track “Conception, ft. Reek Ruffin” is a good example, with a wonderful Remi production that sounds straight out of the Al Green or Marvin Gaye playbook and a video that’s just right for an old-fashioned slow jam.
Visit Spanish Producer Rrucculla’s Odd, Delightful Sound World
Izaskun González is a 24-year old producer from Bilbao, Spain, who calls herself Rrucculla. She is a fan of various types of jazz, including the fairly “out” sounds of free jazz, as well as Latin music, drum’n’bass, and much, much more. This Friday, she’ll release her latest album, called SHuSH, which somehow manages to make a crazy patchwork quilt of all those different sounds and, even more impressively, makes it sound like fun. SHuSH closes with a track called “Cicatriz de Chocolate” – “Scar of Chocolate” – which starts with a bouncy electronic rhythm pattern that sounds like something from experimental computer music pioneer Carl Stone; adds various bleeps and blips on top; and stirs it all up with what sounds like a baby’s gleeful squeal, but sliced and diced digitally. There’s a breakbeat passage where it sounds like Aphex Twin is crashing the party, but then he’s invited in and all the sounds band together in a frantic, high-spirited digital romp. A squalling free-jazz saxophone at the end ties this piece back to the album’s jazzy opening track.
Aesop Rock Returns As Half of Malibu Ken
Indie hip hop hero Aesop Rock has collaborated with Tobacco, the frontman of the psychedelic electronica act Black Moth Super Rainbow, on a forthcoming album that they are releasing under the fabulous name Malibu Ken. The album will be called, apparently, Aesop Rock and Tobacco Are Malibu Ken. I’m fine with that as well. The first single, “Acid King,” has just come out, and it features Aesop Rock’s wordy, elusive narrative rapping (though the mentions of heavy metal, St. Michael, a black mass, a cult, and Satan suggest a portrait of a violent psychopath) over Tobacco’s electronics, which are reminiscent of vintage acts like Tangerine Dream or Vangelis. It’s a striking collaboration; it also comes with some unpleasant animation that I can do without. So while there’s a video online, I’d suggest starting with the audio track itself.
Scotland’s James Yorkston Releases Wrenching New Single
Songwriter James Yorkston lives in the Scottish town of Cellardyke, as celebrated in his 2014 album Cellardyke Recording and Wassailing Society. He is also part of the Yorkston/Thorne/Khan trio, where his folk-derived singing and playing is bound together with a jazz bassist and an Indian sarangi (a box-shaped cello) player. Over the years, he has occasionally dispensed with singing in favor of songs with spoken word. Some of these, like the wonderful “Guy Fawkes Signature,” are both sweet and witty. His new one, called “My Mouth Ain’t No Bible,” is somewhat darker. It’s from a forthcoming record called The Route to The Harmonium, which will feature some of the old instruments he’s collected – including the titular harmonium, the Swedish nyckelharpa (a keyed fiddle), and the odd 19th century keyboard known as the dulcitone. This song, though, is propelled by steady, urgent drumming, with slashing guitar chords that eventually begin to sound like a cry of alarm as the meaning of Yorkston’s story begins to come into focus.
The Route To The Harmonium comes out on February 22.
Pearls Before Swine Mark 50th Anniversary Of Balaklava
I discovered the album Balaklava, by the band Pearls Before Swine, in the library of my college radio station – and by that point, the 1968 album had already fallen into obscurity. But it seemed like a time capsule from the height of the Vietnam war – with its Breughel painting on the cover about the horrors of war and its weird mix of psychedelia, found sounds, Tolkien imagery, and folk music. I had to look up what the title meant (the site of the famed “Charge of the Light Brigade” in the Crimean War) and where the band name came from (Matthew 7:6 – “cast ye not pearls before swine, for they will trample them”; in other words, don’t give valuable things to people who won’t appreciate them - I liked that.); the music too provided a learning experience. The songs, by frontman Tom Rapp, were literate, elliptical, and poetic. He didn’t do anti-war screed; he did songs that were pro-peace and joy. Anyway, there have been pockets of musical resistance over the years where this album has been lionized, and next month, Balaklava will get its 50th anniversary reissue. Rapp, sadly, died earlier this year, but the album may have found a time where it is once again deeply resonant. Right now, the track “I Saw The World” has been released, to give you a taste of the album. It’s a lovely, pastoral folk ballad augmented by the sounds of waves and a lush string arrangement.
It's good to have Balaklava back. The full album comes (back) out on December 14.
