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Overall, haven't been listening to a lot of new stuff over the past few weeks. So here are some random thoughts:
Patrice Rushen -- been deep-diving into her catalog. Talk about under-rated --- just about every one of her albums, from early to mid-career, has at least a few deep cuts that are crazy good. I'm wild about "Heartache Heartbreak" off the *Now* album. She sometimes sounds like she's riffing on Minnie Ripperton, vocally, which I've never noticed before.
Rosie Gaines -- her solo catalog is on streaming, and I don't think I've listened to an album of hers in full. So I listened to "Caring," her first album from the pre-Prince era --- was *way* better than I expected. There's some cookiecutter 80s stuff in there but far less than I expected. "Good Times" is great, and I don't know why but I kind of want to hear a Maxwell cover of it? Will go back to it soon and probably check out other albums. *** I'm kind of mad that folks get overshadowed by the big names they work with. She can hold her own, clearly, but I've usually thought of her as the NPG/D&P era Prince singer... which isn't fair at all. Shame on me.
Maxwell -- listened to blackSUMMERsNight for the first time in a while. It's probably the weakest of his albums but is still crazy strong, which made me meditate on the fact that he really doesn't have a bad entry at all. Then revisited Now and BLACKsummer... 15 years ago, I would have said Embrya was my fav of his outings, easily. These days, I'm not sure that's true. Or at least, it's a lot harder to pick a favorite.
Afrobeat/diasporic music and European artists: Ok, this deserves its own post... but what's the deal with the glut of (white) Euro artists putting together projects rooted in African styles these days? Not just dabbling, not just incorporating sounds, but straight-up playing versions of afrobeat/highlife, or even some other sounds that are less globally recognized.
I'm thinking about this (really good) record:
Konkolo Orchestra - Future Pasts https://konkoloorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/future-pasts
which seems based in Switzerland
or yesterday, I listened to this record: Àbáse - Awakening https://abasemusic.bandcamp.com/
Also very good - but this is put together by a Hungarian producer
I've even seen some really young Scandinavian bands - young as in, their members are young - basically doing afrobeat from Scandinavian countries.
Check out the above records. Again, they're good! But is this a trend? Will try and do a larger post on this later, maybe.
-thebigfunk
~ i could still snort you under the table ~
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