“I still believe in the two party system. Friday and Saturday!”

Low Cut Connie – Art Dealers [Contender 2023]

The line that every critic seems to have glommed onto is when Adam Weiner declares himself “a song and dance man”, probably because it’s accessible though it’d be an oversight to not note the Andy Kaufman parallel. More likely though it’s to serve as a branding reset for an artist who grew more explicitly political, populist, communal, and Jewish as the years following Dirty Pictures 2 started compounding existential crises, giving us Private Lives in all of its empathy and the Tough Cookie Sessions in all of their hope. So here we are as the soulful South Philly by way of South Jersey Piano Man bards with his capable, impressive, and extremely intersectional backing band about outsiders and outcasts with more groove and less staying power than last time but an undoubtable maturity surrounding him. It’s not the runtime, 13 in 42 minutes is about what Low Cut Connie would average previously, but whereas before Weiner was unrelentingly drunk, horny, or critical while his hooks made up for his caustic jokes now there’s a thick slab of gospel in his boogie as he laments gentrification and the anticlimax of post encores with a touring rock and roll band. 4.0/5

De la Soul – Buhloone Mindstate [Tommy Boy 1993]

4 years removed from their joyful good vibes debut and finally the song structure has become denser, their boom bap has gained a sense of the pre-cynical sarcasm that it was always missing. Skits that actually hit too. This is the one though, that when it came out, every critic under the sun was raving about even though it’s lyrical crypticness was such that even 20 years later a Pitchfork review barely touches on any of the subject matter that Pos and Dave’s dynamic duo were talking about. Enter Shortie No Mass with deadpan comic timing to boot and it’s almost like everything these Long Islanders did after was negligible. You’d think the frustration at Native Tongues’ implosion or the three jazz titans providing brass would’ve gained more notoriety. But then again, Q-Tip already did it didn’t he? At the same time that he had his detached female answering machine, they had “Stickabush”, “Chattanooga champ”, Maceo’s own leitmotifs, and the gumption to feature their Japanese counterparts. Definitely the funniest shit they’ve done so far, and thankfully at under 48 minutes it’s nothing but substance if you can give it your time to get to know it. 4.3/5

Sufjan Stevens – Javelin [Asthmatic Kitty 2023]

The queer melodist who toggles between glitched out electronics and ornate acoustics comes back with a song cycle that splits the difference about how hard it is to love and to be loved. If that’s what you want from him it’s there. And yet I don’t feel moved. Sure “Goodbye Evergreen” is masterful in its depiction of death being world shattering – then it goes on for a minute too long. “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”? Classic Sufjan. Then most of what follows doesn’t scratch the itch of profundities that his ruminations of his mother’s death gave. I think context is what’s missing here, some kind of framing that he exceled at when he wrote about states. Otherwise, no matter how flowery his poetry, he rambles. 3.2/5

A Tribe Called Quest – Beats Rhymes & Life [Jive 1996]

The shifts were documented and relayed elsewhere; Phife moving to Atlanta, Q-Tip converting to Islam and nuking the group dynamic by adding his cousin as a rapper and some Detroiter going by Jay Dee to the production team. Not that the product is destined for the garbage disposal but the tension’s evident in the multiple depictions of negativity coming from a group whose name used to be synonymous with community building – fucking up a kid’s day who challenged them to a rap battle; an argument leading to shots fired; naming tracks “Get a Hold”, “The Pressure”, “Separate/Together”, “Stressed Out”. Shit, just using all of their old songs as a collage then biting their best hook for “1nce Again” to provide a sense of nostalgia is a big red needle resting on the gas tank’s “E”. 3.3/5

Big Thief – U.F.O.F. [4AD 2019]

If one thing is to outlive this band after we all shuffle off this mortal coil it’s their ability to take a location and translate it to recordable music. The Pacific Northwest having always been a region of surreal, misty, and often dangerous living, these four Berklee graduates infuse their finger plucked + drum brushed folk songs with it to yield a landscape that’s cosmic and amniotic. For Adrianne Lenker there’s never been a more apt and less immediately digestible arena to project her poetic recitations of a world with no sexual constructs onto. Quality for sure, maybe on a spring morning in the woods best, but oddly enough not enough warmth. 3.7/5

Miguel – Wildheart [Bystorm/RCA 2015]

His inner turmoil is relatable. The kind of thing a mixed person faces day in and day out by belonging to an in group but being told by said in group that they don’t. It’s musical too. Black rock after the 60’s was always slated under “psychedelic soul” or “hard funk” or “fusion” when the themes and instruments were otherwise the same as any pop song a white guy with half as much talent was writing. No matter the Chicano, hip hop, funk, or soul influences that this proud and vulnerable intimacy savant adds dashes of to his sound he’s made a rock album with rock star posturing. An incredible take on the highs and lows of those earthbound creatures sorting out the ideas of Southern California ambition, Miguel starts with an affirmation, stays strong on what old heads would refer to as Side A, and spends Side B rebuilding to (finally) an epic finale that sounds like the sun is exploding for him and his beau. All in, like, 45 minutes. 4.6/5

Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off Dog [Saddle Creek 2018]

With a bigger budget it’s not out of the question to conclude that the focus on texture was a way to show it off. Quinlan is literate and literary, this far into the Trump administration they saw fit to focus on the interpersonal as a coping mechanism as so many literary types did. Their soulful turn is very much appreciated – the double tracked vocals that at first seemed annoyingly pop turn out to be dopamine hits the more time you spend with them. But the underdog scrappiness that came with the lo-fi sound of their last one is polished and sterilized away leaving behind a focus on lyrics that don’t make as much emotionally intelligent sense that they want to on closer inspection. 3.5/5

Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy [Ninja Tune 2023]

Three singers, two of African descent, one white, all Scottish, come in on album 4 (if you’re excluding mixtapes) to posit most melodically that community and its factors like diet and dancing will be a boon since salvation isn’t possible. So bouncy it might just accidentally throw itself out the window. 3.8/5

Danny Brown – Quaranta [Warp 2023]

In every major interview he’s done both before and after this “sequel” to XXX’s release he mentioned it was finished several if not many months before the Junkie Jester Man of Letters finally checked himself into rehab, sensing once and for all that his underlying issues needed to be handled. Which is why it’s so interesting that it sounds like the post rehab introspection that foils to Scaring the Hoes’s id-drenched barz. After swearing off manic emotional intensity when Atrocity Exhibition moved barley 20,000 units in its first week Danny Brown’s focused on his technique: rhymes, punchlines, production choices, oddly enough a general sense of being a consummate professional who knows rapping is his day job and here is no different. Slow and melancholic reflections on true trauma that don’t just touch drugs or the socioeconomic like his early 2010’s masterworks, but honest-to-god lamentations at how his cheating led to a divorce that he knows isn’t far removed at all from – as he notes on the finale – the way his father treated his mother. Like the many punk rockers that he takes influence from he’s aged, and so has his audience, who’ll hear the sound of a grown ass man who doesn’t drink or party anymore because he’s got work in the morning like they do and more power to him. Rappers like him don’t come along too often, and men in general don’t either. 4.2/5