Jay Som (Melina Duterte) sings about an eroding friendship, or perhaps a romance, in “Cards on the Table.” The track places a wistful, breathy melody atop a nervous electronic pulse, while backup vocal harmonies — from Duterte and Mini Trees (Lexi Vega) — billow behind her like chemtrails. In a few verses, the singer moves from hunch — “You give just enough to keep me around” — to certainty: “Say it: You let me down,” she realizes.
In “Surviving You,” Hannah Frances sings that she’s “Smoldering as the rage lingers longer / There’s nothing more to give toward forgiveness.” A 5/4 beat creates a heaving momentum that’s compounded with layered, staggered vocals and a pileup of guitars, reed instruments and feedback. Even as she furiously breaks away, she admits to a contrary pull; the song’s final lyric is a repeated word: “homesick.”
Mulatu Astatke, ‘Kulun’
Since the 1960s, the keyboardist, vibraphonist and percussionist Mulatu Astatke has been a prime mover in Ethio-jazz: unmistakably Ethiopian music that also draws on American jazz, Afro-Caribbean music and more. “Kulun” — from “Mulatu plays Mulatu,” an album that revisits songs from across his career — is based on a traditional Ethiopian wedding song. Its particular chromatic mode could only be Ethiopian, and its six-beat meter, drummed and clapped, is very North African. Astatke stays in the background while trumpet and flute take solos. But his guiding hand is clear.
The bolero “Un Amor de la Calle” (“A Love From the Street”) was recorded in 1975 by the invincible salsa singer Héctor Lavoe. It’s a baleful reproach to someone who repaid unconditional love by playing with the narrator’s heart. Lavoe recorded it with a brassy band arrangement, trumpeting his heartbreak. The Puerto Rican singer iLe makes it a more private indictment, backed only by congas, bass and jazzy guitars. She reprises Lavoe’s final, laughing taunt — that “love like yours” isn’t just found in the street, but anywhere. The track is from a full album of boleros, “Como Las Canto Yo” (“How I Sing Them”) that she’ll release Oct. 24.
The Korean musician Okkyung Lee has lately chosen tranquillity, but only after a career making far noisier music. Much of her recorded catalog is raucous, tumultuous cello improvisations, on her own and with collaborators like John Zorn and Nels Cline. But on her album due Sept. 5, “Just Like Any Other Day: Background Music for Your Mundane Activities,” she’s purposefully subdued. In this track, she plays keyboards and explores her Minimalist side. “Let’s Walk Down to the Swamp Together” is a tinkling waltz with brief, circling, overlapping melodies that all happen to interlock; motifs come and go, recurring like lingering memories.
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