New music

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This article was published 09/11/2017 (3205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POP / ROCK

Margo Price
All American Made (Third Man Records)

Margo Price’s debut record, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, emerged fully formed in 2016 and immediately marked her as a roots singer/songwriter of considerable depth — a sweet-voiced, east Nashville hellcat singing tales of musical and family struggle with matter-of-fact aplomb, wistful sentiment and a healthy dash of wry humour.

While those 10 songs were primarily set to a traditional, throwback country sound, Price and her producer/bassist husband, Jeremy Ivey, broaden their palette on the dozen cuts of All American Made, embracing a little boogie-woogie (album opener Don’t Say It), hints of swing (Weakness) and even good ol’ outlaw country-folk on Learning to Lose, an old-fashioned tear-jerker that features a string section, keening pedal steel, Spanish guitar and the dulcet tones of Willie Nelson, who duets with Price in one of his finest vocal performances in years.

Price also makes no bones about which side she’s on in Donald Trump’s America. Pay Gap is a Tex-Mex lament on the sad state of gender equality, while Heart of America tells a story of farm foreclosure and predatory business agribusiness practices in the 1980s. The epic album closing title cut, with its interwoven sound clips from the likes of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, is a paean to a nation still painfully finding its way.

Along with all this, there’s still room for reflection on matters of the heart (Loner, A Little Pain) and the bittersweet lessons of living the hard life (Cocaine Cowboy, Wild Women, Weakness). ★★★★ out of five

Stream these: Weakness, Pay Gap, All American Made

— John Kendle

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POP & ROCK

Billy Bragg
Bridges Not Walls(Cooking Vinyl)

Billy Bragg is among the most romantic of protest singers but Bridges Not Walls is a newscast of dissent, not a love letter.

Comprising just six songs, the EP gathers Bragg singles released over the past few months, some issued practically as soon as they were written.

A pedal steel lends an Americana flavour on King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood, which warns, like Bob Dylan, that the waters around us have grown. But now the rising of the tides is real and best intentions, like dutiful recycling, are simply not enough.

An electric guitar powers Bragg’s cover of Anaïs Mitchell’s Why We Build the Wall, poking holes into some of the justifications for barriers.

A spirited rant against those in favour of leaving the European Union would have been cheered by many of his fans. Instead, Bragg offers a complex, nuanced look at a difficult question on closer Full English Brexit.

The tone of the piano ballad is mournful, not angry, and lists the usual pro-Brexit arguments — too many foreigners and too many EU rules to comply with.

The elderly protagonist sees his country changing and he’s apprehensive. He admits the immigrant children are “respectful, they gave me their seat on the bus” and though their food “smells disgusting” he insists he’s not a racist, he just wants “to make things how they used to be.” Telling his “dear neighbour” that “it’s not about you/this is all about us,” the end result is predictable — hence the song’s title.

Without needing to shout to get his points across, Bragg’s politics are not for everyone, but the empathy of his approach goes well beyond mere ideologies. ★★★1/2 out of five

— The Associated Press

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POP & ROCK

Bully
Losing (Sub Pop)

If music and culture have a cyclical pattern of around two decades, then it’s safe to say we’re heading into the late ‘90s, a post-Nirvana era that saw the emergence of bands lacking in substance and driven by the hopes of making it famous.

Bully is not one of those bands, even though they gravitate toward the touchstones of that time period — fuzzed out guitars, crashing drums, bottomless low-end bass and vocals that shred through even the noisiest wall of feedback the band can dish out. Brashly throwing themselves into songs like Feel the Same, Not the Same and Kills to be Alone, the Nashville-based foursome has taken the foundation of the grunge era and built something of its own version.

Lead singer and guitarist Alicia Bognanno’s past relationships and insecurities fuel the raw emotions of the songs, but Losing is more than a make up/breakup album. Recording on two-inch tape at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio in Seattle, Loser relies on the immediacy and impact of a live recording, rather than searching for the perfect Pro Tools session they did on their own. Bognanno moves between the pain one feels after the loss of a relationship, the uncertainty and anxiety that follows and the hopeful optimism that eventually rises up. Bully has its own ebb and flow, balancing up noisy cuts like Not the Way with the Fugazi-like feel of songs like Running. Nashville’s next export may have flown under-the-radar with its debut, Feels Like, you’ll be hearing a lot more of these noisy rockers in 2018. ★★★★ out of five

Stream these: Not the Way, Spiral and Feel the Same

— Anthony Augustine

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ROOTS / COUNTRY

Scott Morgan
Rough & Ready(Rouge Records)

One would be hard pressed to find a more devoted and durable artist than Detroit’s Scott Morgan. Since the early 1960s, Morgan has toiled away in near obscurity, yet ranks as one of the finest purveyors of blue-eyed soul music still working the venues.

