Pitchfork: Best New Music

Quando è apparsa con il suo primo album Lush, nel cuore dell'estate 2018, Lindsey Jordan - alias Snail Mail - sembrava una degna erede di Liz Phair, Fiona Apple, Courtney Love, Shirley Manson, Aimee Mann, Ani DiFranco. Insomma, quelle (qualcuna più, qualcuna meno) riot girrrls degli anni '90 che avevano, ognuna a suo modo, coniugato la sindrome della rivoluzione post-adolescenziale. Ma da sola, nella sua stanza, con la sua fidata chitarra elettrica alla stregua di una coperta di Linus, ha fatto cadere tutti i cliché legati a quel tipo di figura. D’altronde, Snail Mail ha vissuto gli anni '90 di sfuggita, essendo nata nel 1999. Nonostante il DNA della musica del cantante originaria della periferia di Baltimora sia essenzialmente composto da questo indie rock tipicamente anni '90, Lush suonava comunque come un disco del 2018. Tre anni dopo, Valentine (uscito all'inizio di novembre sull'eccellente etichetta Matador) conferma questa contemporaneità. Un secondo album che è molto più quieto, più pop, con meno chitarre e più synth. E persino alcuni archi. In questo disco, la rabbia di Snail Mail si fa più interiore. Più focalizzata in composizioni solide, dove parla delle pene d'amore, di disintossicazione e di voglia di cambiare. Su Light Blue e su c. et al., per veicolare le sue introspezioni, si appoggia persino al folk onirico. Come la sua collega Julien Baker, Snail Mail ha dovuto affrontare il successo precocemente. Ma lei fa un’impeccabile descrizione di questo status, che descrive come “una bambina impegnata in un lavoro da adulta”. E si tratta di un lavoro ben fatto: ad ogni nuovo ascolto, Valentine diventa sempre più coinvolgente. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Adam Granduciel è un mago. È riuscito a far apparire la sua band, The War On Drugs, come una irraggiungibile icona dell'indie rock americano, basandosi tuttavia sugli stilemi del rock classico. Lost In The Dream, un album che è finito al primo posto in molte classifiche di fine 2014, incamera perfettamente le sue ossessioni musicali: Springsteen in primis, ma anche Dylan, Tom Petty, e persino Mark Knopfler del periodo Dire Straits in certe parti di chitarra. Al frontman dei The War On Drugs piace avvolgere alcune delle sue canzoni in un alone sonoro al cloroformio con un tocco shoegaze, ma muovendosi sempre lungo percorsi ordinati, senza tocchi eccessivamente artistici. Nel 2017, con A Deeper Understanding, ha rincarato la dose. Una pandemia dopo, Granduciel non sfodera nessuna rivoluzione ma affina la sua arte, che libera dalle sue fantasticherie giovanili. Più dylaniano che mai - a cominciare dal brano di apertura, Living Proof - I Don't Live Here Anymore è un picco di eccellenza: basti ascoltare la title track, con la sua melodia commovente punteggiata da un ritmo inebriante; o Harmonia's Dream, con il suo intreccio di chitarre limpide e synth anni '80... Questo quinto album è soprattutto una bella ode alla determinazione. Anche nelle domande metafisiche che si pone, Adam Granduciel dimostra la maturità che ha acquisito. Sono cresciuto, sono maturato, guardo avanti: tutti questi stereotipi hanno un sapore singolare nella sua voce. Tutto sembra un cliché, ma non lo è mai. Possiamo già immaginare le canzoni di I Don't Live Here Anymore risuonare negli stadi pieni, ma possono anche essere l'accattivante colonna sonora di una serata solitaria in casa. Insomma, come i suoi illustri predecessori sopra citati, il leader dei The War On Drugs tocca il cielo con un dito, e questo album potrebbe essere la sua opera più grande © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Worn down from touring for her acclaimed 2016 album, Black Terry Cat—a remarkable melding of Erykah Badu-style hip-hop, neo-soul, wild synth noise, Latinx traditions and loads of swagger—Xenia Rubinos saw a curandero. The healer diagnosed the Connecticut-born Rubinos, whose mother is Puerto Rican and father is Cuban, with "perdida de espiritu": a loss of spirit. But there was hope, as he assured her she hadn't lost her gift of music. To revive herself, Rubinos looked to the past, recalling a wind-up lamp in her abuelita's home that played the dreamy, romantic traditional "Una Rosa"; she used that to create her own version of the song, with airy flute that turns more aggressive, underscored by looming bass, as the song and, presumably, Rubinos, moves forward. Una Rosa feels, and is, different from her past work—it's more electronic and with more Spanish lyrics. That's incredibly striking on "Sacude," which alternates between spare clave and hip-hop-meets-rumba thump as Rubinos slips between Spanish and English. "I'm carrying the weight for both of us," she sings, the pulsing, throbbing music evoking pain and fear. And if she doesn't let it go, death will come: "Cuanto quisiera salir de esto ya/ Si sigo este rumbo/ Pronto me sorprende la muerte." That dilemma of trying to keep it all together also plays out in the lightly bouncing '90s R&B of "Cogélo Suave," as Rubinos' smooth assurance of "I'm doin' fine like all the time" confusingly crashes into