Bad Bunny surprise released a new album, “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana”. Many of his 22 songs return to the programmed trap beats that helped launch Bad Bunny’s career, but are now just part of the sonic mastery of a world-conquering star. In “Mr. October”, he sings and raps about wealth, clothes, fame, sex and celebrity, comparing himself to Michael Jackson and Reggie Jackson and rightly stating: “I changed the game”: “I changed the game”. But the track is far from triumphant; With strident piano notes, vaporous minor chords, and gliding electronic tones, the music fills every boast with anxiety. JON PARES
Absolutely unflappable Bronx rapper Ice Spice slyly taps into Afrobeats and soft-spoken, hooky Nigerian songwriter Rema, who delivers slick, robotic praise in what sounds like a cut-and-paste repeating chorus. Ice Spice responds with encouraging, human-sounding details: “Think about my future, I’ve got you all involved.” But the song ends with Rema’s repeated doubts – “Promise me you won’t abandon me” – instead of her sincere welcome. Why give him the last word? PAIRS
Style-fusing South African songwriter Desire Marea draws on funk and Afrobeat on “The Only Way.” His voice lifts a sustained melody and layered backing vocals over an arrangement that feels organic and hand-played: all staccato cross-rhythms (drums, bass, guitar, electric piano, trumpets) with a jittery, ever-changing beat and melodic peak. . other. The only lyrics in English are “It’s the only way” – and with music so urgent, there’s no need for more. PAIRS
If Esperanza Spalding has been in your feeds this week for precisely the wrong reasons, consider this your cue to close that tab. Spalding’s mind has been elsewhere: specifically Brazil, where the battle over the fate of the world’s largest rainforest is coming to a head. In “Não Ao Marco Temporal,” recorded in Rio de Janeiro, Spalding and a small group of musicians protest against the Marco Temporal, a recent attempt to roll back the territorial sovereignty of indigenous Brazilians that would have left the Amazon increasingly vulnerable to deforestation. (Brazil’s Supreme Court recently rejected the framework, but industry attempts to undermine that decision have continued.) Between the strums of cavaco and violão, the sound of drums and the squeaks of a cuica, Spalding sings of the “grabbing hands” that seek to rape the rainforest. “There are some men who will stop at nothing to get their way with the body of a woman or girl,” she and a small chorus of voices declare. “Right now they call it Brazil.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
Brittany Howard, who led the Alabama Shakes, deals with a disintegrating relationship on “What Now,” singing “If you want someone to hate, then blame it on me.” Over a ferocious, staccato funk beat, Howard controls her far-reaching vocals to make it clear that she “learns lessons I don’t want.” She is not happy about the breakup; She sings as if she has no choice. PAIRS
Madi Diaz sings about a high-risk crush on “Same Risk,” explaining both her physical passion and misgivings. “Do you think this could ruin your life? Because I could see it ruining mine,” she asks, and then wonders, “Are you going to throw me under the bus?” What begins with a modest acoustic guitar strum rises to an orchestral crescendo to match the urgency of her questions. PAIRS
“Hell” will be the opening track on “Little Rope,” the album that Sleater-Kinney will release in January and was made in the wake of the sudden deaths of Carrie Brownstein’s mother and stepfather. The song opens wide with anguish and inconsolable fury, as strident, elegiac verses explode into bitter, powerful choruses. Corin Tucker unleashes her scream with the word “why.” PAIRS
Jamila Woods with Saba, ‘Practice’
Jamila Woods takes the pressure off a new relationship on “Practice,” the latest single from her excellent album “Water Made Us.” “We don’t have to rush, it doesn’t have to be you,” she sings in an airy, relaxed voice, carried by an insistent rhythm. Chicago rapper Saba sounds equally cheerful and wise in her verse (“I learned from her, I moved on, I learned more”) and Woods’ lyrics expand on the song’s fun basketball metaphor. After all, in the immortal words of Allen Iverson, we’re talking about practice. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
“I lost my senses like I have so many times/Why do the answers seem impossible to find?” sings Sen Morimoto, who plays most of the instruments on his songs himself, on “Deeper.” A lurching rhythm, meandering chromatic harmonies, and keyboard and guitar forays that seem to have emerged from other songs simply add to the sense of disorientation. Morimoto’s saxophone solo sounds more self-assured than he does, but he’s clearly not too perturbed. PAIRS
Trumpeter Roy Hargrove was only 23 years old, but he was already near the top of the New York jazz scene when his friend and mentor Wynton Marsalis commissioned him to write “Love Suite in Mahogany.” The suite, which he performed with a septet at Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center in the fall of 1993, begins with a moonlight harmony descent, signaling Gil Evans and Billy Strayhorn (this was the Young era Lions; a direct address to teachers). was encouraged). It gradually finds its way into a slowly crawling groove before a false outro gives way to a punchy post-bop coda. The track cuts out as he tells the band the next movement of the suite. You can listen to the rest of the suite’s debut performance, which was just released as an LP on JALC’s Blue Engine Records. RUSSONELLO
Mendoza Hoff Revels, ‘New Ghosts’
There’s gristle and bone in every last satisfying bite of “Echolocation,” the debut album from Mendoza Hoff Revels, a four-piece band co-led by guitarist Ava Mendoza and bassist Devin Hoff. There’s also a delightfully wide range of musical forms at play. One moment, they’re descending directly from the slow drag of doom metal and stoner-rock; Later, Mendoza’s sly spiraling melodies have more to do with John Zorn’s tactics (both she and Hoff have played on Zorn projects). Her acid-soaked electric guitar rarely leaves center stage here. On “New Ghosts,” Mendoza, Hoff and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis hover around a heavy minor chord, occasionally reprising it into a jaw-dropping major key. Then Hoff and drummer Ches Smith join in, and the jam ascends into a gray cloud of swirling saxophone and punchy guitar. RUSSONELLO
boygenius, ‘Fear of heights’
Lucy Dacus regrets confessing her fear of heights in this wry highlight from boygenius’ new four-song EP, “The Rest”: “Made you want to test my courage, made me climb a cliff at night” . Although, like all boygenius songs, it’s a collaboration with her fellow singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker, here Dacus takes the lead, bringing complexity to a simple chord progression through the specificity of her lyricism. . “I never rode a motorcycle, I never smoked a cigarette,” she sings, balancing her intensity with dry humor. “I want to live a vibrant life, but I want to die a boring death.” ZOLADZ
Folklore and deceptively low-key songwriter Allegra Krieger released her album “I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane” in July; Now she expands it with “Fragile Plane – B-Sides”. On “Impasse,” she calmly confronts someone who has been “building a pretty big brand,” promoting “family values, patriotic songs” in a culture where “everyone here is trying to gain / Power or role or recognition.” Over a quiet modal guitar line, she warns that she might suddenly collapse and sings as if she doesn’t care if that happens. PAIRS
Gianna Greco and François R. Cambuzat, who have worked with post-punk artists such as Lydia Lunch, have spent the last few years traveling the world, documenting and collaborating with musicians performing traditional trance rituals. For their latest project, Ndox Électrique, they collaborated with Senegalese drummers and singers who perform healing spiritual possession rituals called n’doep, layering drones and aggressive noise-rock guitars over a fiercely propulsive rhythm, translating and transmuting the enchanting power of the music. . PAIRS
