Consumer Guide: February, 2024

Eternal bebop, aesthetic force with brains, country soul from Newark, and hip-hop dreams with humanistic impulses. Plus: robot limbs, the aging alt-rock bohemia, hypnotic guitar minimalism, and more.

Aesop Rock: ITS: Integrated Tech Solutions (Rhymesayers) Now in his late forties, the Suffolk County rapper a/k/a Ian Bavitz has been generating hip-hop albums of notable intelligence, range, and curiosity since he was 21, although they were often dulled slightly by hooks more declarative and ideological than catchy and entertaining. Strangely, this album barely references the kind of postmodern supertech the title conceit would seem to portend. Instead it's like Aes thought it was time for a lookback that honored cruder but also less esoteric tech and pre-tech he can ponder fondly: from rocks/fire/wheel to 12,000 species of moss and the rivers he loves, from Mr. T to Vincent Van Gogh, from onion dip mix to robot limbs to fentanyl, from salt-and-pepper squid to his grandma's pierogi to the tub of margarine she always kept on hand. B PLUS

Dogo du Togo: Dogo du Togo (self-released) D.C.-based Togolese vocalist-guitarist Massama Dogo celebrates the changeable grooves and diverse quietudes of his narrow, lengthy homeland ("Zonva," "Africa") ***

Jack Harlow: Jackman (Atlantic) Since this white middle-class Louisville 25-year-old with humanistic impulses and hip-hop dreams seems comfortable comparing himself to Eminem, I have some advice for him. A) Forget comparing yourself to Eminem because while you have skills as both rapper and a rhymer, on a technical level Eminem is one of the most accomplished rappers ever. B) Don't compare yourself to Eminem because three decades in it's clear that he's a bigger dick than you'll ever be, not to mention than you want to be. That said, reviewers' tendency to condescend to him would be funny if it wasn't pathetic, 'cause he's smarter than they are. Me, I welcome rhymes about his father's budget-balancing problems, about not reminiscing with his older brother, about teen pals grown up into young-adult sex offenders, about having dinner with the newly elected Democratic governor of Kentucky, and about wishing you were sure God exists. A MINUS

Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings (Craft) Somewhere in my unkempt trove of Charlie Parker CDs gather large portions of this legendary May 1953 bebop showcase, most of it recorded at 2753-capacity Massey Hall in Toronto's toddlin' town--not to a full house, especially with Joe Walcott defending his heavyweight championship against Rocky Marciano in Chicago the same night, a piece of history Dizzy Gillespie elected to follow on a backstage TV whenever he could grab the chance. The rest of this never again duplicated ensemble comprised doomed eternal bebopper Parker on alto, indomitable Max Roach on drums, a zonked Bud Powell replacing originally scheduled Lennie Tristano on piano, and Oscar Pettiford's replacement on bass Charlie Mingus, who when he discovered that some of his music had gone unrecorded that night absconded with the tapes so he could dub his own parts onto them. If this reads like some kind of mess, in some respects it was. For years when I wanted to hear some bebop I'd return not to Massey Hall however legendary it was but to the aforementioned Charlie Parker trove, especially his Dial sessions and the de facto Bird showcase Now's the Time. But given the historic weight of this event I'm definitely not done with Hothouse. And just for the record, whether those are the right Mingus bass parts doesn't seem to matter that much. A

Millie Jackson: On the Soul Country Side (Kent) A Georgia sharecropper's daughter who'll turn 80 in June and whose sole marriage lasted eight months, Jackson grew up in Newark, which like her thick power drawl may not strike newcomers as very country. But her specialty in marriage-cum-cheating songs cuts into their surprise factor even on the Kris Kristofferson copyright "Anybody That Don't Like Millie Jackson" (initially "Hank Williams") which is topped off on this belated best-of, her second, by a climactic challenge called "Black Bitch Crazy" (initially. "Redneck Crazy"). I listen carefully to marriage songs myself, including plenty with limited redeeming romantic value, which here means right down to the revenge fantasy "The angel in your arms this morning/Is gonna be the devil in someone else's arms tonight." But these lyrics do many different things with marital tropes, most of which Jackson is shrewd enough to exploit whether they reflect her own experience or make shit up. A MINUS

James Kahn: By the Risin' of the Sea: Shanties for Our Times (www.thatjameskahn.com) No tricks, no gimmicks, no rhythm section--just grim tales or reports for and sometimes I suspect from our climate-challenged epoch ("In the Covid Times," "2020: Ship of Fools") ***

