Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You [4AD 2022]
These four friends from all over – Texas, Indiana, Israel – and whom all attended Berklee College of Music in Bah-sten but didn’t meet or coagulate until moving to Brooklyn, typically make sparse folky tunes whose forthrightness and even keeled temperament always made them seem strong but not iconoclastic. But now on a double LP of all releases they expand soundwise into not just country, bluegrass, and occasional touches of vernal electronics but maturity as a group. Singer Adrianne Lenker’s childlike voice is the fulcrum for the terranean vs. cosmic tension across all twenty songs; sometimes she’s the grounded one like in the Sapphic “Flower of Blood” and the instrumentals are warm but hauntingly otherworldly. Usually though, she’s the one pondering death, Eve in Genesis, time, or (spud) infinity while the band’s roots sound signifies the groundedness necessary so that her poetry comes across as considered and not pedantic. 4.2/5
Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers [Aftermath/TDE 2022]
Just because it’s flawed doesn’t mean it’s a failure, and it’s certainly more interesting than his last one. Ever the conceptualist, KDot claims each of the 18 tracks to be a session of the therapy that the mother of his two children recommended he get for a litany of issues that The Dean himself posits were exacerbated by the sudden privileges that fame and money bring. Which means that like every willing neophyte to analysis he is confused sorting through the tensions in his life and thinks that it’s the solution to so many of the problems of the world. That’s why you get Kodak Black on the same record that Kendrick recounts his mother’s own sexual trauma on and him choosing to set abusers free (Jesus-complex who?). Or when he tells capitalists to suck his dick (you go king) while acting out a vitriolic domestic argument that for some reason ends in them boning (note that rhetorically the man is both the antagonist and the loser of the fight). As for the one so wrapped in debate, I’ll give it up to The Dean again who puts it so well in so few words: “Also of note is the one that begins “My auntie is a man now/I think I’m old enough to understand now.” Not that he does, necessarily (emphasis mine). But anyone unimpressed that he has the decency to bring it up is living in a bubble”. A decade into having the world’s eyes on his work and he’s a living testament – growth doesn’t come easy. 4.0/5
Wet Leg – Wet Leg [Domino 2022]
The hype for this femme duo with occasional masc instrumental accompaniment was so big and so sweeping across the pond you’d’ve thought John Lennon was back from the dead to raw dog the Queen herself live on the BBC. Instead, it’s the guitar pop tunes of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, two madlasses a decade removed from being the freshers they were when they met. They write post undergrad songs about chair sex, gigging, disappointment, substances, and casting a wide variety of side eyed aspersions that revel in the distortion and sense of humor that made them a hype train. 3.5/5
Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt [Roc-A-Fella Records 1996]
Shawn Carter’s first LP is revered by aficionados for only one reason no matter how much they’ll debate the particulars: it’s his only project that wasn’t consciously attempting to capitalize on his mic skills (this is also known colloquially as “selling out”). No major hit single, no branding outside of his record label, hell he didn’t even have a deal with a phone company yet. Instead a mid-level crack dealer from Bed-Stuy who pushed in Trenton and Maryland put out a distilled song cycle about a day in the life of one that’s equal parts smarm and heartbreak, especially the rueful vivid noir of “D’evils”. Not to mention his rhymes, just on the outset is the “beamin’-schemin’-steamin’-meanin’- intervening-machinin’” combo of a lifetime. And he epitomized the mafisio movement taking place in the East Coast Renaissance where over a Nas sample he recounts: “Three shots, close range, never touched me, divine intervention/Can’t stop I, from drinkin’ Mai-Tai’s, with Ty-Ty”. Life threatening danger, God, braggadocio, lavish lifestyle, the man just can’t stop. 4.5/5
Cosmic Hero 