I fell in love with Maher Cissoko on 2021s Cissoko Heritage - an Uncut Magazine pick of the month.
I probably won’t be able to do him justice, but in plain terms, the Senegal-born Cissoko and his family are among the most prominent players of the Kora- a 22 string East African harp that has a tradition stretching back 700 years.
Cissoko is fairly prolific, releasing solo albums as well as with his wife Sosou.
It is a failing of Western mainstream culture that non-Rock music gets bundled into one category- whether it is Brazilian Tropocalia, Cameroonian funk or Indonesian pipe music. 30 years ago, it was called World Music, these days the broader “international” banner.
I admit I have “rock ears” so what draws me most to Cissoko is the guitar-like style of the Kora matched to his vocals and sense of melody (he’s not afraid to blend in reggae, rock and hip hop sensibilities either) which result in some of music's most plaintive moments; while others may like his work for its meditative properties.
Admittedly, in the current music environment, the latter may be the bigger commerical draw.
While Cissoko Heritage was probably more of the former, 2023s Kora World leans a bit heavier on the meditation.
Neither album would be a bad introduction to the music of Cissoko. Check them out
Mick Harvey has had a fantastic highly under the radar career. Perhaps accomplishing the work of two or three people.
Famously, he was Nick Cave’s right hand man from the beginning in the Boys Next Door and the Birthday Party and then finally the Bad Seeds up until Dig Lazarus Dig and leaving in 2009. He was also a member of Crime and the City Solution - the similarly minded Australian band in their 1985-1991 run.
As notable, he has worked with PJ Harvey (no relation) and co-produced or played on five of her albums most notably Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea and Let England Shake.
You can find his work when you listen to Anita Lane, Rowland S Howard or the Cruel Sea. As a solo artist, he has credited on ten albums and of these, his main work has been his four albums of Serge Gainsbourg covers.
I am usually not a fan of such tributes, but I love these records. Not only do I enjoy them, but they are some of my favorite records.
Harvey likely kicked off the greater appreciation for Gainsbourg in the indie community. Harvey is perfect for it- exhibiting similar vocal territory as his aforementioned peers - Cave, Howard and Simon Bonney
Probably the last we heard from Harvey was his collaboration with author Christopher Richard Barker- a weird concept record about a fictional World War 1 soldier and his correspondence. It sounds pretentious but was actually one of my favorite records of 2018.
He returns in 2023 with Phantasmagoria in Blue with actress/singer/filmmaker Amanda Acevedo who is making her recorded debut here.
It’s a stunner of an album if you liked Harvey’s Gainsbourg records. Acevedo is a terrific foil and both voices are dramatic and striking. It’s impossible not to think of Nancy and Lee or Serge and Jane/Bridget
The songs are covers from the deep well of not only Hazelwood/Sinatra, Leonard Cohen and Tim Buckley but Jackson C Frank and Silvio Rodriguez among the sources. Most strikingly is a cover of Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” which should probably stick out like a sore thumb but folds in seamlessly to the overall product.
Harvey kind of gets lost in the Cohen/Gainsbourg/Hazelwood/Walker lineage. Never quite as recognized as Cave, Tindersticks , Pulp or the many and varied artists who have used their elements in music. But Phantasmagoria in Blue is a masterful record of the genre and well recommended.
If I am being honest, the video borders on cheesy for me. I suppose it’s possible that we live in such a tech era where someone can make Hank Williams sing gangster rap and it sounds good. I get the adding of footage but I really think the video could have been so much better.
I don’t have anything new to add but I like Now and Then.
I tend to think it would have worked well as a McCartney/Lennon single. It’s not a bad song and the nostalgia hits the right tone. I totally get that. It is at first listen a bit unremarkable though its effect (like the song itself with the string section) tends to grow.
But it’s in my opinion, the least of the three Threetles songs and it’s interesting to find out that it was skipped in those 90s sessions earlier because Harrison didn’t think it was enough to build a song around.
All of the three “reunion” songs fit a generic Beatlesque template but for example that’s no surprise, but I love the sound of the other two. Even in their context, they sound good to me, for example, Real Love is carried by a strong Harrison guitar. I would love to feel more of a Harrison presence in the new song.
I think there is definitely an element of “the times” in the appraisal of these songs. The 90s songs seemed to be pretty much discounted right from the gate and I feel are largely unloved.
I realize they might not be the bands best work but one also can’t help but think that they’re no different than say VoodooLounge/Steel Wheels or the best moments of Its Hard/Face Dances. The trouble with any established band is they start to have to compete against themselves. The reason later Prince records were disappointing was because they were never going to be as good as Dirty Mind or Sign O The Times but also they were not going to be as good as the new Janelle Monae or Outkast album. The Beatles, the Stones, U2, whoever is always going to have those issues. There is no potential Beatles single that can beat nostalgia.
But the 90s songs are treated with a definite asterisk. Now we are separated to a point where the audience is either of a more advanced age pondering mortality (Now and Then) or haven’t really grown up with the Beatles at all (extending to not hearing Lennon/Macca/George on the radio as Gen X had)
The acclaim for the song seems fairly universal. The memes have the Beatles playing rivals to Jungkook, perhaps the biggest artist on the planet. And though you could play it for laughs, it is like two titans at the top.
