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Dispatches from the Highlands
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between a winter dreamland and a hymnal, is perfect for this time of year. Mering's previous e ort Titanic Rising was featured here and my then description of her sounding "right at home alongside contempo- raries like Father John Misty or Sharon Van Etten" with "shades of Beach Boys melodic themes, or early 70s Southern California songwriting" is fully applicable here. at 2019 release was apparently part one of a tril- ogy with And In the Darkness, Hearts
Album Notes from Erickson “The Soundtrack to your Chill”
Little Simz No ank You
Little more than 15 months a er
Sometimes I Might Be Introvert , Little Simz is back with No ank You . It's been an eventful year for the British artist. Her 2021 LP garnered critical acclaim, including the Mercury Award. She attracted additional attention for the cancellation, and the justication as to why, of her US tour. en in December, somewhat surprisingly, she dropped No ank You , only ten tracks but with no shortage of views on numerous topics, most notably the music industry, her thoughts on what that ideally should entail, and her experience within. Simz' ow and rhyme schemes largely pick up where they le o , and as with Sometimes , the lyrics demand attention. e unabashed condence in the message and delivery eludes the braggadocio that so o en accompanies music of the ilk. e R&B/soul orchestral avor of the beats and backing tracks bubble with a distilled crispiness. Simz chose No ank You as the title for reasons that become increasing in number as the album unfolds. On behalf of her fans, the response is equally clear: No, thank you .
Aglow representing the second install-
ment. God help me whenever the nal entry arrives because this one lands a notch above Titanic and was assuredly in my top ten of 2022. Guranfoe Gumbo Gumbo (October 2022)
Prog rock is a delicate needle to thread. e genre itself is a wide spectrum, but far too of- ten it can easily come across as overly showy, grandiose, pompous, where the tunes are an excuse for the musicians to exhibit their virtu- osity while creating the auditory equivalent of empty calories. Not so for Guranfoe. e English quartet out of Norwich cra accessible compositions that allow their prociency to be demonstrat- ed in an organic fashion. In other words, the horse is before the cart. Yes, Guranfoe are progy, but also psych, and jam fans will likely nd something to indulge themselves in here as well. e title of their second album, Gumbo Gumbo , stood out considering the deployment of the word from other artists who could be classied along similar genre lines at various times through- out their careers. Funnily enough, the band went by the name "Gumbo Variation" for the rst four years of their existence. Go gure.
Weyes Blood And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
Gorgeous. I am unable to more succinctly sum up And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow , the h album from Natalie Mering, aka Weyes Blood. Arrangements, vocals, harmo- nies, it's all simply stunning. Released in No- vember, the spellbinding mood, somewhere
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