Oslo August 31: Well-Made but Dull

 

OSLO AUGUST 31 (2011)

Directed by Joachim Trier

Strand Releasing, 95 minutes, Not rated.

In Norwegian with English subtitles.

★★

 

"Genius" is not a word I'd use

 

 Can a film about an important subject be made well, captured perfectly, and still be as dull as dishwater? Oslo August 31 that can be the case, even though that some critics hailed it an overlooked gem.

 

Anders (Anders Danielson Lie) is an addict trying to make the pain stop. He has tried suicide and rehab, failed at first, and is hollowed out by the second. At some point, even rehab must end. Anders has two weeks left in his rural residential treatment program, and is sent back to Oslo for a job interview and an overnight to test his ability to cope.

 

An opening voiceover gives a snippet of Anders’ pre-treatment life. We gather that he was the one-time golden boy of a well-to-do family. As we time travel through the Oslo of his boyhood, then cut to the present, we see the city hasn't changed that much.

 

At 34, Anders is older, but is he wiser? Before his job interview, he visits an old friend Thomas (Hans Olav Brenner), a researcher and scholar, and his family. Thomas is more comfortable quoting philosophers than dealing with damaged psyches, especially since he and Rebekka (Ingrid Olava) have their own crosses to bear. Few people do angst as well as Scandinavians, and that's true of others in Anders’ orbit–an old friend Mirjam (Kjaersti Odden), who is depressed by her birthday and childless state, people he meets at her party, and even a guy at the bar who dated his ex-girlfriend Iselin that Anders seeks to forgive. Instead, Anders suffers through a blistering lecture about a louse he is. Just what he doesn't need. Nor does it help that Iselin won't answer his calls, or that his own sister declines to see him. You might wonder what a junkie is doing at a bar. Or a rave, or an all-night party. You might also wonder why he can't find solace in Renate, an attractive young woman who is willing to be a sexual conquest. She's there for the taking, but Anders can't muster interest in her or anything else.

 

Danielson Lie is in control of his craft. It's tempting for actors to go over the top when portraying damaged individuals. Lies’ Anders is as it should be, a man who has hit rock bottom and sees no ladder out of the hole he has dug. Unlike many movies about addiction and depression, Oslo August 31 avoids sentimentalism and cheap triumphalism. Director Joachim Trier gets high marks for verisimilitude. More than half of all addicts wash out of rehab. It's even worse for opioid and alcohol abusers, who have failure rates in the 80-90% range. One can only applaud Trier’s disinclination to cue orchestral strings to score a weepy overcomes-all-obstacles miracle.

 

Another good thing is the cinematography of Jacob Ihre. He bathes Oslo in everything except sunshine, which he parses out like a dealer weighing heroin. Ihre depicts Oslo in grainy stock for flashbacks, and uses grays and blacks for the present. The streets are so empty we wonder where the city’s 634,000 people are hiding. Ihre does this to highlight Anders’ lack of connection to his past, present, or future. Is Oslo really this bland? I've never been there, but the film doesn’t encourage one to book a visit.

 

Mostly, though, the film hits off-key notes. Oslo August 31 gets ennui and depression right, but there isn't anything inherently cinematic about them. When coupled with a main character who lacks the will to act and surrounds him with others who seem similarly disinclined, we are left with a film in which nothing really happens. We feel bad for Anders.  End of story. Roll the credits. It’s a mercy when that happens. The film is just 95 minutes in length but feels much longer. Apparently, the Academy thought so too. This film was submitted for consideration for a Best International Film Oscar but failed to get a nomination.

 

If you want an honest look at the ravages of addiction, Oslo August 31 will do the trick. But I’d not blame you for switching it off once you know the score.

 

Rob Weir

Soul: I Actually Liked a Disney Film!

 

 

SOUL (2020)

Directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers

Disney/Pixar, PG, 100 minutes

★★★ ½ 

 

 

 

I usually avoid Pixar Disney animation like it’s the Republican National Convention. Even as a child, I eschewed Disney cartoons in favor of edgier and funnier offerings from Looney Tunes. In like fashion, I’m seldom impressed by Pixar, which strikes me as technology in search of a narrative. Imagine my surprise, when I liked Soul.

 

It's all the things that usually set my teeth on edge: mawkish sentimentality, a predictable story arc, gag-me animation, and no real tension. It's even a PG movie, a rating I generally take to mean can be viewed safely by mouth-breathing evangelicals. It's hard to explain why I liked Soul, but here goes.

