Weekly Music Roundup: Momma, Marlon Williams, and Wet Leg
This week, new releases from Momma, Marlon Williams, and Wet Leg. Also Sonny Singh & Qais Essar, S.G. Goodman, and Navajo singer/songwriter Hataałii.
Momma Comes Roaring Out Of Brooklyn
The band Momma blends crunchy walls of guitar sound with lean pop melodies on their new album Welcome To My Blue Sky. Released today, the record includes their ear-worm single “I Want You (Fever),” which is a great example of the band’s musical misdirection: it’s a song that could, in another arrangement, be a sugary pop confection, but which here is filtered through the sounds of shoegaze, 90s alt-rock, and post-punk.
Marlon Williams’ New LP Is A Maori Celebration
Marlon Williams is a singer, songwriter and actor from New Zealand. He released his first album ten years ago, and set about creating a personal mix of alt-country and folk-rock. But his new album is something different – maybe not musically, but certainly linguistically. Marlon Williams is from a Maori family and has chosen to sing in the Maori language on his new record, called Te Whare Tīwekaweka. (He’s also the subject of a new documentary film about his journey in music and through his Maori roots.) The song “Rere Mai Nga Rau,” or “Fly Leaves, Fly,” has such an easy, familiar pop sound that you almost don’t notice the language difference.
A New Version Of An Ancient Sufi Classic
Queens-based trumpeter and vocalist Sonny Singh is a founding member of Red Baraat, the NY band that plays the infectious Punjabi dance music known as bhangra. But his new project is a collaboration with Qais Essar, a master of the Afghan rabab, a type of lute with a particularly pungent sound. Today the duo released “Lal Meri Pat,” which is one of many names for a song that goes back centuries and praises the 13th century Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. This song has become a standard in the qawwali tradition, the ecstatic music of the Pakistani Sufis; many Westerners will know it as “Mustt Mustt” or “Mast Qalandar,” recorded in the 1990s by the legendary singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. (Sonny and Red Baraat have previously recorded it as “Mast Kalandar.”) Under any name, it’s a catchy melody, and here Essar and Singh play a slow, almost chamber-music-like version before breaking out the tabla and handclaps and digging in to the song’s trance-y rhythms.
Wet Leg Are Back And Spoiling For A Fight
The English duo Wet Leg made a great first impression with their self-titled debut LP in 2022. Riding a wave of buzz generated by their droll, deadpan single “Chaise Longue,” that album showed that Rhian Teasdale (the one who does the lead vocals) and Hester Chambers (the one who always seems to be hiding her face in the videos) had musical chops to go with their witty lyrics. Now they’ve announced a new LP, called Moisturizer (sure, why not), and while it’s not due until July, they’ve released this single “Catch These Fists” to tide us all over. The guitars hit a little harder this time around, but then the song does too: “I don’t want your love, I just wanna fight” is the refrain from two women who are less than impressed by the men around them.
S.G. Goodman Announces Her Return With A New Single
“Fire Sign” is the name of S.G. Goodman’s new single, from her forthcoming album Planting By The Signs. The Kentucky-based Goodman plays a kind of Appalachian indie-rock, rooted in old stories and traditions but looking at contemporary American life in a clear-eyed way. “Planting by the signs” is apparently an old folk saying, meaning that it’s best to plant crops at certain times in the lunar cycle or during specific signs of the Zodiac. In this tradition, planting during a water or earth sign is preferred. Planting during an air, or even worse, fire sign is bad. Goodman, who refers to herself as “an old story keeper” in the song, repeatedly asks, “who’ll put the fire out.” The implication is that it’ll have to be Goodman herself.
Indigenous Country-Folk From Hataałii
Navajo singer/songwriter Hataałii is only 21, but he’s already on his third full-length album, releasing I’ll Be Around earlier today. Hataałii (pronounced ha-TOTH-lee) plays all the instruments himself, including the cello, which adds a plaintive dignity to his country/folk laments. These are songs of ennui, loneliness, and a post-colonial life where for many The American Dream is still a distant mirage. The song “She Ain’t Coming Back” has a bleak sort of beauty, and an arrangement that aims for emotional heft even as it acknowledges its DIY roots. (The whole album was recorded in a 9’x14’ shed in Albuquerque.) Love was here, the song says, but “you threw it away.”
