New music

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This article was published 30/11/2022 (1374 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POP & ROCK

Stormzy
This is What I Mean (#Merky/Def Jam/Universal)

As this was written, Stormzy’s This is What I Mean was battling a Christmas record by 82-year-old Sir Cliff Richard for the No. 1 spot on the U.K. albums chart.

Such a contrast of old-and-traditional versus young-and-hip-hop could only happen in the U.K., and it signifies how much the island nation has changed in the past 60 years.

But don’t let nostalgia and Christmas sentiment fool you — aside from Adele, Stormzy is the biggest U.K. music phenomenon of the past decade. That status was solidified in 2019, when he became the first Black British man to headline at Glastonbury’s mainstage, a feat he followed with Heavy Is the Head, a hugely successful second album that achieved the rare feat of broadening his grime-influenced rap with soulful, R&B jams and expressions of Christian faith while also affirming his rep as the sharpest spitter on the English block.

At first blush, This is What I Mean listeners expecting the fire and brimstone of Stormzy’s earliest days may wonder where that guy has gone. This is a laid-back, soulful, almost gentle-sounding outing, full of shimmering (dare I say “mainstream” orchestral touches, silky backing vocals, horns, piano, even an eight-minute opening song with two movements (Fire + Water).

It’s also a breakup record, on which Stormzy laments the loss of love that grounded him on sad, reflective tracks such as Fire + Water, Please or Bad Blood. Heck, he even sings about his pain (not terribly) but wisely leaves most of that work to his many guests, including Sampha, India.Arie and the divine Debbie Ehirim, who helps the 29-year-old Londoner close the album with the fabulous Give it to the Water, Stormzy’s ultimate surrender to the power of love and faith.

Those who may lament a lack of hip hop’s signature braggadocio and chest-thumping will find it on the likes of the title track and All My Presidents are Black, the album’s central cut, on which Stormzy calls out haters, shouts out his mates and gives what amounts to his state-of-the-union address, calling for all Black English leaders to work together. ★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: Fire + Water, My Presidents are Black, Give It to the Water

— John Kendle

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HIP HOP

Quavo and Takeoff
Only Built for Infinity Links (Quality Control Music)

While there were whisperings of the Atlanta rap trio Migos splitting up for good, instead, nephew-uncle duo Takeoff and Quavo released Only Built for Infinity Links without the third Migos member, Offset.

In the wake of Takeoff’s death — the man born Kirsnik Khari Ball was shot and killed in Houston, Texas, allegedly by a stray bullet outside a bowling alley on Nov. 1 — it seems as if this might be the group’s swan song.

The album begins with Two Infinity Links, a solid opener addressing the rappers’ familial bond — a forever, or an infinity bond that runs in their blood, literally. The song sets the tone for the rest of the 18-song album, which could do without a couple of filler songs in a mostly listenable but uncreative debut for the duo.

Quavo and Takeoff sound their best when they rhyme about their invincible connection in songs like Hotel Lobby. Co-written by rapper Travis Scott and co-produced by Murda Beatz, Hotel Lobby almost has a western-style southern guitar riff interwoven with Migos’s signature trap production. Takeoff raps about Quavo, “I call him twin ’cause that be my brother.”

Standouts on the album also include To the Bone, featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again, a fun trap club song that sounds like it would be perfect for summer or to dance to on TikTok. Mixy is a change-up from the high energy on the album — it slows down as much as trap music can and speaks from the heart about a relationship that has soured, featuring R&B songstress Summer Walker.

Overall, Only Built for Infinity Links, is an album curated for Migos fans, featuring heavy hitters in the R&B/rap genre such as Gucci Mane in an intense, self-confident Us vs. Them and Chocolate featuring Gunna and Young Thug. The album doesn’t jump through hoops to diversify Migos’ very successful music formula to draw in new audiences, but fans will likely flock to it in remembrance of the late rapper.

