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Utterly herself and confident like a country sorceress, June illuminates a sonic, spiritual journey through songs that range from sturdy folk to borderline avant-garde. On her prior album in 2017, West Tennessee’s Valerie June convinced us she had easy access to the astral plane, and on this anticipated follow-up, she seems to have built a recording studio there. Valerie June - The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers Her lyrics can be cryptic but they flow, and her voice has matured into a versatile, silky, emotional instrument that can pierce the heart and cry out for justice. “Wild Turkey” is her most vulnerable work, a lament about her mother. We get the definitive version of Kiah’s signature song “Black Myself,” with the rocking swagger it deserves. It all came into focus on this daring head-trip of an album.
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Virtually the lone African American in her musical world for years, she interpreted old American folk with an assertive alto voice, while she felt her way into a style that let some of her early rock and indie influences into her roots outlook. Russell’s “chosen sister” from Our Native Daughters Amythyst Kiah has surveyed her own path in roots music since graduating from the East Tennessee State country music program near where she grew up. If compassion and redemption had a soundtrack, this would be it. She compliments that gorgeous tribune of a voice with passages of clarinet and emotion-tugging string arrangements. Russell’s singing falls between Rhiannon Giddens’ opera-trained formality and Nina Simone’s earthy soul. She uplifts even the heaviest of this material (and it can be dark) with moving lyricism and a sonic aura that blends crafty picking, judicious percussion, and luminous harmony vocals. Allison Russell, respected for her work in duo Birds of Chicago, tackled the near impossible on her Fantasy Records debut - a song cycle rooted in the sexual abuse she experienced from her stepfather growing up in Montreal and her escape into realms of self-discovery and recovery. The influence of supergroup Our Native Daughters keeps growing, as its individual members reach new heights. If I covered an album during the year, that is linked via the artist’s name.
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I’m spotlighting records that told a story, broke new ground and made news while engaging our minds and hearts. It’s chosen by the author with input from the WMOT staff and informed by the station’s playlist. As I like to say, stream to discover purchase what you love.Īs always, I note that this is an unranked list of “outstanding and essential” albums, not a 30 Best list. Ask how you’re directly supporting the artists you most appreciate. Use the LP boom to inspire musical gift-giving.
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#BEST NINA SIMONE ON VINYL DOWNLOAD#
Or buy download albums direct from artists on Bandcamp and add a t-shirt. So in 2022, recommit to your physical music collection. But the pandemic showed us, as if the pre-2020 business already hadn’t, the precariousness of careers and the sacrifices these artists make to live their lives of art. It’s famously easy to hear all of these albums on your choice of streaming services as much as you want. Lastly, I’d offer my takeaway from looking at this musical abundance. At a time when record producers enjoy a lot of freedom in the studio to layer and mix, projects like The Marfa Tapes and the first solo album from The Next Waltz honor the value of unadorned performance. Veterans like James McMurtry and Todd Snider released some of the best work of their careers. A cadre of extraordinary African American women showed remarkable individuality and compositional ideas that stretched the format in beautiful ways. Artists like Maggie Rose, Southern Avenue and Nathaniel Rateliff brought big band R&B sounds to the mix. This year’s outstanding albums were brimming with vigor, righteousness and principle. While the country was roiling politically and waiting for a Covid-19 vaccine, we listened for escape and emotional surrender, while artists created new music with insights from a bewildering, taxing plague year.īut if you’re looking for ennui and resignation, Americana music is the wrong place. Bandcamp became a juggernaut and the conscience of the music industry with its periodic Bandcamp Fridays, when they waived their sales commission on music and put more money in artists’ pockets. By January 2021, our national relationship to recorded music had changed, because we’d spent almost a year mostly locked down and locked out of the live music experience.