Still searching for holiday ideas? Give the gift of music. Here are some artists to consider.
“World-famous in New Zealand” was a joke punchline when I lived there in 2001. Back then the music scene consisted largely of bad cover bands and acts no one would ever wish to cover. Things have gotten better since then. Jamie McDell, my December Artist of the Month, is a case in point. She’s an Auckland native who has also lived in Nashville, Toronto, and Vancouver. McDell comes by her peripatetic lifestyle courtesy of her father, who quit his job when Jamie was 7 to move his family of four onto a boat for a year. Jamie got her sea legs by learning to play the songs of John Denver, James Taylor, and Jimmy Buffett, and obtained stardom of a sort when the record she made at 16 went gold. Ahh, but there’s the rub; in New Zealand gold means selling 2,500 units; in the USA you need half a million. That’s why so many from abroad trek to Nashville, which is where the self-titled Jamie McDell was made.
Nashville’s potential pitfall is that it likes to pigeonhole. As you can hear, McDell can do country but she carries an alt.country label because: (a) Folk music isn’t a popular label, and (b) McDell’s country is somewhere between traditional and outlaw. Suits me just fine; she’s a wonderful storyteller and, once you listen to “Botox” and hear that catch in her voice you know that she’s a singer, not an all-flash-no-substance "performer." Call this one and “Boy Into a Man” later on the album feminism without the sermon. Why botox? Because the song is about the ways in which socially constructed masculinity is built upon forced images of femininity. As a sampled line puts it, ask the doctor to make me shorter/so you can get your manhood back. This record is filled with gems, including the semi-autobiographical “Sailor” (the studio version includes the McCray Sisters) and the power she draws from the open sea. On “Mother’s Daughter,” though she confesses that mom, not her wanderlust father, shaped her more. It's a weepie, but a good one. McDell isn’t afraid to tell tales on herself, as she does on “Not Ready Yet” and the dangers of running wild in “Limousine Running.” Let that one run as next up is amazing. McDell sits back-to-back with Robert Ellis to sing and harmonize on “Worst Crime.” What was her transgression? Listen.
Picot is a Barcelona-based band built around the duo of Jordi Marfà (voice, mandolin, violin) and Daniel Pitarc (keyboards). Their debut record Les alles del cavall, which I’m told translates The Horse’s Wings. It’s Catalan, though, so I’m trusting my computer translation software on this. Don’t call it Spanish; Catalan has similarities in that it’s a Romance language, but it immediately derives from Vulgar (“popular”) Latin and probably began life as proto-Celtic. That helps explain why Catalan music often has a Celtic flair. “La casa que vull (The House I Want)” is an example of the Catalonia’s mixed roots. It sounds simultaneously African–as does a lot of Mediterranean music–but the plucked mando notes and swooping violin passages evoke pan-Celtic structures.
Two other tracks to investigate are “T’he engendrat amb dolor (I Begot Your Pain)” which is as atmospheric as the video clip. Marfà’s voice is big and dramatic but the instrumentation is airy and light, almost nouveau Renaissance. It frames a song that borrows snippets of poetry (in Catalan) from everyone from Whitman to Jean Cocteau. “Tan Petita (So Small)” is another intriguing piece in that its African notes are more Caribbean than Sub-Saharan.
Susan Cattaneo has long been a mainstay of the Boston music scene. Don’t let her respectable demeanor fool you; she has a serious set of pipes and can sing about pain with the best of them. The title track of All is Quiet testifies to this. She sits serenely on the stage and rips off a line like idle hands make idle worries and when she soars on the all is quiet refrain, we’re talking upper part of the sky. Cattaneo gives us dark things, but also delivers the message to “Hold Onto Hope” and echoes an old Lui Collins line that the only way out is through. “Borrowed Blue” is a tender song about the bond between daughters and mothers. Again, though, Cattaneo has been around the block enough times to know there are also situations in which, as a song title puts it, there are “No Hearts Here.” Cattaneo is the kind of singer I really like, one who puts the song upfront in a voice that mixes pretty ornaments with burnished maturity that resonates around the edges. Hey, even songbirds have to land.
Warden and Co. is a Saratoga Springs-based trio that began life making kids music and still dabble in it, but has evolved into a folk-rock band. If there is an upside to the COVID crisis, it is that most musicians spent more time at home and seized the day to write and create. Frontman Seth Warden, who is also a middle school teacher, wrote enough material for Somewhere and a future release. On the album version of “Somewhere” Warden shares the mic with his 13-year-old daughter, Lovella. The song is about a dad’s hope on one level, but it’s also about connecting with one’s roots. Doug Moody’s fiddle enhances the sweetness of Warden’s smooth vocal. Lovella’s pretty good, actually, but if you want something with more grit try “Middle of Madness,” which has a splash of Tom Petty, especially in its questioning of all the competing claims of “truth.” It also gives percussionist Brian Melick a workout. But it’s hard to argue with the self-explanatory pop-laced “Living for Love.” I like these guys a lot, though objectively its top-heavy mid-tempos offerings invoke a sameness, so some might wish to track shop.
How about some world music? Kadaily Kouyate is a Senegalese-born kora player who now lives in London. If, like me, a six-string guitar is perplexing enough for you, try 21. The kora is a demanding instrument but, in the hands of a master such as Kouyate it sounds a bit like a hammer dulcimer and is capable of virtuoso pieces as well as those of great delicacy. In the second category place “Janjon Ba,” Kouyate’s tribute to a 13th century warrior. It’s done with such gentleness that it evokes a seasonal tune more than anything military. “Diyanamo” opens with sprays of notes and eventually has the precision and feel of something classical. “Kontandiro” has slightly darker tones but is also a meditative journey. Kouyate is often known for his social message songs but this album, Aado, features Kouyate’s instrumental fingering rather than direct politics, even if the title does translate as social customs.
Doriana Spurrell hails from North Carolina. Her EP Forward opens with a goodbye song, “Don’t Wake Me.” It’s unusual to lead with an “I’m outta here” song, but one gets the sense that Spurrell would rather be in the moment instead of fantasy land. “Until I Die” is another enigmatic song that suggests she’s after a vibe somewhere between torch singing, the blues, and attitude. What do you do with lines such as: To tune out so many floating bodies, like seas of plastic strangling all my hobbies/I won’t bleed for them, I won’t bleed for them. She specializes in missed connections songs; “Never Needed Words,” which is about her late grandfather, is another example. Depending on your POV, she’s either being honest about how life can overwhelm or she’s still trying to figure out how to find the path forward. She has an interesting voice, though she should lay off comparisons to Nick Drake or Brandi Carlile until her voice ripens and her pencil sharpens.
If you are a fan of swirly wall-to-wall sound, try HeyDreamer, a three- (sometimes four-) piece rock band from Atlanta anchored by lead singer and electric guitar slayer Melody Kiser. “Untamed” is poppy and danceable, “Feel the Fire” has heart-thumping bass lines, and “As Cities Burn” is spacey and echoey. The latter, though, is filled with studio tricks that don’t serve much purpose. Overall, the record strikes me as over-produced. When things quiet down for a song like “Choose Me,” they also thin out. It gives me pause, but that’s not saying you will react the same way.
Rob Weir
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