His rock-and-roll pedigree is also fierce and includes fronting various combos that featured members of The Stooges, The MC5 and more than a few Swedish power-rock bands.

For his latest ten-tracker, Morgan has employed fellow Detroiters guitarist Eddie Baranek (The Sights) and producers Jim Diamond and Adam Cox to construct a set of tracks that are emblematic of his ability to fully immerse his soul in a song and deliver the goods emotionally. On the slow burn side you have Soothe Her, Shades of Night and The Troubles. On these tracks, Morgan can truly be appreciated and proves that, even after dealing with some pretty intense health issues the last few years, he can still curl his warm and elastic voice around an alluring melody. 

Radio Revolution details a back-in-the-day road trip that name checks all the deejays and call letters that inspired Morgan on this influential journey. The happy-go-lucky horns that buoy Mom Scott’s Smoking add some cheeriness and the rolling rock of Somebody’s Trying to Kill Me is a close cousin to any timeless Stax Records variant. Never one to miss a song for the ladies, we have Jamaica Vanilla and the delicate reggae of album closer Redbone Girl. Credit is also due to the female support singers on R&R. They add their charm to every track and, even when they distract slightly from Morgan’s vibe, it would be hard to imagine the songs without them. Morgan has worked steadily along the fringes of wider success his whole career, but like any lifer he continues to create his own kind of magic on record. We are lucky to still have him. ★★★★ out of five

Stream these: Mom Scott’s Smoking, Jamaica Vanilla

— Jeff Monk

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JAZZ

Ernesto Cervini’s Turboprop
Rev(Anzic)

Toronto-based drummer/producer Ernesto Cervini is a very busy man. As well as being in demand by other groups, the collaborator has his own band,Turboprop (Joel Frahm saxophone, Adrean Farrugia piano and Dan Loomis bass). For this album, he has added Tara Davidson alto and soprano and William Carn trombone.

With the huge range of current jazz styles, it is sometimes difficult to describe easily an album that contains excellent writing, accessible tunes and a very modern harmonic feel that simply provides instant enjoyment. It is not a pejorative to say that the overall effect of music is pleasure without placing huge demands on the listenery.

There is a lot of variety here, from rhythmic originals by Cervini (Rev) and Farrugia (The Libertine), to standards like Pennies From Heaven, which is dedicated to Cervini’s one-year-old daughter, Penelope. The Daily Mail is a cover of a B-side Radiohead tune that starts with a great bass solo by Loomis and leads to some fine responses from the band. As always, Cervini’s drumming is the solid foundation for the group, and the shift to a sextet from a quartet works very well here. Trombonist Carn wrote the album finale, Arc Of Instability, in a reference to the American political system. A fine team effort throughout the whole album. ★★★★ out of five

Stream these: The Libertine, The Daily Mail

— Keith Black

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CLASSICAL

Scott Pender
Music for Woodwinds(Harmonia Mundi)

This new recording features six retrospective works culled over a 30-year period by American composer Scott Pender. Each short piece offers its own well-crafted world of instrumental texture and colour.

Kimchi Dreams (2013) inspired by “a fitful night of dreams” following a “large, late Korean dinner” offers the first taste of Pender’s clear writing, while an equally compact Suite for Woodwind Quintet (1989, rev. 2013) is tonally pleasing fare for chamber music traditionalists.

Variations for Oboe & Piano (2010) is marked by dramatic flourishes in the oboe and stylistic nods to composers past. It includes echoes of Chopin’s lilting waltzes, while the four evocative movements of Lyric Set (2014) unfold as imaginative sketches.

Toccatina (1989) scored for four flutes, including the always-appealing alto and bass, sees the players tightly interwoven throughout the three-minute piece, in which they joyously burble and pop in rhythmic patterns over gradually emerging, deeper-voiced melodic fragments. Five Dances for 3 bassoons & contrabassoon (2011) likewise features the four players traversing through such winsome movements as Canon, Country Dance, Stamp, Steps of Two, finally punctuated by Backbeat, with the contrabassoon’s throaty, insistent beat driving the ensemble forward and performed with zeal. ★★★1/2 out of five

— Holly Harris