Music Diary, Vol. -18

For the rationale behind this mad effort, explanations here. The full series of Music Diary posts are here. The full playlist is above, also here.

Week of Sept. 4-10, 2023

Lyrics: White Stripes, "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)"

Song: The best Slovak swing tune I know, and now you know it too. You’re welcome.

Album: Another Rockaway records find: this vintage “world music” collection, which ranges from Malta to Mississippi, Finland to Peru. Many gems on here, but my fave track is by the Aegean Islands’ Anna & Amalia Hatzidakis.

Lyrics: Rob Kendt, "Inspections"

Song: Sometimes it’s just one note in a song that snags you. I love everything about this Gillian Welch/David Rawlings classic, but it’s the blue note, a C-natural over the D chord, on the second “died” (first at :18), that gets me every time.

Album: I’ve never seen any of the Bollywood films Vijaya Anand scored, but this dizzying, endlessly entertaining collection of highlights almost makes me imagine I have.

Lyrics: Billie Holiday (Suessdorf/Blackburn), "Moonlight in Vermont"

Song: Pacific Overtures is definitely in my top 3 Sondheim faves, and this jewel-like, razor-sharp song is one among many reasons why.

Album: My only complaint about this gorgeous 2020 collaboration between American folksters Kacy and Clayton and Kiwi troubadour Marlon Williams is that there’s not enough of it—still, this is a half hour of timeless, heart-bending music. I’ll take it!

Lyrics: Lavender Country, "I Can't Shake the Stranger Out of You"

Song: I love Paolo Conte in full-on gruff pirate mode, but this jaunty Continental polka is mostly sung by his sweet-voiced bassist, Jino Touche, with some choice interjections from Conte, and it’s an utter delight.

Album: Oh, this record. I can’t say enough about how this 1986 masterpiece by Astor Piazzolla and his “new tango” quintet stretches, deconstructs, and reconstitutes time itself within its capacious 7 tracks.

Lyrics: Brent Barrett (Weill/Nash), "How Much I Love You"

Song: Mira Nair memorably used this lilting Papy Tex classic for the love scene in MISSISSIPPI MASALA, even though its Congolese lyrics are all about protecting your family from witchcraft. Either way it’s a bop.

Album: Hear it singing, “Yes!”

Lyrics: Magnetic Fields, "I Think I Need a New Heart"

Song: I highly recommend all of Mickey Baker’s 1973 album MISSISSIPPI DELTA BLUES, but this otherworldly rendition of a JB Lenoir tune is next level, like it’s being carried on fitful celestial radio waves. (As Andrew Hickey pointed out, it shows the influence of Baker’s study with Xenakis.)

Album: Your mileage may vary with ’90s-era acoustic bro jam music, but G Love’s debut was on heavy rotation in my house when it came out. It still says summer to me, for one thing, and, though we didn’t put it this way then, it still slaps.

Lyrics: Semler, "Youth Group" 

Song: Don’t let the breezy clip of this catchy, flamenco-adjacent tune by Souad Massi fool you: The French lyrics are a call to do better by our neighbor, to pray, to contemplate, to not take good for granted. Amen to all that.

Album: Alex Ross was right about Arvo Pärt: that too many admirers focus on the drone rather than the drama of his work. Yes, his pieces can be trance-like, but, as on this essential collection, they are also arrestingly vivid and often wrenching.