 

First of all, nearly all the characters are voiced by people of color and that's pretty rare. Second, it has a jazz soundtrack written by Jon Batiste for non-jazz aficionados, with consultation from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails and some oversight from Herbie Hancock.  Third, it deals with a middle school teacher, an occupation I label heroic. (Try teaching a group of sixth or seventh graders if you don't believe me.)

 

Soul is essentially A Christmas Carol tamped down and expunged of its creepier elements. Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) is a skilled pianist trapped in a burnt-out Queens middle school teacher’s body. You don't know the meaning of the word “sour” until you’ve heard a pre-adolescent orchestra rehearsing. If only Joe could catch a break and leave all those atonal sounds behind him. It comes his way via an offer to audition for a place in the band of Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett). And so Joe would have had it – had he not stepped into an open manhole cover and fallen into a mortal coma.

 

Who knew that shuffling off this mortal coil involved a waystation? Joe can’t reconcile himself to dying, so instead of heading to the Great Beyond, he is sent to the Great Before for counseling. For unexplained reasons, all the counselors are named Jerry and all of the souls look like drops of water. (The drops are probably just another Pixar attempt at cutesy animation.) Joe needs to earn a special badge to return to Earth, an excuse to have adventures in the waystation. His guide is 22 (Tina Fey), a cynical soul who is down to her last option. To earn a badge, one must discover one’s “spark” and 22 is so non-sparky that she’s about to be cast into the “zone” for all eternity. That’s not explained either, but it’s not-heaven and not-hell –more like a perplexing place full of weirdos, dangers, and a lot of wallowing.

 

It’s probably best not to think too hard about the inevitable connection between Joe and 22, how they help each other, and how each discovers their respective spark. It’s Disney, where the proverbial Happy Ending is practically hardwired into the corporate structure. On several occasions I found myself wondering what Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton would have done with this material, but when I found myself thinking too much like 22, I snapped back to attention.

 

It has become such a big thing for Hollywood actors to voice animated characters that Soul also surprised me on that score. To make an audio book analogy, if you’ve ever listened to one, you know that great readers can bring mediocre writing to life and lousy ones can make a fabulous book sound dull. Soul had a cast of actors-as-cartoons who really threw themselves into their disembodied roles. Foxx brings to Joe Gardner a world-weariness tinged with crustiness that one might expect from a much older actor. I doubt you need me to tell you that Tina Fey is better at snark than spark, or that Angela Bassett can puff herself into a haughty, commanding presence. Some of the others who impressed me were Alice Braga and Wes Studi as soul counselors, Donnell Rawlings as Des the barber, Phylicia Rashad as Joe’s keep-your-job mother, and Questlove as a drummer.

 

Yes, Soul is treacly. Perhaps it just hit me a moment in which my brain needed to take a holiday, but it’s also charming in a PG way from which I normally flee. To get back to my natural 22 proclivities, though, a note of discord surrounds Soul. It made about $150 million at the box office to offset its expense of $119 million. I don’t know why on Earth or the Great Beyond a cartoon should cost that much, but I note that Soul did not do as well in U.S. markets as most Disney/Pixar movies do. Fifty-seven percent of the take came from just three countries: China, Russia, and South Korea. Do you see what I’m driving at?

 

Rob Weir    

American Made: What Happens when Work Goes Away

 

AMERICAN MADE (2021)

By Farah Stockman

Random House, 432 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

The subtitle of American Made, Farah Stockman’s look at blue-collar work, is What Happens to People When Work Disappears. Labor historians speak of “deindustrialization” to describe exporting factory work out of the United States. Alas, it’s an antiquated label given that far more than factory labor is outsourced.

 

Capital flight is a more accurate term. It has long been linked to negative social indicators: drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, divorce, suicide, medical woes, early death, homelessness, psychiatric problems, imprisonment…. In today’s service industry-driven economy, displaced workers seldom replace income lost to capital flight. Not many non-white-collar jobs pay $26/hour, the starting wage at Rexnord in Indianapolis, a shaft bearings manufacturer. Do the math. At $26/hour, a Rexnord worker made $54,000 per year—without overtime. If laid-off workers are lucky enough to find another job paying half of that, their annual income is $27,000—25 percent below the nation’s median individual income.

