On Mycelial Echo the vocalist Eliza Bagg and percussionist Booker Stardrum root their modular experiments in a language of glitching cyberspace, rising oceans, and willowing trees. On Late Spring the Japanese composer Chihei Hatakeyama unfurls a stately pastoral in slowly evolving synthesizers and shimmering guitars. And on Time to Die the French multi-instrumentalist Christine Ott blends electroacoustic music with contemporary classical on a sensory journey between the living and the dead.
In an exemplary act of spring cleaning, Tickley Feather dusts down a set of motley melodies spun sweetly in the company of Deakin and Avey Tare. On The Things I Can’t Take With Me, the New York poet and songwriter Yaya Bey wrings purpose and affirmation from heartbreak and introspection, working in the spirit of do-it-yourself. Wizkid and Tems don’t need no other body, Doja Cat and SZA desire kisses aplenty, and CupcakKe takes the mickey. Meanwhile Japanese Breakfast seeks affection in the aisles of a Super A Foods where Harmony Tividad of Girlpool serves as the cashier.
Tierra Whack figures construction through the click and clunk of Lego bricks. Caoilfhionn Rose lifts the lid on folk with infusions of jazz and psychedelia. Bruiser Wolf moves his pieces on the chequerboard, Benny the Butcher suffers from survivor’s remorse, and Sufjan Stevens, Esperanza Spalding, Marina Allen, and Madeline Kenney round out the best of the week.
A word too on a worthy cause. On Friday the Abolition Apostles national jail and prison ministry began a series of online benefit concerts, hoping to raise funds for a hospitality house near the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the largest maximum-security prison in the United States. With the collaboration of Jolie Holland and Johanna Samuels, four concerts will take place each Friday until 30 April, featuring an array of artists including Kronos Quartet, Boots Riley, Cassandra Jenkins, and Adrianne Lenker. Tickets for Abolition 2021 are available via NoonChorus.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Japanese Breakfast – ‘Posing In Bondage’
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Doja Cat – ‘Kiss Me More’ (feat. SZA)
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Sufjan Stevens – ‘Meditation V’
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Little Snake – ‘Fallen Angels’ (feat. Flying Lotus)
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Wizkid – ‘Essence’ (feat. Tems)
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Tierra Whack – ‘Link’
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Tickley Feather – ‘A Certain Way’
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Esperanza Spalding – ‘formwela 1’
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CupcakKe – ‘Mickey’
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Benny the Butcher & Harry Fraud – ‘Survivor’s Remorse’ (feat. Rick Hyde)
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Polo G – ‘RAPSTAR’
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Lisel + Booker Stardrum – ‘Stalls’
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Madeline Kenney – ‘Superstition’
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Marina Allen – ‘Sleeper Train’
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Chihei Hatakeyama – ‘Thunder Ringing in the Distance’
