Lady – Tell The Truth

{Lady will be perfoming on Wednesday April 17th at the Troubadour in West Hollywood along with Lee Fields & the Expressions and LA’s very own Jungle Fire. If all goes well, they’ll also be our guests on next week’s Melting Pot on KPFK!}

In a year that already boasts a half-dozen fantastic retro-soul releases, Truth & Soul’s Lady represents the most interesting and unexpected of the bunch. Composed of the duo Nicole Wray and Terri Walker backed by the Truth & Soul house musicians, Lady certainly sounds at home with labelmate Lee Fields and other retro-soulsters such as Sharon Jones, Nicole Willis. What really stands apart is both the fact of having twin lead vocalists and the way these vocalists sing. In many instances retro-styled bands will attempt to fairly accurately recreate the sounds of 1960s & 1970s. Certanly the backing music from the T&S crew hits on some recongizable singposts of sound, particularly from early 1970s Hi Records, but Wray and Walker’s style, phrasing and attitude don’t quite have that same feel. They sound decidedly a part of contemporary R&B style. For some purists that might be an issue, personally I think it’s their greatest strength as it gives the sound of Lady something that many other bands simply don’t have. There’s a certain edge to the sweetness here and a distinctiveness of sound that makes me very excited to hear what will be coming on down the line from these wonderful ladies.

If you don’t get a chance to catch them in action (or need more convincing), you should check out the very slick video for “Get Ready”:

Charles Bradley – Strictly Reserved For You

2013 is shaping up to be a banner year for retro-styled soul sounds. As you’ll see over the next few weeks there have been a number of brand new dynamite soul releases already this year. Charles Bradley’s 2nd album for Dunham/Daptone, Victim Of Love, builds on the debut and adds some new wrinkles into the “Screaming Eagle Of Soul” repetoire. “Stricly Reserved For You” was our first taste of the new record and it remains to my ears the strongest track.

Jason Molina – The Harvest Law

Even though I considered myself a long time fan of Jason Molina’s work, at his passing I was overwhelmed with how much music the man recorded. One of the drawbacks of working at a station that has no working library and no highly organized music department is that you are 100% responsible for tracking down your music. In times where there is a lot going on personally, such as grading which tends to be the thing that takes me far away from my “life” as a DJ, it means that I’m not able to stay up on new releases. At Molina’s passing I was particularly saddened that I hadn’t heard of what would be his final release before death, 2012’s Autumn Bird Songs. The collection wasn’t meant to be a swan song. It was meant to be a compliment to artwork from William Schaff (that’s some of his work on the cover) in a book called From Blacksheep Boys to Bill Collectors. As possibly Molina’s final statement, the EP is a heartbreaker. Hearing the changes in Molina’s voice give you a sense why he felt it was important enough to take a hiatus to work on his health issues. The wounded quality of Molina’s voice gives “The Harvest Law” an even greater weight than it’s cryptic lyrics suggest. There’s a finality present as he counts down “twelve fires,” a process that sounds as if the world is ending, made all the more terrifying through the knowledge that there will be no more from Jason Molina.

{Molina’s Label, Secretly Canadian, has chosen to honor his memory by streaming all of his recorded works, take the time to dig in and get lost…}

Word came out and hit like a punch in the gut for a lot of people who care about good music, Jason Molina passed away this past Saturday at the far too young age of 39. For just about the past 20 years Molina has produced some of the most fascinating, frustrating, inscrutable, passionate and soulful music in virtual obscurity. I first came to hear of Molina in 1996 or 1997 when his debut release as Songs: Ohia was released. I wasn’t able to get the record added to our playlist at Album 88, but I sure played the hell out of it when I could and kept on playing Molina’s music wherever else I could on the radio. Songs from that first record were required listening on many a road trip over the years. More than anyone other recent singer/songwriter, besides perhaps Elliot Smith, the music of Jason Molina has a haunting quality that sticks with you. It’s not a sound for everyone, but if it is for you, well I’m sure you’re like me and deeply mourning the loss of a talented though troubled man. I’ll be playing an hour of Molina’s music this Sunday on Melting Pot, here are 5 songs that will definitely be in the playlist.

 

Songs: Ohia – Our Republic

More than any other song “Our Republic” is the one that keeps finding it’s way into my mind. Part of it is in the lyrics, which for the most part are as inscrutable as much of the other songs on the debut, but in what passes for a chorus there is this lovely line that’s always stuck with me, “you should know, trouble comes from a passionate word, you should know passion comes from a troublesome word.” Musically the song is marvel for a particular reason. After all these years of listening to it I still can’t tell if the instrument at the end is a saxophone or violin/viola. Charles Mingus talked about how if he had a group of bass players as talented as him they could mimic a horn section. To my ears it sounds like this might be one of those rare instances. I never heard anything quite like it, so it makes sense that it would pop up here in one of the first songs I’d hear from such a distinctive musician.

Songs: Ohia – How To Be The Perfect Man

Whereas the debut record seemed to be built out of esoteric lyrics put together in ways that didn’t even seem like they were from the 20th century, many later albums mined much more clearly personal territory while retaining Molina’s distinctive sense of phrasing. “Perfect Man” is less a tutorial than a plea from Molina. He knows he’s not the perfect man, he knows he’s never going to be a perfect man, but he’s still hopeful that the woman he loves will “Be mine, til you’re reminded of something better, be mine, til it comes along.”

Songs: Ohia – Baby Take A Look

It wasn’t until Molina’s death that I reaquainted myself with this stunner from the Lionness. In contrast to the pain of love lost that was often in a number of songs from this period of Molina’s writing, “Baby Take A Look” is awfully tender. It strikes me as the kind of thing that might have been written in reply to an argument and as a reminder of the love he had to share.

Songs: Ohia – Goodnight Lover

In a career of fine and distinctive songwriting, in my opinion, this is the best song Molina ever wrote. Such a personal appeal to a former lover that I always felt the performance was almost too intimate for anyone else’s ears than the person it was written for. A true heartbreaker for sure.

Songs: Ohia – Blue Factory Flame

It’s truly astounding looking at the full career output of Jason Molina. Prolific doesn’t even seem like it fits the body of work. I was amazed at how many recordings I’d never even heard and while I can’t say every single song speaks to me in the way his earliest recordings did, “Blue Factory Flame” was one of the tracks that stopped me in my tracks. It’s hard to listen to these lyrics, so focused on his own end of days, a little over a week after his death. While I feel “Goodnight Lover” is the best thing Molina ever wrote, I’m not sure there’s any thing he ever more deeply sung than this track.

Amatorski – Never Told

In a show full of fantastic brand new music last week, I think the biggest revelation was this track from the Belgian group Amatorski. I hadn’t heard anything from the group before, and the first couple of tracks that I heard from this were filled with promise, but didn’t fully grab me. All that changed with “Never Told,” which begins soulful and sparse with piano, drums and bass and continues a nice slow burn when the two vocalists are added. Things open up unexpectedly towards the end as a variety of more post-rock elements enter in giving the whole song a decidely cinematic feel and scope. TBC’s other tracks may be a bit too experimental for this group to find a large audience here in the states, but “Never Told” is easily one of the most marvelous things I’ve heard in 2013, already something I can guarantee will be there at the end of the year when we run down the best music of the year.