After Takeoff’s death, Offset, who is his cousin, announced that he would be delaying the release of his solo album, which was due out Nov. 11. ★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Messy, Hotel Lobby

— Nardos Haile, The Associated Press

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JAZZ

Dan McCarthy
Songs of the Doomed: Some Jaded, Atavistic Freakout (TPR Records)

When a group of talented musicians decides to produce a potentially wild album, the results can be somewhere between hilarious and serious. Reading the title here offers a few clues as to what lies within. The fine print says: “Music inspired by the writings of Hunter S. Thompson.” In the notes, the gonzo political journalist Thompson is described as “a general dingbat.” One can see where this is going.

The talented Canadian musicians here are vibraphonist Dan McCarthy, guitarists Don Scott and Luan Phung, bassist Daniel Fortin and drummer Ernesto Cervini. To suggest that they are having huge fun here is an understatement. If you think that the brief first and last track guitar sounds suspiciously like a certain Hendrix, you’re off and running. The music is relentlessly energetic, frequently a tad raucous and more often much subtler than it sometimes appears. There are quieter and more introspective tracks, like Some Jaded, Atavistic Freakout, that one might expect to be edgy but isn’t. Irresponsible Gibberish is not an unexpected trip.

The notes also explain that the band created a new compositional style they call the “Gonzo Cypher.” This leads to some musically weird places and “likely obnoxious ‘tone rows.’” Hmmm. The appropriate way, therefore, to approach this terrific album is simply to let it happen. It is funky, quiet, in your face, sometimes beautiful and sometimes not. It will make you smile and accept whatever the heck gonzo cypher means.

After What Limes? or Owl Farm set you up, The High Water Mark offers a totally different and melodic change. I loved the surprises. Gonzo Journalism Article #3 is adventurous and actually serious. This is not goofy or silly music; it’s fun and complex and gets better and better with each listen.

I do have to add the final release notes. (Note: I skipped the whiskey.) “So grab a pint of whiskey, settle in, and let the vibes (no pun intended) wash over you. Once the initial waves of fear and loathing pass, you’ll probably really dig it.” And you will. ★★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: Kingdom of Fear, The High Water Mark

— Keith Black

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Julia Bullock
Walking in the Dark (Nonesuch)

No one who has followed Julia Bullock’s career will be surprised that her first solo album is made up of unconventional and deeply personal choices.

The Black American soprano proudly defies easy categorization. At home in a wide variety of genres — from modern and 18th-century opera, to classical lieder, to spirituals and popular song — Bullock is fiercely dedicated to social justice, and that passion imbues everything she does.

The first sound we hear on the opening number, Oscar Brown Jr.’s Brown Baby, is Bullock singing an unaccompanied phrase from the low end of her register. She gradually moves up her range as the piano (played by her husband, Christian Reif) joins in and the song becomes an impassioned plea for a better world for a new generation.

The next number is the haunting One by One by Connie Converse, a little-known composer who led a troubled life and disappeared at age 50; it allows Bullock to display the beauty of her warm, vibrato-rich sound.

The sombre mood is abruptly broken by the first crashing orchestral chord of Memorial de Tlatelolco from John Adams’ El Niño. It’s his setting of a Spanish poem by Rosario Castellanos decrying the massacre by Mexican armed forces of hundreds of unarmed civilians protesting the 1968 Olympics.

Bullock’s voice, joined at times by a chorus, soars in outrage and defiance over the forces of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with Reif conducting.

The longest and perhaps best-known selection on the album is Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, set to a passage from James Agee’s A Death in the Family, with the London Philharmonic again conducted by Reif.

In the space of 15 minutes, Barber and Agee conjure up a childhood memory of summer twilight, the warmth of a loving family, and the terror and inevitability of death. Bullock said she was drawn to the piece in part because her father died when she was nine, as Agee’s did when he was six.

If there’s one complaint to be made about the album it’s that it clocks in at a mere 43 minutes, even though standard CDs easily hold more than an hour of music. But along with the CD Nonesuch is issuing a vinyl recording, which has far less room.

And maybe it’s not such a bad thing for this singular artist to leave us wanting more. ★★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THIS: Knoxville: Summer of 1915 — Mike Silverman, The Associated Press