2020s – Page 17

Julian Lennon | Breathe

“Julian Lennon achieved stardom with ‘Valotte’ and ‘Too Late for Goodbyes,’ a pair of Billboard Top Ten hits from the mid-’80s,” (AllMusic). “At that point, the tragic death of Julian’s father John was still fresh in public consciousness and, from a certain angle, the son resembled the parent: the piano ballad recalled such John classics as ‘Imagine.’ As Julian Lennon’s career progressed, such Beatles comparisons didn’t disappear, but they did fade as Lennon built a career as a classicist pop/rocker.”

“Jude is Julian Lennon’s seventh studio album, and his first album of new material in over ten years,” (Spill Magazine). His last album, the brilliant Everything Changes, noted a change in Lennon’s music, which became more complicated, and grappling with a great many internal and external issues lyrically. Jude is the same. This is a much more mature, content, and reflective Julian Lennon.”

For all of the adjectives “Breathe” might conjure up, “Beatle-esque” likely wouldn’t make most listeners’ top 10; Lennon seems to have broken away from his father’s songwriting palette in favor of some sonic territory of his own.

The 2022 track features verses built on a relentless barrage of short melodic phrases. The phrases are only three or four words each, employing only a few repeating melodic shapes. Starting in C# minor, the spare accompaniment often uses colorless suspended chords, allowing Lennon’s prominently-mixed lead vocal to fill in the blanks. At 0:43, the pre-chorus alternates between C major and C minor. After pacing back and forth in a small space for what seems like an eternity, the track is transformed at the chorus (reverting to C# minor at 1:12) by the introduction of a insistent percussion track, longer phrases with more space between them, and finally — “breathe.”

JVA | Not Gonna Beg

Jim Walker was born in Los Angeles and performed with several bands before forming “the schizophrenic pop group, Lost Anthony, which existed in the late 80s,” (JvaMusic.com). Walker found success writing film and TV scores.

With musical Tim Ellis, Walker formed a Portland-based acoustic power duo, Tim & Jim, which later opened for Crash Test Dummies, Loverboy, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Little Feat, Karla Bonoff, Boz Scaggs, Warren Zevon and many others.

The textbook rock track “Not Gonna Beg” (2020) shifts up a half-step at 1:52. At 2:16, another key change hits — but it takes awhile to realize that it returned the tune to the original key!

Leveret | Cotillion

Leveret is a collaboration among three of England’s most prominent traditional folk musicians. From the band’s site: “Andy Cutting, Sam Sweeney and Rob Harbron are each regarded as exceptional performers and masters of their instruments. Together their performances combine consummate musicianship, compelling delivery and captivating spontaneity. Leveret’s music is not arranged in the conventional sense and instead they rely on mutual trust, listening and responding. Their playing is relaxed and natural, drawing audiences in and inviting them to share in music making that is truly spontaneous and yet deeply timeless … Leveret’s music is firmly rooted in the English tradition but sounds fresh and new” … the trio’s “trademark groove, energy and intuitive playing” lands them in the territory of “finest tunesmiths in the folk field.”

The subtleties of which instrument is leading and which are following, the seasoned communication among the member of the trio, and the rock-solid time throughout are among the most noticeable features of this live performance of “Cotillion” (2022). The smooth and subtly shifting textures among the melodeon, concertina, and fiddle are quite hypnotic, making the modulation up a fourth (2:40) all the more impactful.

Dirty Loops + Cory Wong | Thriller

Swedish pop/funk/fusion phenoms Dirty Loops could have just done the bare minimum with its 2021 cover of Michael Jackson’s global smash hit “Thriller” (1982) They could have re-animated the original’s 16th-driven groove with an effortless fast 12/8, replete with off-kilter kicks and the frisson of their trademark re-harmonizations. They could have limited their scope to their usual keys/bass/drums trio sound. All of these options would have sounded amazing and garnered hundreds of thousands of views nearly overnight — a feat the band has accomplished consistently.

But Dirty Loops, who first gained a following by posting innovative pop covers on Youtube in the mid-2010s, have evolved over the past few years. The band now has the support of Quincy Jones, the producer of the original “Thriller.” Jones describes Jonah Nilsson, the band’s lead vocalist and keyboardist: “‘He’s got the perfect balance of right brain creativity and left brain music theory. It’s in his blood. He’s got soul, with one of the biggest ranges I’ve ever heard,'” (OrcaSound).

