Week of Oct. 9: This week, musical tributes to Memphis Minnie, the Indigenous people of Eastern Canada, and the Hudson River. Plus, returns for Ana Tijoux and Angelica Garcia.
Ana Tijoux Is Coming Back, For Real This Time
It’s been nine years since Chilean singer/rapper Ana Tijoux last released an LP, although she did announce a comeback record in 2020 that she never actually released. But her new collection, Vida, is due next month and she’s just released this single, the second from the album, called “Tania.” So this time, apparently, she means it. This track is a tribute to her late sister, and begins in a restrained, somber mood. But Tijoux clearly decides to celebrate a life rather than mourn a death, and the rest of the song rides along on a trap reggaeton beat; the arrangement is simple enough – some keyboards and lots of processing on her voice – but the effect is never skeletal or sparse. And Tijoux’s singing voice (no rapping here) is at its lyrical best.
Allison Miller Celebrates The Hudson River
Drummer/composer/bandleader Allison Miller has just released a new album called Rivers In Our Veins, inspired by five East Coast rivers that have played crucial roles in the development of their respective regions, and have paid the price in the form of pollution. “Hudson” is a highlight – both the song and the river’s comeback in recent years – and features some of Miller’s most immediately accessible and catchy writing. The first thing to notice is her drumming, which seems to evoke the sound of a train. Her top-shelf band, with violinist Jenny Scheinman, bassist Todd Sickafoose, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, trumpeter Jason Palmer, and pianist Carmen Staaf, offer almost pastoral harmonies, and an easygoing folk-style melody. For anyone who has taken Amtrak up the Hudson’s eastern shore (and had the foresight to sit on the left side of the train), “Hudson” may summon the green and pleasant land (with apologies to William Blake’s England) that you encounter almost as soon as the train leaves the Bronx.
Angelica Garcia Returns To Her First Language With “El Que”
When we first met Angelica Garcia, she was making songs steeped in gothic American roots rock, and living in an isolated house in Virginia. Now, she’s in Brooklyn; her new songs are sung in Spanish; and her musical language has changed as well. “El Que” (“He who…”) is throbbing, industrial rock that sounds like a futurist magic ritual. One thing that has not changed is the power of Garcia’s voice, which has always had an uncanny edge to it and here comes across as the cry of a bruja, a witch, as she sings about men who seek to control women. “He who conducts, pursues,” she concludes; “He who bewitches, transforms/Confuses.”
A Tribute To Memphis Minnie From Candice Ivory
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of the great blues singer/guitarist Memphis Minnie (real name Lizzie Douglas), who, despite a hard road in life, wrote the enduring classics “When The Levee Breaks” and “Me and My Chauffeur Blues.” Candice Ivory, from a longtime family of Memphis musicians, has just released a tribute album called When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie, done in collaboration with noted guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter. The opening track, here listed as “Me and My Chauffeur,” is a salty number – it’s pretty clearly not about driving – with Hunter’s guitar embroidering Ivory’s vocals while the percussion, avoiding the usual drum kit, offers a surprising and appropriately Afrocentric sound.
The Communal Sound Of Indigenous Canadian Artist Jeremy Dutcher
Jeremy Dutcher won Canada’s prestigious Polar Music Prize for his debut LP, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, in which he created songs built around archival recordings of the Indigenous Wolastoq people of Eastern Canada. Now, Dutcher has released his sophomore album with the much more easily pronounced title of Motewolonuwok (and yes, I’m kidding – listen to Jeremy gamely trying to get me to say it right in his Soundcheck session). No archival recordings here, but plenty of Dutcher’s rich tenor and one track with a standout performance by an ad hoc choir that Dutcher put together in Toronto. Comprised of friends from various parts of his life and career, many of them Indigenous but not necessarily Wolastoq, they surround and support Dutcher’s solo vocals on this a cappella track called “Sakom.” The sound is both engaging and elusive – you wouldn’t say it’s anything like a classical choir, but it’s clearly the work of people who know what they’re doing. And what they’re doing is creating an audible sense of community.