Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, Little Simz
Mother, Cleo Sol
KIWANUKA, Michael Kiwanuka
Una Rosa, Xenia Rubinos
Jaime (Reimagined), Brittany Howard

My fast ascension to SAULT obsession is well-documented here by now: its meeting of the moment with past and future at once. Seeking more, I turned up Simz, Sol and Kiwanuka, long-time recommendations, natch (The Algorithm always knows). Different facets of the same gem…

March 6, 2022
Old-movie montage and choral calls, urging us forward: strum, "little butterfy," strum "sunshine," strum "honey," strum. Yesterday's soundtrack for tomorrow. Heartbeat under pressing chords, urging us "to begin again" and yet to stay. Please stay.

We Will Always Love You, The Avalanches
Xerrox, Vol. 4, alva noto
Good Hope, Dave Holland
OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES, SOPHIE
New Me, Same Us, Little Dragon

Once Erin pointed me to this latest from The Avalanches, it closed the loop; things that sound like UV:/ feels, to me. Heavily manipulated, yet so, so soft, so human underneath it all….

August 28, 2021
Scratch and roar, squawk and double-thump, twinkle, twist and shout; siren. Street play, echo fun, "we go on, burning / fighting with each other." Little rhythms, tossed around, beamed up and out, forever….

By The Way, I Forgive You, Brandi Carlile
Patty Griffin, Patty Griffin
Song for Our Daughter, Laura Marling
Time (The Revelator), Gillian Welch
Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell

Created early July, 2020 to recognize new releases from Patty, Laura: on mothers, on daughters, on self. A series of introspections that open vistas; the women who write their soul, and mine, and ours….

July 25, 2021
Guitar like sitar, opening ever-outward, maturing with groove and slide: sure signs of freedom. "I wanna...live free," wait for me. I'll arrive, plaintive and prepared. "You crossed my mind, but it didn't change."

Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple
Relish, Joan Osborne
Blackout, Britney Spears
Back to Black, Amy Winehouse
Kala, M.I.A.

A redo; first try spun out from Bolt Cutters to pick up Relish and Amy, but not this one. Thinking again about Fiona's poetry and percussion, metal and skin, I looked back to Back to Black and then Blackout felt almost too obvious….

March 14, 2021
Teeth suck, "what she runnin' from?" Mid-century groove and hollerin' horns, dropped 'her's and a quiet wailing underneath. Jungle metropolis, black and better, beats from the first world, work and werq and "buy one song, get one free."…

Semper Femina, Laura Marling
Coconut Oil, Lizzo
But You Caint Use My Phone (Mixtape), Erykah Badu
The Harrow & The Harvest, Gillian Welch
Servant of Love, Patty Griffin

"Such a moment," I wrote last May, first envisioning this Collection, throwing myself back into a dark place (somehow not as dark); 2017 vibes. The albums I kept in heavy rotation as nightmares realized around me. Rabbit holes that deepened my grief and lifted me up….

December 26, 2020
"One of these days I'm gonna laugh again. One of these days I'm gonna smile." Slippery fingers glide down ribbed strings, descending in loops, down and out, wrapping around a minor key. "That's the way it will be." Down so far you end up, all the way up, goddess and glory.

Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
Baduizm, Erykah Badu
Hejira, Joni Mitchell
Selected Recordings ECM, Dave Holland
Once I Was An Eagle, Laura Marling

Sought something witchy and mystic to guide a new exploration. Candles lit and hands full of the universe, what should I hear?…

December 26, 2020
Damn! Gimme that rim-shot-sho-sh-sho-sh-shot-shot-shot! N-n-now-now-now. Let it flow, make it grow, set it free: way up in heaven: in another time: and another place….

Gaslighter, The Chicks
Chromatica, Lady Gaga
Hurts 2B Human, P!nk
Ventriloquism, Meshell Ngeocello
Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe

Riding the waves of trauma on some sound-ship, they rise and fall together. I, too, obsessed over Chromatica, but struggled to put it in any other context than its own for some time….

October 25, 2020
Wuhn-wah wuhn-wuhn, wuhn-wah wuhn-wuhn. "So good so good so good," so screwed up. Li-li-li-li-li do-doo! "The rain [sows] seeds of love and hope," she chants. Lullaby-bye-bye-bye-bye to you, to us and where we came from.

Vrioon, alva noto / Ryuichi Sakamoto
Cosmogramma, Flying Lotus
Sunday Morning, After the Elephants, Brian Kirchner
Orange, Caroline Shaw / Attacca Quartet
Emerald Tears, Dave Holland

Soundtrack for spelunking into my dance past, relistening to works that inspired and inspire and will inspire me to move. Erin revealed Vrioon when she made (and remade and remade) bergschrund for us, part of her grad work slipping off in chunks; pure sensation….

October 18, 2020
A-wailing we will go, digital oceans humming underneath. Light prickling over the ridge, shimmering off dewy leaves and ripe rinds. Balance and precision, steady sawing and sawing and sawing. Endless buzz, fuzzy muscle memories churning in my brain.

græ, Moses Sumney
Untitled (Black Is), SAULT
Jaime, Brittany Howard
Show Some Emotion, Joan Armatrading
Bitter, Meshell Ndegeocello

Took a few listens before græ settled in, but now it’s stuck between my ribs and I can’t shake it. Cutting and healing at once. A natural pairing with another surprise SAULT release….

July 20, 2020
“Islanded,” boxed in and shuffled along, defined and distributed. Their winding wail drops off into soft-spoken inquiry. Is it the world? Or is it me? Polyrhythms bounce around my belly, jiggle my hips, shimmy my shoulders. Protest and ritual united thru chant.

5, SAULT
LEGACY! LEGACY!, Jamila Woods
New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), Erykah Badu
Rhythm Nation 1814, Janet Jackson
To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Nina Simone

Thanks for SAULT, NPR. Immediately, the jammy up-do’s and funkadelic bops I went to, waiting to grapple with Foot on Necks’ fro. Felt the album’s blackness tho, aiding and adding to a series of shuffles I dealt early in the year solely focused on the voices of black women….

June 3, 2020
“Livin’ in a world full of hate where grown ups break the rules.” Ain’t we all, sister. “Black,” Janet hits and bumps before “B.A.B.E” sends me all space walk and stoned grin. Spit it, spit it, some SAULT on the wound. “I’m a free man now,” “MILES” sez, but not for me. Not me.

Alone at Last, Tasha
One Stone, Trixie Mattel
His Band and the Street Choir, Van Morrison
Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman
City of Refuge, Abigail Washburn

New-to-me Tasha and Trixie presented the oppy. Tasha hit me hard in late 2019 (all over my Top 2019 everything with Patty and Lizzo). Both torque the lyric-driven female folk singer form that’s driven my musical taste most of my life. Both queer, but in very different ways.…

April 28, 2020
Tasha lilts in with “black girl, we’ll leave this fight to someone else for now; you can close your eyes let your hair down. Breathe in; breathe out,” just after Tracy finishes her intense a cappella ode to battered black mothers, “Behind the Wall.”…