Very Close to, if not actually in, the CD player:
seen/heard ° listen ° buy
seen/heard ° listen ° buy
Time Ticking Tables Turning
Let's get you off to your weekend with the good stuff.
Stephanie Mckay - Oh Yeah (mp3) (buy)
Am loving lots from Stephanie Mckay's Tell it Like Is. Forthcoming release is steeped in 70's soul, but the delivery is immediate; serious (often money-minded) lyrics are wrapped in the fun of the form. Less a part of the whole Daptone/Winehouse branch of retro, maybe more like Erykah minus the Vision thing. One of those records where you have trouble getting to the second half because you keep wanting to hear each track again.
There are flaws, sure. Some lyrics lack the specificity or originality to make them feel personal. Some songs could use a little more attack ("Say What You Feel," which starts off with the promising call to "Drop that beat!" should have been tightened up). But for the most part the project wins you over, you feel bad for raising any such objections.
Album from the NYC singer - who apparently recorded a trip-hoppy release with Portishead's Geoff Barrow some years back - is out in the UK, promised here in the future. You are strongly urged to go to Soul Sides for block party anthem "Jackson Avenue," and to Mckay's site and myspace for whatever other tracks she'll let you at.
Then join me in praying for a domestic release date.
QUICK! To THE FUTURE!
Janelle Monáe - Sincerely, Jane (mp3) (buy)
That's from Monáe's Metropolis project (myspace), a series of planned EPs about an android who falls in love with a hu-man. The tunes crackle, but mostly she's great because she's unafraid to get weird. "Sincerely" is street-level substance, big sky atmosphere. Boom-cracka brass hooks trade off with darting strings, scratches, sci-fi exhaust.
If there's a problem here, it's timing and quantity. I want more, now. This is last year's EP, and of its original five tracks there were really only three songs... and two of those are a jumpy, conjoined pair that feel like Speakerboxxx spin-offs (Monáe is based out of Atlanta, travels in Outkast circles, was featured in Idlewild and on Big Boi's Got Purp? mixtape). The EP was re-released last month as a special edition with a pair of extra tunes and a bonus CD, contents unknown. I look forward to the opportunity to call Janelle Monáe awesome, but awesome is a size issue, I have to see a lot more from her before I can do so.
*
What do these women have in common? I missed both of them at Summerstage this season. (Mckay opened for Mavis Staples, Monáe for Jamie Lidell.)
*
Tickets are now on sale for the Electric Six/Local H/Golden Dogs show at Webster Hall on 11/22.
*
"This was just another payday for the same old Rams."
I watched last Sunday's game wondering if it was possible for a team to wind up with negative points. But these Rams aren't even ambitious enough to find new frontiers of awfulness. They're satisfied being pathetic.