Not content to build incrementally on past accomplishments, the band adds a horn section and guitarist Cory Wong (perhaps best known for his work with the American band Vulfpeck) to its already wide-ranging gallery of textures. Starting at 3:20, there’s a quick turn into uncharted territory, leaving the original key of C# minor behind. After a transition, 4:04 brings a horn section feature in F# minor; 4:20 features a surprising summation in D# major; finally, an outro at 4:49 doesn’t go very far towards resolving much of anything — just have a listen. (In case you missed the band’s jump from DIY darlings to musical juggernauts, the tune is followed by a full 2.5 minutes of credits.)

ALDA | Fen-Fire Polska

From the website of Finnish traditional acoustic trio Alda: “The story of ALDA started in January 2018 on a late night at a folk music festival somewhere outside Helsinki, Finland. We had all met and heard each other play before, but never really had the opportunity to play tunes together – until now. It turned into a five-hour wild mayhem of energy, grooves, improvisations, crazy harmonies, and lots and lots of tunes …

ALDA was born in the aftermath of that session. – ‘We have to do this again!’ we thought to ourselves. So, we started composing and working on new music for the combination of saxophone, violin, and piano. The music that we have created is, just as its musicians, deeply rooted in the rich musical traditions of Finland and Sweden, based on traditional types of tunes such as polskas, polkas, schottisches, and waltzes … The energy of that first session is ever-present in what we do. Even as a band we regularly get together for sessions to remind ourselves why we fell in love with playing together in the first place.”

After a start in Bb major, the 2021 tune “Fen-Fire Polska” morphs into G major at 2:59, then reverts to the original key at 3:51, never losing its strong 3/4 drive.

please click on the image to hear the tune!

Stray Kids | Gone Away

“Gone Away” is featured 2021 album Noeasy, the second studio release by the South Korean boy band Stray Kids. Explaning the meaning of the title, band leader Bang Chen, who serves as a vocalist, rapper, dancer, and producer, said, “it [Noeasy] means that we want to leave a loud impact on the world with our music.” The album was widely recognized as one of the best K-pop releases of 2021. Writing for The Lantern, a student-run newspaper at Ohio State University, Chloe McGowan said,”Stray Kids fully utilizes the individual talent of each member on this album as they continue to push boundaries and expectations for K-pop while testing the limits and creative devices of their own sound.”

“Gone Away” begins in Db and dramatically shifts up a half step to D at 3:15

Astral Drive | Love, Light + Happiness

After performing with, producing, and/or writing for The Jam, Paul McCartney, XTC, Duran Duran, The Cure, Thompson Twins, Sting, Hot Chocolate, Cyndi Lauper, Natalie Imbruglia, Pixie Lott, and Bryan Adams, what does one do for an encore?

“After decades of making records, hits and misses for other artists, Phil Thornalley began making his own under the Astral Drive moniker in 2017, a combination of seventies recording techniques, impromptu jam sessions (with himself) and starry-eyed idealism,” (The Progressive Aspect) … Thornalley seems to have enjoyed the broader focus allowed by working for himself: “In my days as a songwriter-for-hire, I could happily contrive a tune at the drop of a hat, imagining the artist’s voice and sensibilities as I made choices about melody or chords. But for my own music I have the freedom to allow the songs to bubble up from the unconscious. Perhaps that’s a more natural and organic route than writing in a caffeinated sweat, hoping to deliver something for an impatient platinum-selling artist.”

Astral Drive’s 2021 single “Love, Light and Happiness” opens in A minor with a deceptively simple five-step ascending melodic run (the tonic to the fifth degree of the scale). Via a common tone, the melody lofts right over the border of the A minor tonality and makes an ecstatic landing in the anthemic chorus (an F# minor/E minor vamp) at 0:55. F/G provides some sleight of hand for the transition back into the A minor verse (1:18 – 1:24).

Bull | Disco Living

Silent Radio UK explains that the York, UK-based band Bull “were formed in 2011 by vocalist and songwriter Tom Beer and guitarist Dan Lucas with a mission to simply make the music they wanted to listen to, inspired by their ’90s heroes such as Pavement, Yo La Tengo and the Pixies.” DIY reviewed “Disco Living,” the band’s 2020 single: One of the band members ” … walked past one mansion which was under construction and it had a facade of the completed house on the front with the extremely bold tag line, Discover Effortless Living. I thought this was really funny so I wrote the song with that as the opening line, kind of about that and how absurd it all was.”

