The Predatory Wasp
In a first (and probably last) for the blog, I’m posting this without listening to it. I’m so very hyped for the release on Javelin on Friday that I don’t want any further spoilers ahead of enjoying it in its entirety. But as a Sufjan obsessive, I couldn’t let today’s release go past unblogged. I expect it’s great: either way, I don’t want to know.
The new single from his forthcoming LP Javelin which lands next month, on which Stevens plays every instrument with additional vocals from adrienne maree brown, Hannah Cohen, and Megan Lui. I haven’t been this excited about an album for quite some time.
Anjimile’s 2020 debut album Giver Taker came out of nowhere and was one of the year’s best, blending low-key folk with introspective, beautifully delivered lyrics. Three years on his latest LP The King just arrived, and although the introspection is still there, production-wise it’s a much bigger, brasher, more confident proposition. Time will tell if this lives up to the promise of its predecessor, but on the first couple of listens Anybody is a clear highlight.
The Toronto-based artist on the spellbinding power of a 70-year-old composition.
The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!
Formerly known as Clara Engel, Avi C. Engel is a prolific and multi-faceted Toronto-based artist whose music has been described as “folk noir,” and “minimalist holy blues from another galaxy.” Their influences span genres and media, amongst them Vasko Popa, Virginia Woolf, Theodore Roethke, Jim Jarmusch, Arvo Part, Robert Johnson, Gillian Welch, and Jacques Brel. In their own words, “I’m not writing the same song over and over so much as writing one long continuous song that will end when I die”, which is about as beautifully bleak a statement as I can imagine.
Their latest album Sanguinaria marries equally poetic lyrics with sparse instrumentation, building atmospheres that move beyond ‘haunting’ into territory that is almost unbearably raw and unsettling, but with a lightness of touch and attention to detail that draws you in completely.
For their One Track Mind selection, Avi has dived back into the movie vaults to the soundtrack of a nearly 80 year old noir classic.
Our lord and saviour Sufjan is back with – IMO – one of his finest songs for years, So You Are Tired; the lead single from his new album Javelin, due out in October. It’s absolutely vintage Suffers, with an outro beautiful enough to rival anything he’s ever recorded. I have enormous hopes for this album, which is described as “his first in full singer-songwriter mode since Carrie & Lowell.” Fuck. Yes. I love everything about this, with the exception of the deeply hideous title font on the artwork. But I forgive him.
Recorded following the death of her producer and close friend, Julie Byrne’s first album in six years The Greater Wings embraces her sorrow and attempts to find personal growth in the desolation of loss. Gently meandering from traditional folk compositions to more ambient, textural pieces, it’s an undeniably sad album, but richly, rewardingly so, for the listener as much as its creator.
The list of instruments Clara Engel plays on their latest album Sanguinaria starts familiar, but very quickly takes a sharp left turn: voice, acoustic guitar, electric cigar box guitar, talharpa, gudok, cajón, wooden trunk with soft mallets, tongue drum, melodica, all of which combine to create an atmosphere that is both otherworldly and yet deeply rooted in the earthiest of folk traditionalism. None more so is this evident than in the incredible album closer Larvae, with its subdued yet relentless drum rhythm, ghostly strings, and lyrics which beautifully combine the celestial and terrestrial.
Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara releases her new album London Ko today, exploring Malian blues, folk and r&b and blending traditional West African sounds with contemporary production. The album includes a number of collaborations, including Damon Albarn, Roberto Fonseca, Yemi Alade, M.anifest and this gem from US soul legend Angie Stone.
https://www.normanrecords.com/records/197161-fatoumata-diawara-london-ko
Kate Stables on the prismic, reflective qualities of a Paul Simon classic
The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!
This Is The Kit is the alias of English musician Kate Stables. Established in 2003, she released her first album Krülle Bol in 2008 and has over four subsequent albums – the latest of which was 2020’s Off Off On for Rough Trade – established a sound deeply rooted in the folk traditions of storytelling, with songs evoking an earthy, tactile sense of time and place one moment and ethereal, dream-like atmospheres the next.
Recently she announced her new album, Careful of your Keepers, due for release 09 June along with the lead single Inside Outside which you can listen to below.
For her One Track Mind selection, Kate has penned some typically poetic words about a favourite track from Paul Simon’s seminal album Graceland.
Rozi Plain’s album Prize came out in January and completely passed me by, despite it being reviewed it various publications I read. She was recently announced for Glastonbury and I’m currently attempting to listen to every act listed: this stopped me in my maniacal tracks. If you like gentle melodies and minimalist, electronic folk that sits somewhere between This Is The Kit and Zero 7, you might well be into this.
The Predatory Wasp 