1) H.E.R., “Back of My Mind” / Force-of-nature Gabriella Wilson is back, following a string of successful EPs—and a couple Grammys—with a first proper full-length. “Back of My Mind” is a real trip: an emotional and musical journey through many styles and sentiments. At nearly 80 minutes’ worth of music, the album contains a few “are we there yet?” moments, but the scenery and conversation all along the way proves top-notch.
2) The music of Men I Trust / If members of the Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star stayed up all night spinning European jazz, they might wake up the next day and write songs like this. Men I Trust, a Montreal outfit fronted by Emmanuelle Proulx, makes music that is dreamy, inscrutable and oh so magnetic.
3) Amythyst Kiah, “Wary + Strange” / What an opening statement from Kiah, as the Tennessee native rejects soapbox speeches and empty philosophies on the opening track “Soapbox.” From there, Kiah crafts one of the most self-assured, soulful, layered albums of the year. Every song reveals depths to mine while working on the heart and the body right here, right now.
4) Jericho Brown, “Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry” / This week, I was reminded of this 2020 poem from the generous, acclaimed Brown—a work from within the eye of the pandemic, yet one which speaks to something universal and collective about our ways of moving through the world. Brown opens the poem with an ode to the essential workers who stock shelves and bag groceries. His realistic yet rhapsodic language still staggers me. Consider passages like this:
I want so little: another leather bound
book, a gimlet with a lavender gin, bread
so good when I taste it I can tell you
how it’s made.
And:
I’m in a mood about America
today. I have PTSD
about the Lord. God save the people who work
in grocery stores. They know a bit of glamour
is a lot of glamour. They know how much
it costs for the eldest of us to eat. Save
my loves and not my sentences.
5) Will Leitch, “How Lucky” / The latest from one of my favorite podcasters and cultural commentators is a mystery novel that enfolds topics such as disability, chosen family, Internet culture and the reliability of our narrators. Leitch plots his points well, but the true beauty of this book is the kindness it offers. The book houses a compassionate-against-the-odds view of its characters and the world which reveals itself in wonderful little asides and surprising scenes.