What’s New
Jorja Smith, ‘Dancing’
For a decade, the English R&B songwriter and singer Jorja Smith has been probing emotional quandaries with knowing vocals and insinuating rhythms. She continues on her new album, “What Are the Odds.” In “Dancing,” over an electronically distilled Latin beat, Smith sings, “It’s been a while / Take me for one last dance again.” Is it a reunion or a test?
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Rapsody featuring Karabo ya Morena and Mr. Porter, ‘No Way’
The singer and rapper Rapsody’s new album, “God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops,” is a declaration of faith, self-confidence, family, maturity, and cosmic and African-diaspora connections. Rapsody recorded much of the album in South Africa and in “No Way” she’s joined by Karabo ya Morena, a gospel choir from Soweto. African percussion defines a six-against-four beat as Rapsody lays claim to her culture, her career and her conscience. “Ain’t no way I could be other than I am,” she declares.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Carly Simon featuring Andreas Vollenweider, ‘Slowly’
While grappling with debilitating health problems, Carly Simon wrote and recorded “Comes in Waves,” her first album since 2009, singing about love and perseverance. The album title comes from the lyrics of “Slowly.” Andreas Vollenweider’s harp hints at Asian modes as Simon leads choral harmonies, counseling patience amid misfortune: “This doesn’t last,” she promises. “It’s bound to pass.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Erykah Badu and the Alchemist, ‘Witch Doctor’
With “Witch Doctor,” Erykah Badu makes one of her sporadic reappearances, abetted by one of hip-hop’s most subtly inventive producers, the Alchemist. Badu promises, “I know how to break that curse” and sets herself apart from a long list of pop-culture witches. The Alchemist takes over the end of this six-minute track, toying with percussion, electronic sounds, manipulated voices and dubby spatial effects, casting a sonic incantation.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Julia Holter, ‘My Lost One’
The composer and producer Julia Holter creates pieces that melt song forms into immersive reveries. In “My Lost One,” from her new album “Materia,” the lyrics envision trees and animals invading her house, while the music evolves from a distant, whispery lullaby to an accelerating onrush.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Horse Jumper of Love, ‘Heather (2013)’
Indie rock revels in the tension between confession and encryption, especially when backed by knotty guitar riffs. “I am dishonest this way,” the Boston band Horse Jumper of Love allows in “Heather (2013)” one of 13 outtakes added to the reissue of its self-titled 2013 debut album. The volcanic guitar crescendo deserved to escape the archives.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Cornelius featuring Arto Lindsay, ‘Bad Advice”
“Refractions” — by the Japanese producer and musician Keigo Oyamada, who records as Cornelius — brings clean-lined minimalism to funk and rock. “Bad Advice” is a funk track topped by the calmly cryptic vocals, in English and Portuguese, of Arto Lindsay, who grew up in Brazil and led the 1970s no wave New York band DNA. The production revels in prismatic syncopations: the way beats, rhythm guitar and sustained synthesizers can interact for nearly physiological effects.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
What’s Big in … Portugal
Chico da Tina, ‘Pega Ou Larga’
No. 1 in Portugal this week is “Pega ou Larga” (“Take It or Leave It”) by the songwriter Chico da Tina. Tina is short for concertina, a traditional squeezebox that he has used to jovially personalize hybrids of — among other styles — pop, hip-hop, trap, Brazilian forró and the regional music of Minho in northern Portugal. In “Pega ou Larga,” he’s a sort-of boyfriend wondering where he stands. Is the woman he has been dating for eight months stringing him along? Cheating? A wordless refrain tries for nonchalance, but the verses grow exasperated and desperate: “If you don’t want to be with me, don’t hold me back,” he insists, with folkloric castanets and concertina in the mix.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
What’s New in Jazz
Henry Threadgill, Vijay Iyer and Dafnis Prieto, ‘Last Night’
The saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill has a Pulitzer Prize; the pianist Vijay Iyer and the drummer Dafnis Prieto are both MacArthur fellows. On “Fifteen,” their new album as a trio, they spur one another into bristling harmonies and tricky swinging rhythms, but also into moments of wry humor and delicate concentration. “Last Night,” a Threadgill composition, is all angles, with jagged melodies and a shifting meter; it builds a long, seething dramatic arc.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Jon Batiste, ‘Blue Monk’
Jon Batiste has just released three solo piano albums: one with adaptations of Mozart pieces (“Black Mozart”) and two featuring Thelonious Monk compositions (“Monk Movements” and “Monk Meditations”). Batiste’s New Orleans flamboyance and classical precision both inform his takes. The laconic “Blue Monk” races into dazzling single-note sprints, chromatic tangents and hints of gospel, but holds onto the cantankerous essence of Monk’s music.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The post 10 Songs We’re Talking About appeared first on New York Times.