an admittance of "well, I don't know"—which then dissolves into a nonsensical "menamena" chant. R&B-inflected "Don't Put Me in Red" cleverly puts it straight to concert-venue lighting engineers who like to give her fiery-tinted "Latina lighting." "Dress me, undress me/ I'm so spicy, you don't like me" go the snappy verses, before she croons like Sade: "Don't you put me in red/ I hate it." "Working All the Time" weaves in air sirens and an early Destiny's Child vibe to cast side-eye at the trap of capitalism; bright-and-shiny "Who Shot Ya," with its stuttering "get it get it get it," is about cheering people to stand up for themselves rather than putting their faith in power players: "Get their rest, get their peace, get their money, get their justice—to get up and get it," Rubinos has said. But perhaps the most stunning moment on the record is the pulsing electronica of "Did My Best," about the shock of a loved one's sudden death. Against a backdrop of industrial-sounding chaos, Rubinos adopts a robotic voice; you might expect it to be cold, but it's painfully human. "I didn't even get to say goodbye," she yells with so much confusion and angst, the intimacy is almost unbearable. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Devotion è stato tra gli album più intriganti ed eccentrici del 2018. Tirzah - pupilla del suo amico d'infanzia Mica Levi aka Micachu, che ha anche prodotto il suo album di debutto - si è presentata come un'affascinante bella addormentata. Una sorta di equilibrista che salta in modo sensuale tra R&B malinconico, neo-trip hop, soul al cloroformio, post-grime e pop sperimentale. Quelle note di piano inebrianti, quei loop fuori fuoco, i bassi profondi, i cigolii oscuri, quegli scricchiolii di porte e soprattutto quella voce inquietante e mutevole, sono ancora una volta protagonisti in questo Colourgrade. Come lo è Micachu. Ma questa seconda opera è visceralmente meno soul della precedente, e se possibile, ancora più avanguardista. La mente di Tirzah è un intrigante labirinto stilistico in cui ci si può perdere (ad esempio, durante l’ascolto di Crepuscular Rays) ma in cui è sempre bene abbandonarsi (come in Hive Mind). E se Tirzah avesse appena inventato il soul-blues degli anni 2020? © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Atlanta Millionaires Club è stato uno dei pochi, veri raggi di sole della primavera 2019. Con le sue foto dei talenti della scena rap locale di Atlanta, il suo amore per l’indie folk, la sua riverenza per i Braves (la squadra di baseball di cui indossa spesso la maglia), il suo outfit casual e la copertina dell’album in cui sgranocchiava una manciata di monete di cioccolato con le labbra sporche di cioccolato fuso, Faye Webster ha svelato le sue mille eterogenee passioni, assieme a una collezione di canzoni perfette, piene di un languido soul dal sapore vintage. E dato che quell’Atlanta Millionaires Club era come un grande e morbido sofà R&B sul quale era bello crogiolarsi, Faye Webster ha deciso di prolungare questo piacere con I Know I’m Funny haha. Con una toccante leggerezza e delle storie incentrate sul suo soggetto preferito, la solitudine, la musicista di Atlanta si abbandona ancora una volta alle sue raffinate ballate soul, vagamente country e un po’ retrò (in perfetta misura). Un quarto album che diventa ancora più confortevole quando la Webster lascia che gli archi esplodano sublimi, come su In A Good Way e A Stranger, che non sfigurerebbero su un album di Al Green. Non è un caso se Faye Webster viene considerata un’artista aliena: la cantante termina il suo viaggio con un duetto sensuale con Mei Ehara, un’artista giapponese che cita come una delle sue più grandi influenze. Totalmente avvolgente. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Il rapper, produttore e stilista statunitense Tyler, The Creator torna sul mercato discografico con il suo sesto album in studio. Si intitola Calle Me If You Get Lost ed è un mix super-caleidoscopico di generi (principalmente rap, neosoul, urban ed R&B). A tenerli insieme il racconto di un nuovo alter-ego, quello del narcisista e giramondoTyler Baudelaire, ovviamente ispirato all’omonimo poeta francese de I fiori del male. Sono ospiti del progetto anche i colleghi: DJ Drama, 42 Dugg, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Wayne, Lil Uzi Vert e Pharrell Williams. © TiVo