 

Few who have studied worker displacement will be surprised by the data in Stockman’s book. Stockman instead puts human faces to capital flight. Many workers are given voice in American Made, but she spotlights three: Wally Hall, an African American who dreams of operating his own barbeque business; Shannon Mulcahy, a white single mother and skilled machinist; and John Feltner, a white family man and union activist. By focusing on a factory in Indianapolis, Stockman highlights how the American Dream was battered in the American heartland. Blue-collar work has declined in such places to the point that those who punch time clocks have become out-of-sight/out-of-mind forgotten Americans. In 1972, sociologists Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb published The Hidden Injuries of Class. It was meant as a warning, but is now an unintended harbinger of what continues to happen to those falling behind in income and social clout.

 

Because professional classes no longer “see” the working class, they are baffled by the 2016 election and the propensity of working-class voters to support politicians whose policies are antithetical to their best interests. Stockman provides uncomfortable explanations for the rise of Donald Trump: free trade and elitism. She traces how the Democratic Party shifted from the ideals of New Deal and Great Society to modified Reaganomics coupled with support for the social concerns and stock portfolios of educated bourgeois elites. In this sense, blue-collar anger toward the Clintons makes sense. Stockman writes, “The Democrats had gotten into bed with corporations when no one was looking.” Tim, a Rexnord worker, put it more graphically: “The dirty bastards sold us out. They allowed millions of jobs to leave the country … good jobs with benefits. They sat on their asses and did absolutely nothing.” Many of those whose jobs fled to Mexico—like Rexnord workers—turned their backs to a party tone deaf to job loss.  

 

Stockman observes, “The Republicans were no better about free trade. They were worse. But at least the Republicans had never pretended to be faithful to the working class.” Parse that and you get a vast segment of American workers that indeed feels sold out. Trump at least acknowledged that blue-collar labor exists, though his vow to stop outsourcing was unfulfilled. (For the record, 58 percent of American workers are non-salaried.) Thus, many Rexnord workers liked the fact that Trump, “didn’t talk like a college boy. He cursed. He bragged. He threatened…. Trump was a hillbilly in a suit. Trump had a chip on his shoulder, like the steelworkers did.” Such perspectives also explain why many wage earners express contradictory admiration for both Trump and Bernie Sanders.

 

A unique twist in American Made lies with Stockman’s admission of her class privilege. This grabs our attention because Stockman identifies as African American. She has much to say about white privilege, but also incisively compares herself to Shannon. Stockman grew up in bourgeois comfort, graduated from Harvard, lives in tony Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has worked at the Boston Globe and the New York Times. Shannon overcame sexual abuse, an abusive husband, raised kids on her own, suffered workplace discrimination, and was ordered to train a Mexican to perform complex tasks on a machine that was about to be disassembled and shipped out of ther country. Is it any wonder Shannon hasn’t been an avid supporter of NAFTA, middle-class feminism, #MeToo, or Hillary Clinton? The kicker is that Shannon is not racist. She did not lash out at the Mexican man about to take her job. Shannon blames Wall Street for her dilemma, not Mexicans hoping to build a better life.

 

American Made is filled with such insights. Another eye-opening observation is that people of color often cope better with job loss than whites. To put it starkly, they have fewer reasons to believe in the American Dream and aren’t shocked when its promise is betrayed. By contrast, Feltner was staggered when union solidarity disintegrated among workers given a choice between refusing to cooperate with plant relocation or collecting a few more paychecks from a company hell-bent on squeezing greater profits from lower-paid brown workers south of the border.

 

Stockman is a lucid writer who knows how to personalize capital flight and make stories live. A review such as mine is by necessity formal and academic in tone. Stockman also culls labor history and sociological studies, but because she got close to her subjects, she writes from the heart. Read her words to see what happens to Rexnord workers, especially Wally, Shannon, and John. Warning: no fairy tales. Stockman references Sherry Lee Linkon, who compared economic “right-sizing,” restructuring,” and other such euphemisms to what really happens when a plant closes. It’s akin to a nuclear detonation that leaves misery and destruction in its wake.

 

Robert E. Weir, Ph.D.

 

Hour of the Witch: Good Seasonal Read, though Flawed

 

HOUR OF THE WITCH (2021)

By Chris Bohjalian

Doubleday, 406 pages.

