Rag and Bone

Just two for you this week. I’ve more to discuss, but this duo has a nice symmetry to it I wouldn’t dare sacrifice. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

I never write my opening blurb for Music review days first – it’s not the point of the article, so why dwell on it? It is with some horror, however, that I realize I’ve submitted recommendations for a country act and a hip hop act in the same stroke, two genres that, in their processed top-40 form, represent the most vile atrocities of sound you or I are ever likely to suffer through. You know it, and I know it, and you have my firmest assurances that I’d never inflict anything that bad upon you.

Trust me, just listen.

Invincible is easily the most thuggish hip hop I still genuinely enjoy. I loathe the stereotypical brain-dead drug-dealing misogynistic crap that makes up the most visible slice of the hip hop genre, and tend to shy away from any artist taking up elements even vaguely resembling it. Drawling gangstahs opening up every song with a litany of “uh” is like nails on a chalkboard, it wounds me. Invincible hooked me when I discovered that this artist was a white woman from Detroit – with endorsements from towering icons of orthodox rap like Talib Kweli – who writes about the economic conditions in blue-collar Michigan and her identity as a Palestinian immigrant much more than her desire to waste fools. Ilana Weaver is fierce and eloquent about her own politics, pouring a sharp intelligence through creative feats of rhythm and rhyming to rival any poet I’ve yet encountered. Rhyming “flesh is bio degradable / people equal deflatable” with “I’ll be the gabriel / with a sledgehammer” is incredibly powerful when it strikes you, posing Ilana simultaneously as the symbol of working class opression and as an icon of religious deliverance. This is an artist using music as a clarion call, asking for consciousness and passion from her listeners and pounding malice on anyone not listening. Even more importantly, the music and beats she raps over are mesmerizing and gorgeous in their own right and incorporate Middle-Eastern inflections and rocky guitars with equal grace. This is devoid of the boom-click bullshit taken up by every other hip hop artist trying to look like Nas. The learning curve for someone not already enthusiastic about the genre is enormous, but what’s there is a phenomenal expression of politics and intellect wrapped in an incredible sonic landscape.
Invincible – Sledgehammer

Deer Tick is alt-country in its rawest form, the product of 21-year old frontman John McCauley’s youth and what I can only presume to be a whole lot whiskey and disillusionment. Sounding (mercifully) much closer to Leonard Cohen than Garth Brooks, debut album War Elephant is the sound of naivety breaking to pieces. Kicking things off with the aptly named “Ashamed” where McCauley claims “I should have been an angel / but I’m too dumb to speak” sets the tone of wide-eyed wonder and terrible self-deprecation that marks the whole album. I love this man’s voice, a swooning growl that’s more Dylan than Waits, with a passion. The band masterfully cribs some of the most affecting tunes in pop music from the last thirty years and turns them to their own use, most notably transforming the melody and rhythm of Brown Eyed Girl into a love song lullaby on “Dirty Dishes” that is sincerely nowhere near as trite as that might sound. Other tracks crank up the distortion on the band’s simple three piece instrumentation for some down-low caterwauling, or lift McCauley’s alto growl into the clouds with the addition of heartfelt strings. This is all done with a delicious eye for the simple and dramatic, and without slathering the proceedings with cliches and pedal-steel like other supposedly alt-country acts. Closing track “What Kind of Fool Am I?” is one of the most beautiful and lyrically provocative laments I’ve heard in years, finishing an album rife with disappointment and loss with the hair-raisingly defiant, heart-broken proclamation “Why can’t I fall in love / till I don’t give a damn / and maybe then I’ll know / what kind of fool I am.” Going out on the gusts of a fiddle and three instruments aching to emulate big band is the most gorgeous counterpoint this yearning songwriter could hope for, and the result is magic.
Deer Tick – Ashamed