Jim Kweskin: Never Too Late: Duets With My Friends (StorySound) His never forceful voice milder yet still remarkably clear, the jug band pioneer does his vision proud for an 83-year-old, but with all respect to his granddaughter Fiona, only on Maria Muldaur's two tracks does he intimate immortality ("The Sheik of Araby," "Let's Get Happy Together") ***

The Mountain Goats: Jenny From Thebes (Merge) I'll leave it to certified John Darnielle obsessives to figure out to what extent these lyrics expand on the implicit narrative of 2002's All Hail West Texas. Since it's no simple matter to follow his plots, if that's what they are, merely approximating them is a lot easier. So let's just say "the Jenny character" is a genuine hero of a sizable if aging alt-rock bohemia, a perilous and changeable subculture that has long been the center of Darnielle's life and work. This is mostly because she's kind: "Aging motorcycles purr like cats when they grow near/I was crying, I could barely make the frame out through my tears/She did/Long before we did/She did/Long before we did/Jenny, you did/Long before I did." B PLUS

Meshell Ndegeocello: The Omnichord Real Book (Blue Note) As she passes 55 it's jazz/pop-inflected pan-Africanism every which way with more than just touches of Africa itself ("Vuma," "ASR," "Good Good") *

Nirvana: Live at the Paramount (Geffen) For completists mostly, an unusually impassioned, disruptive, and despairing Halloween or perhaps actually All Saints Day performance of their ongoing angst ("About a Girl," "Negative Creep") **

Okuté: Okuté (Chulo '21) Shouted declaratively in Spanish by baritone Pedro Francisco Almeida Barriel, Tata to you, and named after the not exactly benign but culturally potent god or life-force former West Africans believed brought them to Cuba, this spare Havana-based ensemble is sometimes said to incorporate the legendary percussionist Machito. Since Machito died in 1984, I'm inclined to suspect this tale culminates a confused fusion between a compliment and a myth. But I guarantee that compared to, for instance, Congo Brazzaville's '80s/'90s Balka Sound, Okuté generates the kind of catchy momentum outsiders like me associate with soukous, albeit with its own unique, slightly choppier groove. A find. A MINUS

Bill Orcutt: Music for Four Guitars (Palilalia '22) Now 62, guitarist Orcutt has his name on a discography of more than 60 titles including some 15 cassettes. So just because I happen to really like the cycling avant-minimalism of this 2022 entry doesn't mean I feel obliged to compare and contrast except insofar as this music in particular provides an excellent excuse to break out the Jon Hassell CDs I haven't heard in a while. And though you should feel free to talk minimalism all you like, Hassell is like Beethoven up against this guy, who tends to chime over more than cycle through. In other words: not background music, slightly hypnotic though it may be. A MINUS

The Paranoid Style: The Paranoid Style Presents: The Interrogator (Bar/None) The only songwriter ever to rhyme "Savoy truffle" and "media kerfuffle," Elizabeth Nelson and sidemen who start with her husband Timothy Bracy and here include perfectly suited original dB Peter Holsapple have assembled a sizable catalogue of catchy yet also politically sapient three-minute songs that now fill up seven albums and an EP. Given how brainy Nelson's lyrics are, her light soprano may strike some as insufficiently forceful, but aesthetic force is one thing brains are for, and as Nelson reminds herself, "If you haven't got the temerity then you'd better turn around." Hence one about a charity event called "Are You Loathsome Tonight." Hence "The return of the Molly Maguires/From the '73 panic/To the children's choirs." Hence "Three credits short at Yokel State/She's gonna be a legal aide." Hence "I've spent time in education/I have spent time in jail/I've drunk from the river basin/I have skied in Vail." A

Sleater-Kinney: Little Rope (Loma Vista) New drummer or no new drummer, this great band is as solid and impassioned and inexorable as ever structurally. Thematically and more to the point melodically if you crave some anthems, not so much. In a historical moment when we need female voices to not just disrupt but lead and even impassion more than to exemplify or even analyze, this is a disappointment, and for those who need music to feed both their spirits and their intellects it's a loss. From "Hell is desperation/And a young man with a gun" to "Could you love me if I was broken," they offer limited ideological succor, and why not--they're mortal, after all. Nonetheless, here's hoping they have bigger things in mind. B PLUS

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