★★★ ½

 

Chris Bohjalian offers a spooky treat that makes good Halloween reading. Hour of the Witch and its characters are fictional, but the dilemmas he describes are not. Although the North American colonies paled in comparison to Europe where at least 40,000 people were executed for witchcraft, 26 or more people met their ends after being convicted of consorting with Satan and scores of others were accused.

 

 Hour of the Witch is set in Salem, but in the 1660s, decades before its infamous 1692 witch trials. The latter overly compress a much wider phenomenon. (The first American “witch” was hanged* in 1647.) It seems incredible today, but as Bohjalian writes, “It was always possible that the Devil was present.” Even Mary Deerfield believed that, she being the central figure in Bojhalian’s novel. Mary is beautiful and handy with herbal cures and midwifery, but her world was dominated by men to whom she was expected to be compliant and subservient. That includes her husband, Thomas. At 24, Mary is his second wife and acquires a step-daughter, Peregrine, who is her age. Thomas is 45, but Mary is blamed for not getting pregnant. It doesn’t help that Peregrine already has two children and another on the way. Nor is it a good thing that Mary befriends Constance Winston, an unmarried older woman who isn’t a church member and provisions Mary with some of her “simples” (remedies).

 

Even if you’ve not made an exhaustive study of the pre-scientific world of Colonial America, you probably know it didn’t take much to upset the fragile Puritan worldview. How does one explain a cow that suddenly goes dry, unexpected deaths, a garden that withers when a neighbor’s thrives, freak accidents, barrenness, strange markings, or poppets? In a world so fraught, even the importation of three-pronged forks disrupts a community in which gossip, grudges, and fear dominate.

 

A fork plays a part in Mary’s woes. Her father is an important merchant in Salem and it was he who received some forks in a shipment from England. He gives one to Mary, but this being New England, not Olde, some locals see the humble table implement as the “Devil’s tines.” Mary’s marriage is also a shambles. Thomas is a bully who drinks too much, subjects her to rough sex, and repeatedly “corrects” (beats) her. In one drunken outburst he drives the fork into her hand and breaks it. These acts prompt Mary to seek divorce from Thomas. I won’t go into historical detail; let’s just say that very few women were granted divorce in the 17^th century. Mary’s lawsuit, though (mostly) supported by her birth family, sets tongues a-clacking.

 

Bohjalian introduces chapters with “documents” (most are made up) pursuant to Mary’s divorce and subsequent witchcraft trials. Mary forges a unique strategy to defend herself. Massachusetts Bay Colony was a theocracy (a religion-based government) in which the line between pulpit, courts, and authority often overlapped. Because ministers hold power, Mary knows she needs clerical allies. What rulings are appropriate for a woman with a reputation for piety?

 

It is at this juncture that Bohjalian oversteps both history and credulity. Whilst Mary is estranged from Thomas, she develops a lustful infatuation for another man and isn’t very good at hiding it. (At least Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne had the wisdom to tryst in the woods!) Mind, this is during a time local wags and those with vested reasons to hate her insist she’s a witch. The novel’s resolution goes a step further down I-Don’t-Think-So Lane. It’s lifted from a folksong (Child Ballad 95) and might be how we’d like things to go down, but not how they actually did. It’s fictionl, so Bohjalian can invent and imagine to his heart’s content, but there is a great tonal inconsistency in leaping from the legalistic and religious to a swashbuckling caper.

 

Hour of the Witch is a decent read, for the season, though I doubt this will be remembered as one of Bohjalian’s best. There is no surfeit of witchcraft novels and, let’s face it, a one-off from Bohjalian isn’t going to dethrone Alice Hoffman from her roost as the queen of witchcraft fiction. If you’ve not already done so, you might want to read her Magic Lessons as a companion to Hour of the Witch.

 

Rob Weir

 

* Contrary to common belief, no witches were burnt in the Americas.

Judy Collins: Artist of the Month October 2021

1975

 

 

Earlier this month I signed up to usher a Judy Collins concert. Given that she’s 82 years old, I did so with some trepidation. I’ve been listening to Judy blue eyes since the 1960s—yes, the Crosby, Stills & Nash song “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” was written in her honor—and I know that Old Man Time can be cruel to singers. He stole Linda Ronstadt’s voice and reduced Pete Seeger to a croak, a descriptor that would be charitable if applied to 76-year-old Stephen Stills. Joni Mitchell is five years younger than Collins and you are unlikely ever again to hear her on the stage.