At least, that’s my guess why it’s hitting different. It is being marketed as the last Beatles song ever and it seems quite possible that it could be (As technology changes, tapes get unearthed,etc, I still fell the inevitable doubt that we won’t see something else, but I guess the odds are probably strong it will be the coda).
Clearly, the way we consume music has changed as well. It is much easier to digest Here and Now by flinging it onto a playlist. We can share the video with our friends. Radio airplay is not really important to the process.
(Maybe that is also why I can be so cavalier in my opinion. The Beatles are everywhere in my life. There is a 24/7 Sirius channel. There have been numerous outtakes. The Peter Jackson doc. I don’t feel a sense of “return” as others may have because I can’t miss what hasn’t went away)
Ironically, the new trend towards buying vinyl probably has helped get the song to the top of charts as well. And as far as those charts go, maybe the charts aren’t that big of a deal anymore, but surely fans want to see them take the top spot.
The new song has been appended to the re-release of the famous Red and Blue Greatest Hits (perhaps like me you are annoyed if has been appended to 1967-1970 which surely would now make it 1967-2023)
As with Now and Then, technology has jumped in leaps and bounds since the Beatles anthology CDs. In this case, the songs recorded in mono have been taken by Peter Jackson and the elements released now in stereo surround.
The Red and Blue albums are special to me because they essentially were my introduction to the Beatles. I have fond memories of it taking me to a certain time and place. It is a pretty solid comp too. (I am in the ball park where Rock and Roll Music Vol 1 and 2 were contemporary too. There’s probably never not going to be a Beatles compilation or two on the market)
I have a half dozen friends who have had some success in the music industry and today I want to put in a good word for one of them. Maybe, one day I will get to some of the others.
I have known Jesse since he was a teen in the “rival” high school with mutual friends. He was one of the coolest people around back then. I still think he is. He was in one of the two local bands of the day- when the prevailing trends were U2 arena rock and baggy psychedelic Neds Atomic Dustbin style of the day.
I am probably not as close to him as I am with other friends of mine, and yet, I feel like whenever it was the toughest times of my life, he was always there for me. Even now, I really enjoy the quick conversation with him online. Funny, how we probably don’t realize that effect we have on others.
About a decade ago, he got active making music again, playing bass guitar in support for a band in St Louis. I was starting a family and unfortunately never made it to any of his live shows though at the time, I had hoped I could.
Since then, he has made music as a trio mostly in the recording studio with a rare love date.
In the last couple of years, he has really stepped up his recording and making his previously recorded stuff available on line. Although we have many similar tastes, I feel like his recordings dig into his roots of prog rock and Dischord Records style post punk. His last album- 2021s Precious Cargo was more into some of the progressive style stuff.
So I am more excited about his newest album- Mochyn Dall which is his love letter to 90s era Central Illinois music. This is more in line with those latter influences in emo-rock and post-hardcore. On his Bandcamp page, he calls out Sarge, Seam, the Poster Children and Hum.
I have written about my relationship with Champaign, Illinois music before. While I only spent a handful of weekend there, some of my best friends lived there and so I still felt that influence strongly. In hindsight, many of those bands in that scene ended up playing a major part on the development of emo rock.
Every review I have read of Buddy and Julie Miller’s new album “In the Throes” reads about the same.
They do have as much as claim to the title “the First Couple of Americana” as anyone. This is their fourth album since they started recording as a duo in 2001. Buddy has several solo albums, a disc with Jim Lauderdale, and a career as artist, producer, and songwriter going back to 1975. Julie started out (as her good friend Sam Phillips had) as a Christian music artist before branching out into more Americana fare.
They have - individually or collectively- worked with everyone in Americana. Scan their respective Wikipedia pages and see names like Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Shawn Colvin, Kinky Friedman, Lucinda Williams, Solomon Burke, Robert Plant, Patty Griffin, Innocence Mission, Victoria Williams, Richard Thompson, Levon Helm, Elvis Costello, Frank Black, Midnight Oil and countless others
If you know me, you won’t be surprised that I found about them via their work with Steve Earle. Buddy Miller played lead guitar on the El Corazon tour and produced the Colvin and Earle record. Earle sang vocals on the last Millers album.
In the 80s, it seemed like the most talented artists would find large audiences even when not played on the radio by finding alternative paths and word of mouth. I think, it’s true then, that in the 2020s, the most talented musicians will find an audience somehow through word of mouth and alternative streams, and so Buddy and Julie have quite a following.
In the Throes is a fine addition to a great catalog. I have to admit that at 67, Julie’s rasp adds a gravitas that makes their songs so appealing, but the interaction of the two is also a draw - something inherent in a married couple -a bit like John Doe and Exene or Richard and Linda Thompson. In the Throes is a mix of styles- the duos’ Bandcamp calls if a mix of gospel, blues, rockabilly and R&B.
Also of note, “Don’t Make Her Cry” is a Bob Dylan songwriting credit shared as it evolved from a song that was handed by Bob with origins in a 1978 conversation to Regina McCrary to the Millers.