Taja Cheek's 2017 debut album as L'Rain was an immersive, genre-blending dream sequence that connected sentiments of sorrow, love, and healing through abstract tape manipulations. Cheek named the project after her mother, Lorraine, who passed away during the album's creation, ultimately shaping the record's direction. Her second LP looks both inward and outward, reflecting on personal loss and coping with change in one's own life as well as in a dramatically changing world. The dense, anxious opening track "Fly Die" features a dramatic monologue from Quinton Brock, expressing exhaustion at being held down and living in a society that refuses to be honest, concluding with the question "What have you done to change?" The album's title refers to being tired of constantly dealing with and working toward change, a theme that especially became relevant during the record's production, particularly in the face of COVID-19 surging and Black Lives Matter protests. Even bolder and dreamier than L'Rain's self-titled debut, Fatigue is a stunning collage of lush, ever-shifting textures and ethereal vocals, elaborately arranged in a tape edit-heavy manner recalling the most out-there Tropicália albums. "Find It" emerges with a comforting, shaker-laden groove, with Cheek resolutely chanting "Make a way out of no way," before dissolving into an ambient gospel breakdown. The gorgeous "Blame Me" mentions fighting personal demons and thinking about "future poison-blooded little babies" as spiraling guitar lines are gradually accompanied by hidden voices and swelling, nearly orchestral instrumentation. The more confessional "Suck Teeth" has knotty time signatures yet goes down smoothly due to her soothing vocal delivery and the song's trippy, fluid production. "Two Face," maybe the album's sunniest, most inviting tune, cloaks poetic lyrics about loneliness and numbness in shuffling, sophisticated rhythms, punchy horns, and echoed laughter. The set is threaded together with brief interludes drawn from home recordings made throughout Cheek's life, capturing scenes she nearly forgot about that she would like to remember forever, including moments of joy and community such as a playground clapping game and a friend belting out a goofy, off-key song she made up. At just under half an hour, the album's running time is relatively brief, but it feels like it encompasses Cheek's entire life so far, and it's a uniquely powerful expression of her uncompromising vision. © Paul Simpson /TiVo

Rooted in the same issues that once inspired the American blues it's modeled on—poverty, corruption, conflict—West Africa's desert blues boom still has much to say, eloquently weighing in on both public disputes and personal struggles caused by assouf, which in the Tamashek language means loss, longing, homesickness, or "the pain that is not physical." By adding grooves and most importantly, the electric guitar, this maturing genre—percolating since the 1980s—from bands like Tinariwen, Imarhan, and Bombino, has made West Africa a source of fresh inspiration for electric blues rock and psychedelia (two forms of Western music in dire need of new energies). Mdou Moctar, (aka Mahamadou Souleymane)—deemed the "Hendrix of the Sahara,"—has become the latest performer to make the leap to Europe and the US. After a live album for Jack White's Third Man records in 2019, this studio album is a crucial step up in his rapidly rising career. A remarkable collage of sound considering there are only four musicians, Afrique Victime has both ballads and upbeat numbers, all of it rhythmically vital and improvised around a core groove. The left-handed guitarist is supported throughout by his band of rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane (a star in his own right who has collaborated with Moctar since 2018), drummer Souleymane Ibrahim and American bassist/road manager Mikey Coltun who also produced this album which Matador is modestly calling, "Van Halen meets Black Flag meets Black Uhuru." Recorded while the band was on the road in Amsterdam and the US, the overall sound is reasonably clear and well-balanced and was mixed to give the band equal prominence to Moctar's guitar and singing. Nowhere near the equal of his guitarwork, his vocals in Tamashek are often doubled and tripled to make them sound like a chorus. After setting the scene with the buzz of insects, a crowing rooster, and footsteps in gravel, opener "Chismiten" has Moctar singing, "To become a better person, you need to stop being so jealous and insecure," before ripping into a razor-edged electric guitar solo that's swirled with reverb and a slightly distorted tone. Muscular and original, this stirring statement leaves no doubt that this self-professed Eddie Van Halen fan has the requisite ideas and confidence to be a guitar hero. Despite the album's title and the political bent of much of the music from this region, the songs on Afrique Victime are for the most part love songs. In the enchanting chords of the album's most fully realized tune "Tala Tannam" he sings, "I adore your eyes and body shape." In the acoustic guitar and hand claps-led "Ya Habibti" his "heart beats fast when I think of you." And while the humor may be unintentional—the product of a less than elegant Tamashek-to-English translation—the closer "Bismilahi Atagah," finds our hero weary from the battle of the sexes, declaring, "Love has become a painful boil in my life/ More painful than the sword of my enemy." A star on the rise, a guitar hero gently weeping. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