 

Now

 

Imagine the delight at being able to write this line: Judy Collins still sings like an angel. Unless you ascribe to the theory that she met the Devil at the crossroads and traded her soul for the ability to sing, a lucky roll of the genetic dice is the only possible explanation. It would be facile to say that she sounds as good as she ever did, but her voice is to agelessness what Catherine Deneuve’s body is to the human figure.

 

Collins performed a 90-minute set at Northampton’s Academy of Music in which she transformed the theatre into an intimate living room in which she held court with song and story. As you might imagine from one whose career began in 1959, Collins has quite a collection of tales to tell, though most of them are slice-of-life amusing rather than slash-and-burn slams. She recounted a few stories about those she has known well: Seeger, Dylan, Eric Anderson, Leonard Cohen, Sandy Denny, Willie Nelson, Stephen Sondheim, and others.

 

It hasn’t all been roses. Her 1958 marriage to Peter A. Taylor ended in divorce in 1965 and their only child, Clark committed suicide in 1992 at age 33. She has been candid about this, her bout with smoking, and struggles to overcome TB and bulimia. She also had high-profile relationships with actor Stacy Keach, singer John Phillips, TV personality Geraldo Rivera, and Stephen Stills before beginning a relationship with fashion designer Louis Nelson in 1978. (They married in 1996.) I suppose by the standards of the day, this makes Collins practically a saint!

 

Music, though, has always been at the fore of Collins’ life. Curmudgeons sometimes dismiss Collins. She has raised ire by covering so many Dylan songs, though why you’d want to hear his vocals over hers is beyond me; the clarity of Collins’ tones are unparalleled.  She’s seldom a grit-and-drama performer, though she’s a first-class interpreter other people’s compositions. Two of her biggest hits, “Both Sides Now” and “Chelsea Morning” were penned by Joni Mitchell at a time when Collins was a far bigger star than Mitchell. Collins’ career speaks for itself: 28 solo albums, 4 of which went gold and two others that rose to platinum. In addition to her folk and pop offerings, she has also interpreted Stephen Sondheim songs–he won a Grammy thanks to her cover of “Send in the Clowns”–other show tunes, popularized Leonard Cohen offerings, and was practically a one-woman Jacques Brel revival machine. I’m not ashamed to say that her 1975 album Judith is among my all-time favorites.

 

At the Academy of Music show, Collins stuck to her folk repertoire. For most of the show she stood front and center with her 12-string guitar and was accompanied by a pianist. Later, she plopped down on the bench and, as one who was schooled in Mozart, proved she knows her way around the ivories. She was especially adroit at lush arpeggios–perfect for spotlighting her ability to ascend and descend the scales. It was also the right tool for one of her own superb compositions, “The Blizzard,” a song so beautiful it aches. My only beef is this: Lose the baroque wig!

 

Here is a list of my ten all-time favorite Collins recordings, in alphabetical order. My first brainstorm had twice as many titles, so if you ask me tomorrow, I might have a different list.

 

·      “The Blizzard” – It turns winter and trust into magic

·      “Both Sides Now” –Cover that arguably made Mitchell a household name

·      “Houses” – One of her own, orchestral and lovely

·      “Last Thing on My Mind” –Early recording that gave boost to Tom Paxton

·      “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” – Deeply moving Jimmy Webb cover

·      “Rainbow Connection” –Not even Kermit can sing it better!

·      “Send in the Clowns” –No bloody wonder Sondheim won a Grammy

·      “Silver Skies Blue” –This is what Collins sounds like in her 80s

·      “Suzanne” – Leonard Cohen classic, but who’d you rather hear sing it?

·      “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”– I heard this before I knew of Sandy Denny and am forever grateful to Collins for the introduction

 

Rob Weir

 

             

 

Hamnet as Hamlet? Gadzooks!

 

HAMNET: A NOVEL OF THE PLAGUE (2020/21)

By Maggie O’Farrell

Alfred Knopf, 384 pages.

★★

 

 

Hamnet is an imaginative but historically suspect look at what inspired William Shakespeare to write “Hamlet.” In Maggie O'Farrell’s retelling, “Hamlet”–a recognized alternative spelling of Hamnet–was Shakespeare's attempt to expiate his guilt over the death of his 11-year-old son and his dereliction of family duties. In essence, his grief over young Hamnet’s demise was projected upon Prince Hamlet, with William playing the role of the paternal ghost. Some of Shakespeare's dysfunctional birth family dynamics were similarly transferred to the play.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I remind readers that I am no fan of the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. I find Shakespeare stilted, overly wordy, and long to see his plays rewritten in modern English. I did, however, hold high hope that the novel would pique my interest. Had it truly been a plague novel, that might've been the case. Instead, Hamnet is an anachronistic feminist tale glued onto dodgy psychology.

