The fluttery indie-pop that acclaimed violinist Kaoru Ishibashi makes under the name Kishi Bashi has always been fantastically bright, texturally rich, and celebratory. Omoiyari is his fourth full-length since adopting the moniker in 2012 (he founded the popular 2000s indie-rock group Jupiter One and then spent time as a violinist in Of Montreal) and it's a decidedly folky detour for a project that's always been steeped in swirls of keyboards. Side A pop shuffles like "Angeline," "F Delano," and "A Song for You" are dressed for a wide audience, but they're still bristly and compositionally authentic folk songs at their cores. However, the most compelling material arrives in the album's back-half, beginning with the teary memoir "Theme from Jerome (Forgotten Words)," a verse of which is sung in Japanese (his parents’ native language). "A Meal For Leaves" is an atmospheric instrumental number that introduces the strikingly intense, and fittingly titled, "Violin Tsunami," the most climactic and dense track on the record. But Ishibashi chose to end with the minimalist, appalachian bluegrass bop, "Annie, Heart Thief of the Sea." It's a joyous, hand-clapping sing-along that achieves the magnificent radiance of his catalog's busiest songs with half the instruments and a quarter of the studio polishing. It's a testament to the strength of his songwriting, and a crystallization of the collective spirit his music inspires. © Eli Enis / Qobuz

151A, the full-length studio debut from singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/Jupiter One co-founder, and Of Montreal and Regina Spektor touring member K Ishibashi (Kishi Bashi), delivers a trippy, intensely melodic set of nine cosmic chamber rock songs that fall somewhere between the classically minded indie pop of Jonsi, Owen Pallett, and the grandiose, gravity-defying psych-bombs that the Flaming Lips have been dropping since the Soft Bulletin. Like Patrick Wolf and the aforementioned Pallett, Ishibashi's a violinist by trade, and his bow tricks and intricate arrangements provide stand-out cuts like the apocalyptic "Atticus, In the Desert," the effusive, Afro-pop-kissed "Bright Whites," and the swirling, epic closer "Beat the Bright Out of Me" with enough gravitas to withstand their many quirks. © James Christopher Monger /TiVo

Every once in a while, a record will rise to the surface and open your ears to a new kind of sound. Not a new genre or fad, but a whole new depth of listening. The sound bubbling out of the grooves loosens whatever preconceived notions of the rocky world of auditory waves you may have built for yourself. And this sturdy wax raft can deliver you from dark shores to a bright future. Pastor T. L. Barrett Jr. is the perfect captain to weather the storms and bring this ship home safely. Born in Jamaica, Queens, in 1944, Barrett bounced between his birthplace and Chicago, where he struggled to survive the infamous Chicago Housing Authority projects. He eventually settled in Chicago and was soon called to pastor the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1968. It was a tumultuous year for America with the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Tensions had hit the high-water mark and riots threatened to drown Chicago when it hosted the Democratic National Convention that summer; Pastor Barrett could hear the sound on the horizon. The sound of anger, of change, the sound of soul—it was all around him in the Windy City, and it began to swell in him as he built his vessel over the next few years. When it was finally seaworthy, Barrett knew he had something; the music was raw and funky, but he took a lot of flak for working with young, nonprofessional singers. He held fast, knowing that they were the crew for him if he intended on making the songs come alive the way he heard them rippling over the waters. Like any good captain, he knew he would need some experienced hands to help him keep on course. So he picked up some Chicago heavyweights along his travels: Phil Upchurch and Richard Evans (bass), Charles Pittman and Stanley Fox (drums), and supervision from Gene Barge. But the writing and arrangements are all T.L.'s; as it says in the liner notes, "He plays what he hears and writes what he feels." Like a Ship… is a testament; it lurches forward on a soft wave of tambourines that sound like chains hitting a hull. The powerful rhythm section lifts Barrett's simple, melodic keyboard riff high, as the boisterous choir fills the air with sorrow and hope. His ship may not have had a sail, but he knew he could make it.  © Robbie Busch / In partnership with Wax Poetics

Although Why? have often been considered an alternative rap group, and frontman Yoni Wolf a rapper, this is a designation based on their affiliation with avant hip-hop label anticon and the fact that Wolf will alternate his nasally, sung vocals with spoken word pieces, a designation based on the fact that the band is simply rather hard to categorize. Why? are not hip-hop, but they are also much more than indie rock or folk or whatever other genres are thrown at them, staying within those distinctions but also moving forward, looking outward, all while remaining esoterically accessible. This is especially apparent on Alopecia, the band's third full-length, which, while musically resting comfortably in the experimentally-tinged indie rock realm, explores as many other influences as it can touch without ever overextending its reach. It's all wonderfully, awkwardly tied together by Wolf's lyrics -- detailed and odd and sometimes all too humanly crude -- which find a way to be both extremely intimate and detached, simultaneously. "These Few Presidents" alludes to death, though it's probably about a break-up ("At your house the smell of our still living human bodies and oven gas"), "Simeon's Dilemma" is a warped take on a love song ("But I still hear your name in wedding bells/Will I look better or will I look the same rotting in Hell?), and "Good Friday" manages to discuss sex, the Silver Jews, loneliness, and R. Crumb, while beginning with the lines "If you grew up with white boys who only look at black and Puerto Rican porno/Because they want something their dad don't got, then you know where you're at." Wolf often approaches his words from a hip-hop standpoint, concentrating on internal rhyme and enjambment, but his intonation and delivery are pure indie rock. As is the band, who layer keyboards, guitars, and electric and organic percussion into something simultaneously melodic and distant, tuneful and difficult, songs that you want to sing along to but then have trouble enunciating the hook to "The Hollows," the first single ("This goes out to all my underdone, other-tongued lung-long frontmen/And all us Earth-growths; some planted, some pulled"). But that, in fact, is what makes Alopecia successful: it displays both crypticness and honesty, intellectualism and vulgarity in equal measure, challenging and placating its audience in the same drawn-out, undefined, nasally breath. © Marisa Brown /TiVo

Released in 2018 and created alongside Poliça’s Ryan Olson and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Love, Loss and Auto-Tune reminded us that Jerry Williams aka Swamp Dogg remains one of the most inspired and underestimated soul brothers of the planet, at 76 years old. With unshakeable lyrics and a chaotic discography, the Southern legend has always had this excessive cult personality, worshipped by fans of groove but not well-known to the masses… Two years later and Olson is still on production, and Vernon features on Sleeping Without You Is a Dragg, the opener for Sorry You Couldn’t Make It which also sees Jenny Lewis and Sam Amidon feature. Who else could bring together such an eclectic mix of guests? A mix which is further enriched by the addition of country songwriter John Prine on two songs, whose anti-Vietnam anthem Sam Stone he covered last century… Less wacky than its predecessor, this album highlights the soulman’s voice as much as his songwriting, but is perhaps less explosive than the genre is accustomed to. Like a few other Southern artists, Swamp Dogg injects his soul music with elements of country; Prine’s presence does amplify this effect but the instrumentation (a violin here, a steel pedal guitar there) also plays its part. In 1971, Swamp Dogg had already had his brush with country music with Don’t Take Her (She’s All I Got), written for Freddie North and which shot to the top of the charts a year later with Johnny Paycheck’s version. This song also features at the heart of this 2020 collection, one of the most personal tracks to the songwriter. Is this more Jerry Williams than Swamp Dogg? His reflections on aging and his stories of heartbreak certainly tinge the album with a certain original intensity. At the dawn of his eighth decade, this soulman is more sincere than ever before. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

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