On their fifth album, Iceage continue their metamorphosis into poetic harbingers with a flair for the theatrical, leaving their scrappy beginnings firmly behind for better or worse. As always, there is a sense of urgency to the record, with the group even veering into Brit-pop bombast, like Oasis reimagined for red wine-guzzling literary fanatics. Elias Bender Rønnenfelt's signature drawl only further positions him as a prophet of sleaze, and the band remain as capable as ever, but it's hard to escape the feeling their rougher edges have been refined, as some tracks glide by a little too smoothly to become the kind of earworms they have crafted in the past. Something that decidedly hasn't changed is their propensity for explosive openers, like "Shelter Song" and its massive chorus that manages to hit like a truck; even at midtempo, the Wall of Sound and soaring backing vocals are staggering. Despite a brief change of pace in the beautified "Love Kills Slowly," the energy travels right through to centerpiece "Vendetta." The track is all swagger -- it comes out swinging like something in between Happy Mondays and Kasabian, running the risk of becoming stadium-built lad rock, and only avoids such damning praise by virtue of Rønnenfelt's natural attitude. It is followed by a strange left turn in "Drink Rain," which channels Jacques Brel, and as admirable an influence as he may be, the song just doesn't land correctly, serving only as a distraction. The closing numbers pick up the slack, with "Gold City" standing out as a highlight. That's until the finale, "The Holding Hand," which proves Iceage still know how to end things on a high note. It's a fantastic feat of songwriting; dripping in drama, it manages to squeeze angst out of tension rather than raucous energy, coiling itself around subtlety and then pulling taut in the closing moments before breaking down completely. Ultimately, this record is a triumph for the band, born out of strange times, and although it may not be their best, their blend of bitter and sweet still rings true. Iceage's rugged roots may be gone, and there may be fewer thorns, but Seek Shelter is still a rose by any other name. © Liam Martin /TiVo

Since emerging in 2009, the Armed have released three innovative and often impenetrable albums that show little interest in adhering to the traditional punk rock idiom. The band's recalcitrant nature -- outlandish stunts, performance art pieces, and general media misdirection -- has kept them in the headlines, but they have yet to cast a line into the mainstream. True to form, Ultrapop sees the anonymous and anachronistic Detroit-based collective deliver a dizzying 12-song set that pairs glitchy and discordant soundscapes and adenoid-tearing vocals with melodies that run the gamut from apocalyptic to downright majestic. Commencing with the lush title cut, which falls somewhere between the nightmarish AI-metal of Poppy, the narcotic dream pop of Mercury Rev, and the genre-less outflow of the group's closest stylistic contemporary, Fucked Up, Ultrapop gets down to business with haste. The band cycles through genres like they're being chased by death itself, leaving in their wake a street strewn with the remnants of noise-rock, hardcore, garage punk, electronicore, pop, and post-punk. The kinetic "All Futures" and "Masunaga Vapors" mirror the unpredictable urban punk emissions of Scotland's Young Fathers, while the knotty "Big Shell" and "Real Folk Blues" evoke the socio-political art-punk of Crass. That being said, those comparisons are merely touchstones, as the Armed's particular brand of maximalist experimental pop feels vital and rooted in the current zeitgeist. Aptly named, Ultrapop administers a constant barrage of sonic information that shows no delineation between discomfort, reassurance, pain, or pleasure. © James Christopher Monger /TiVo

Nick Waterhouse è come un Larry Daley della musica. Larry Daley è il guardiano notturno interpretato da Ben Stiller nella serie di film Una Notte al Museo. Perché, a partire da Time's All Gone, il suo album di debutto del 2012, il californiano è diventato un vero e proprio guardiano di un ideale museo della musica, alla sezione rhythm'n'blues e soul-pop degli anni ‘50. In effetti, nella sua giovinezza, ha lavorato in un negozio di dischi specializzato in oldies, che senza dubbio ha formato il suo gusto per la musica di un'epoca in cui le ragazze si chiamavano Brenda, le auto consumavano 50 litri ogni 100 Km, e la musica si ascoltava su crepes di plastica nera chiamate dischi. Tutto questo potrebbe limitarsi facilmente a dei semplici, sterili esercizi di stile. Ma proprio come in Una Notte al Museo, Nick Waterhouse ci mette un po' di magia e infonde la linfa vitale nei suoi dischi. Cambiamo film: benvenuti nella serie Mad Men, in un'America dove crescita fa ancora rima con eleganza, dove il sassofono fa le fusa e dove i cori fanno “woo-woo!”. Vengono subito alla mente Jerry Butler, Charles Brown, Ben E. King, e tutti i grandi romantici dell'epoca d'oro del soul. Forse il nuovo album di Nick Waterhouse, Promenade Blue, suona ancora più retrò dei suoi predecessori. Anche la produzione suona vintage! Ma non c'è nulla di obsoleto, anzi, troviamo un magistrale, intramontabile e seducente artigianato musicale. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz