This Post Brought to You (Mostly) by AI

Contrary to what you may have read here, I don't only like, or like to write about, old music that managed to imprint on me in my ever-receding "formative" years. And though I am happily not a music critic by trade, and hence expected to keep up with the onslaught of all the latest developments in every genre, I do keep an ear trained fitfully on new releases. (I really like "Betty," for the record.) As I've mentioned previously, though I only seem to open up an aperture to new music every once in a while, I may be breaking that habit a bit lately, thanks in part to the pandemic lockdown and thanks in even larger part to the algorithms by which Big Tech is squeezing the last bit of life from the music business.

At least, that's how I found my way to a number of recent favorites. Via a Pandora station I created maybe a decade ago out of an impossibly eclectic mix of rock, pop, Americana, soundtrack music, et al., I've been led to at least three new faves I want to address here: to sleepy Atlanta chanteuse Faye Webster, to hardy folk trio Bowerbirds, and to sunny French globalist Jain; I'm pretty sure I was somehow exposed to the wonders of guitar goddess Madison Cunningham via a similar "you might like" playlist on Spotify (I have trouble keeping tracking, honestly). Another two I heard about via a music podcast and my own YouTube wanderings, respectively. Each of these artists could merit their own post, but here are six for the price of one.

1. Faye Webster is a what's-not-to-like kind of artist, a seemingly sweatless savant in the vein of Lyle Lovett or Tracy Thorn, with a whispery blur of a voice and strummy, recessive tunes that creep up on you—they mostly come off as smilingly sad-sack retro lounge-folk-soul ditties, many of them ladled liberally with pedal steel syrup. But if you really listen to the words, your grin may evaporate. Even the jokes are bleak: In the sweet-and-sour lament "Jonny," Webster sings,

I want to be happy
Find a man with an old name just like me
And get over how my dog is my best friend
And he doesn't even know what my name is

Or take this loping waltz, in which bemusement over small things not going your way—your favorite pitcher having to hang up his jersey, for instance—finds a perfect expression in the pang of an intermittent minor-key stab. And the singer's discontent grows from trivia to encompass economic injustice and finally end-of-life dementia:

I've seen my mother in pain
Begging for her mom to remember her name
I guess it doesn't work like that
It never really works like that

Ouch.

2. Bowerbirds are in a very familiar indie-folk vein, in the kind of studiedly stripped-down-yet-compositionally-ambitious vein of the Lisps, Fleet Foxes, or Iron & Wine, which are all recommendations in my book. What makes this Raleigh, N.C. trio stand out is lead singer Philip Moore, who is often a vocal dead ringer for the mannered baritone of Andrew Bird, whose music I love but which has, at least in recent years, lacked the rough-hewn, lo-fi campfire timbre that gives much of this latter-day folk its edge. So as much as I've grown to love Bowerbirds in their own right, I often feel like I'm hearing a great Andrew Bird side project, with an accordion in place of a fiddle. This song is worth checking out to hear the scope of their sound, but I am also drawn to this oddball video:
3. When I first heard the bouncy world pop of Jain, I confess that its accented English lyrics and Afrobeat pulse put me in mind of M.I.A. That impression has worn off as I've discovered the multivalent pleasures of her rock/pop sound. Like tUnE-yArDs's Merrill Garbus or Stewart Copeland, she's a white artist (in her case from the Occitan region of France) whose affinity for global sounds is attributable to being raised in Africa and/or the Middle East; in Jain's case it was Dubai and Congo-Brazzaville. Though I vastly prefer the sounds and songs on her first record, Zanaka, to her second, Souldier, I haven't yet heard a track of hers I don't at least like, and there are plenty I now love as much as anything in my catalogue. I find this bit of bright pop nonsense, for instance, absolutely irresistible:   
4. I probably should do a whole post on Madison Cunningham, and I have a feeling I will—this is an artist I will undoubtedly be following for a while, who, on the basis not only of her first few albums and EPs but also a series of indelible covers she's uploaded to YouTube, is a monster talent both as a writer and interpreter (and she's just 24!). At first her sound seemed to slot squarely in an Americana singer/songwriter vein, a la a latter-day Lucinda Williams or Maria McKee. And while she bears favorable comparison to those artists, the layers of her brilliance have only kept unfolding the more I listen: the unflashy but fascinating electric guitar parts on which her songs are built, from the bluesy "Trouble Found Me" to the contemplative yet gritty "Beauty Into Clichés"; the mature songcraft, both harmonically and lyrically, on songs like "Last Boat to Freedom" or "L.A. (Looking Alive)," which put her in the illustrious realms of Joni Mitchell and Loudon Wainwright III, respectively; and of course the powerful, soulful voice she seldom pushes, instead rising in her upper reaches into a gorgeously expressive head voice that bears the clear influence of Jeff Buckley.

It's very hard to pick one song by her. Click on any of the links above, or enjoy the single from her latest album, Who Are You Now, "Pin It Down."
And though she's not the main author of the following—that would be Audrey Assad—the following gives an indication of Cunningham's power as an interpreter. It's also a window into her previous life as a Christian artist; she grew up singing and playing guitar at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Calif., and her excellent first record, Authenticity, is a straight-up Christian record, and contains many essential Cunningham cuts. (This background is one reason among many I relished her recent cover of a song by fellow former-Christian-artist-if-not-former-Christian Sam Phillips.)
5. I first heard the next artist earlier this year when the hosts of WBEZ's Sound Opinions, Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot, had a Minneapolis DJ, Jade, on their show to recommend music. She recommended Dua Saleh, a Twin Cities pop/rap artist who is Sudanese and transgender, and whose jams are disarmingly tuneful and delivered with a raspy sneer. Though the song Jade brought was "Pretty Kitten," my favorite of theirs is this insinuating come-on.

6. The last band on this list I stumbled on thanks to this blog. While researching Brel's "Sur la place," I noticed there was a cover by a group calld Birds on a Wire—and then their name popped up again on YouTube when I was looking into the history of "Tonada de Luna Llena" for a recent post. Clearly this is a band with similar tastes! Indeed this French trio's eclectic mix of classical, folk, and pop is so up my alley they could have been invented in a lab by AI to match my tastes. And while I'm as unnerved as the next guy by the possibilities of technologized and monetized consumer surveillance, the tech that led me to all these artists is a matrix I'm grateful to be plugged into.