 

Here's what we know. The historical Hamnet died in 1596, though the cause of death isn’t listed in any known records. He could have died of the plague, as the Black Death still flared in the late 16th century. It’s equally plausible, though, that Hamnet died of something completely different. Sadly, the death of children was commonplace in an age when the average lifespan was just 43. (Shakespeare was a relative elder when he died in 1616, at the age of 52.)

 

We also know that Shakespeare’s parents were severe people and that his glovemaker father John was reputed to be a harsh and bigoted man. Not much is known of William’s wife Agnes Hathaway–often known as “Anne” Hathaway–other than she was the daughter of a yeoman and his first wife. In Hamnet, Shakespeare's family are uppity tyrants and that of Agnes a template for simple rural virtues. Both family portraits are feasible, though speculative.

 

It is also factual that as Shakespeare rose in renown, he spent less time in Stratford and more in London. O’Farrell’s take is that his fine Stratford home–by 16th century standards–was more for show than his personal comfort. That too is within the realm of possibility. Such homes were markers of bourgeois respectability.

 

O’Farrell’s greatest strength lies with her command of the details of everyday life in the late 16th century. We learn a lot about tending gardens, wildcrafting, the din of the marketplace, what it was like to prepare food in Shakespeare’s day, and even the social role of cats in Elizabethan England. There's also a succinct and believable account of how plague fleas traveled from monkeys to Alexandria and made their way to Warwickshire via Venice, Cadiz, and London.

 

O’Farrell is a novelist, and we expect her to take liberty with some details. This comes with risks when applied to a figure as revered as William Shakespeare, but there are enough holes in his biography to allow for invention. It's tricky, though, to write 21st century-style feminism into a novel set more than three centuries earlier. Moreover, the title is a misnomer, as it’s more about Agnes and Hamnet’s twin Judith than either the namesake character or the plague. O’Farrell would have it that Hamnet made a bargain with God to take him rather than his beloved sister, and that Agnes was driven first to madness and then to deep resentment toward her husband. Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?

 

I was wholly unconvinced by O’Farrell’s plot device of having Agnes make a secretive journey from Stratford to London to watch “Hamlet,” and conclude that grief triggered in William a dual psychological transference. She allegedly sees, “her Hamnet as he might have been, had he lived, and the ghost, who has her husband's hands, her husband’s beard, who speaks her husband's voice." Methinks O’Farrell hath gotten too modern, a problem that also emerges in Agnes’ newfound but non-16th century independence.

 

Shakespeare aficionados will like this book. So too will those who engage in the Shakespeare-denier cottage industry and long to see him taken him down a few cloak pegs. If you are neither, you can join me in the shrug brigade.

 

Rob Weir

Albert Freixas, Delgres, Alisa Amador, Left Vessel, Dirty Snowman, Fernando, Grace Womack

 

 

Albert Freixas cut his teeth in the jazz scene of his native Barcelona before spinning off into other genres. Chroma, his third solo venture, shows us both the foot inside the door and the one stepping out. He calls his music “hard bop” and John Coltrane comparisons pop up, but Chroma covers too much turf for that. The “Every Time We Fall” video opens to rising smoke. It has a pop vibe and we witness Freixas playing a lap electric, a straight up electric, and a bass guitar. We notice his smooth voice and well-patterned melody lines. By contrast, “Personal Light” is atmospheric and enigmatic, a blend of pop and elements of Catalan jazz. “My Well” is soulful, and “I Call” a short a capella with backing vocals. “Broken Song” is bluesy, moody, and supplemented by spoken word, rap, and horns. Get the point? Freixas is always controlled, but seldom constrained by categories.