The video is based almost entirely on advertising “air dancers” and human approximations of same. The band is almost completely upstaged by the funkier-than-average air dancers, occasionally joining in via window-within-window footage of them having absolutely no fun at all. “It’s everyone’s favorite slogan / It’s a ‘Food Coffee Food Cocktails Party!’ / Help me forget all my problems / Or I’ll pay someone to solve them.”

The very early whole-step key change kicks in gradually (0:55 – 1:03), leaving the listener a bit disoriented. It feels like the tempo should have also increased, as if someone turned up the playback speed on a vinyl record. But the the tempo remains the same — and the party continues from there.

Brad Mehldau | New York State of Mind

In spring 2020, jazz pianist Brad Mehldau released a suite of tunes inspired by the opening months of the COVID-19 crisis. “Locked down in the Netherlands, (he) decided to compose a 12-part cycle that reflects his response to our new normal,” (Downbeat). “Don’t come looking for Mehldau’s long, lustrous improvisations—or even short ones, though there might be some light embellishments here and there. This is a composer’s work. If its bite-size pieces are easily digestible, so are its penetrating melodies. Like the thinned-out harmonies, they emphasize the isolation at the heart of both the work and the context. Well, that and the pure strangeness … Billy Joel’s “New York State Of Mind” and Jerome Kern’s “Look For The Silver Lining” find new reservoirs of heartbreak.”

On his Bandcamp page, Mehldau released these liner notes for the Suite: ” … a musical snapshot of life the last month in the world in which we’ve all found ourselves. I’ve tried to portray on the piano some experiences and feelings that are both new and common to many of us. I’ve pointed to some of the strong feelings that have arisen the past month or more … a bittersweet gut pain that has hit me several times out of the blue when I think back on how things were even just a few months ago, and how long ago and for away that seems now … Billy Joel’s ‘New York State of Mind,’ a song I’ve loved since I was nine years old, is a love letter to a city that I’ve called home for years and that I’m away from now. I know lots of people there and miss them terribly and I know how much that great city hurts right now.”

Like Joel’s original, Mehldau’s cover grows most sentimental during its softly stated middle section. Although the tune is in C major overall, the midsection (1:10 – 1:43) is a parade of ii-V progressions through multiple keys whose eventual destination is back home to the original key. During the piece’s closing bars, a distant echo of the iconic main theme of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” somehow boosts the NYC quotient even further.

Michael Lucke’s wonderful transcription of Mehldau’s solo is featured on this video.

Bill Wurtz | Meet Me in September

The Internet Music Genius You’ve Never Heard Of: “(Bill) Wurtz’s content stretches back to the early internet of 2002, and looking at the breadth and depth of his work highlights exactly how ahead of his time he was—and continues to be. Wurtz has become a massive success by melding bipolar shitposts, philosophical reflections on existence and legitimately exciting music with whiplash-inducing animation, (MelMagazine). It’s exactly what the democratizing force of the internet, and platforms like YouTube, was intended to nurture.

‘It’s funny because some of the people who become most famous on the internet aren’t the ones trying to capture that popularity, but ignore it. That’s Bill,’ says Taylor Lorenz, who writes about digital culture for The Atlantic. ‘Absurdist, quirky, lo-fi humor is very mainstream now, but the internet kind of caught up to Bill in a sense. I see him having a long-term dedicated fanbase when the trends pass, too. When you do something so consistently for so long, you create diehard fans. And he’s been true to his art for a long time.’

To watch a Bill Wurtz video is to explore the head of an idiosyncratic man—one who makes you struggle with preconceived notions of what coherent art is supposed to be. Wurtz flashes talent on all sorts of instruments, including piano, bass, drums and his own voice, which is a silky tenor with range and energy. He produces animated videos that sparkle with neon text, dancing stick figures and vaporwave-y transitions. He also wades in Weird Twitter, offering punchlines designed to inspire confused laughs.”

Released today on Youtube, Wurtz’s tune “Meet Me in September” is a 3.5-minute stream-of-consciousness meditation somehow grafted onto a travelogue of the USA, percolating along with consistent energy but never presenting the listener with much of an energetic peak or valley. “I’m greedy, so I’ll make more than my fair share of bad choices” is a representative lyric. Angular syncopations, multi-layered percussion, and ear-catching trills coming from all corners of the instrumentation are all part of the mix. After a start in E major, we shift to F major at 0:56. At 1:33, we’ve fallen back into E major via a short instrumental transition that sounds like a warped slinky making its fitful way down a stairway after it’s been run over by a bicycle. There are more shifts in tonality to follow; listen to it all, then join Wurtz’s growing legion of listeners in asking “WTF was that?”