On an album of trenchant lyricism and cultural cross-pollination, the singer Myriam Gendron reinterprets traditional music from the United States, France, and Quebec. Reworking old folk songs with a contemporary resonance, combining originals with the half-torn remnants of the past, her record Ma délire – Songs of love, lost & found features contributions from Bill Nace on guitar, Chris Corsano on drums, and Guillaume Bourque on bass clarinet. Thomas Bonvalet combines oscillating strings and rickety percussion within the conceptual framework of the ritornello. And Mike Paradinas and Hannah Davidson find pathways through grief as µ-Ziq and Mrs Jynx.
For the last edition of the year by the Slovakian label mappa, the experimental duo Grykë Pyje spin fresh yarns in the form of twining synth melodies with a percussive rattle and growl. As Taupe Set XL, the Miami-based electronic artist and hypnotist Kristen Soller plays out a sort of tidal locking between the inner planets and the ocean deep. And once more sampling his own improvisations, the beat scientist Makaya McCraven puts a modern bounce on jazz classics by Blue Note.
Naomi Alligator switches her banjo for the guitar midway through her latest batch of blue-eyed confessionals, weighing the curiosities of love and the bric-à-brac of home comforts against the compulsion to wind up someplace else. The Swedish synthpop duo Sally Shapiro share a moment worth remembering, while Mitski tosses and turns over the wielding and plunging of life. Arca collaborates with Sia, Atmosphere and Aesop Rock split a posthumous feature by MF DOOM, and Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith trace salutations on the first compilation album by RVNG Intl. Tracks by Koffee, Big Thief, G Perico, and Conway the Machine complete the best of the week.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Arca – ‘Born Yesterday’ (feat. Sia)
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Atmosphere – ‘Barcade’ (feat. Aesop Rock & MF DOOM)
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Koffee – ‘West Indies’
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Rachika Nayar & Nina Keith – ‘In the Memory Room’
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G Perico – ‘Sin Again’
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L’Ocelle Mare – ‘Téléphone Guitare, Interrupteurs, Membrane…’
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µ-Ziq & Mrs Jynx – ‘Unheard Melodies’
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Grykë Pyje – ‘Mutated Perception’
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Taupe Set XL – ‘Carried By Birdsong’
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Naomi Alligator – ‘Anywhere Else’
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Makaya McCraven – ‘Sunset (AKA “Son Set”)’
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Sally Shapiro – ‘Forget About You’
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umru, Tommy Cash, and 645AR – ‘check1’
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Mitski – ‘Working for the Knife’
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Conway the Machine – ‘Piano Love’