 

Delgrès is a dynamic “power trio” based in France, but with Caribbean roots. Most of the songs on 4:00 am are sung in Creole, and the band is named for mulatto French officer Louis Delgrès, who switched sides during an 1802 rebellion in Guadeloupe. “Mo Jodi” (“I’ll Die Today”) is where funk meets swamp blues and a New Orleans funeral band. As you will hear, most of the songs are just Baptiste Brondy’s drums, Rafgee’s sousaphone-acting-as-bass, and Pascal Danaë’s guitar and booming vocals. “Lundi Mardi Mercredi” has a more delicate opening, but it doesn’t take long till they unleash the grunge that backs Danaë’s singsong rap-like lyrics. You’ll not make out most of them, as Delgrès is more about groove and move. They so deemphasize clarity that a song like “L’ecole” evokes lo-fi music. (Could we say they give it the old-school try?) Mostly it doesn’t matter, but on “Just Vote for Me” it would help to hear the lyrics more clearly. The video is ironic and poignant. Watching world leaders past and present (including George W. Bush, Trump, Yeltsin, Putin, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Kim Jong-un) trying to prove their “commoner” statuses via “dance” moves is hysterical, but Delgrès makes a deeper point by juxtaposing white candidates making rather obvious overtures to people of color. Newsreel footage of violence drives home the message. Still, it would be nice if we could make out lyrics like these: If you give me your hand/I can take you anywhere/You know I am your friend….

 

Alisa Amador comes from solid musical stock. Her parents founded the award-winning pan-Latin Sol y Canto, of which Alisa is a sometimes member. She is, though, very much her own person and possesses the chops to grab your attention in English or Spanish. On Narratives, she serves delights such as “Burnt and Broken,” an exploration of the fragility of life and love. “Timing” is shot through with vintage Motown, and, yes, she can pull it off. If you want to hear something in Spanish, listen to “Nada quever” (“Nothing to See.”) You’ll notice that Amador likes to loiter on chanteuse benches. She also tosses in occasional notes that skirt the borders of atonality. The latter make them moodier than a lot of folk music.

 

Left Vessel is the stage name of Nick Byron Campbell, and was inspired by being plunked on the noggin by a falling pine cone. It’s also the name of his former band. On One (and Driftless), Campbell exchanges his rock and roll duds for a shaman’s soft goods and an ever-present knit cap. The music is often atmospheric and electronically New Age-like, as heard on “Arrival” or “Empty Frame” in which his voice climbs into the falsetto range. One (and Driftless) is a concept album that Campbell calls “sound art.” I generally dislike such made-up appellations, but it fits, if we allow room for songs such as “Your Winter” and “Hold Your Laughter,” which some might label folk. I wouldn’t. Both are a bit too oblique, but Campbell is up to some intriguing things. He won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, though, so listen and see what you think. 

 

If need to get loud, Colorado’s Dirty Snowman Society is a potage of punk, psychedelic, and arena rock. Its recent record is called Snowblind. If titles like “Kiss Me or Kill Me,” conjure grunge, you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s where big bass, wailing guitar, high-octane, pounding drums, attitude, and danger collide. “Once” sounds softer, but not really. The instrumentation throttles between simulated vibes and jam band riffs that stuff Frank Costantini’s vocals into a wall-to-wall sound envelope. “Mirror” is everything you’d ever want, if you like your decibels high. Slide the volume to the right and rock on. This one reminded me of Black Sabbath with a better singer. (Yeah, Ozzie was always overrated.) 

 

Looking for something different? Try Anuang’o Fernando and Maasai Footsteps. It’s an appropriate title as Fernando is as much dancer as musician. I wish there were more videos of him dancing, as the songs draw inspiration from the traditional music of Kenya’s Maasai people. “Source” (and source-like) recordings are often less interesting out of context. Movement is crucial for the Maasai, whose dance styles are at once grounded but airy. Watch this video if that statement sounded contradictory. The songs are often drone-like behind keening lead vocals. “Emburkoi” and “Mukula” are in this vein, though “Eranjoi” has what could be incongruously labeled an old-time revival sensibility.  

 

Grace Womack is a junior at the University of Texas. Her Yellow Cowboy Hat introduces a voice with promise that’s not yet ready to graduate. The title suggests country music, but Womack mixes of pop, R & B, and piano bar jazz inevitably draw comparisons to Lake Street Dive, Kacey Musgraves, and Billy Joel. I’d call these aspirational rather than descriptive labels. “Pity the Fool,” an infatuation-gone-bad tale, showcases songbird vocals and piano, but the melody fails to land. “Oblivion,” her second single, has similar virtues and drawbacks. We must go to the title track before Womack’s soulful tones and energetic backing music command attention. In a word, Yellow Cowboy Hat lacks solid hooks, which is precisely what a new singer needs in a market flooded with pretty voices.   

 

Rob Weir