Late-May Music Nerd-out
Instrumental music + modern Ethiopian jazz + hip-hop jewelry + Kathleen Hanna
When the English musician/producer/DJ Bonobo — real name Simon Green — released his debut album “Animals” in 2000, Pitchfork said it broke “no new ground” for downtempo chill-out music, but called Green a real musician with a real flair for dynamics. That album is now being re-released on vinyl and cassette. Green has collaborated with a handful of vocalists, including Erykah Badu, but is known for creating instrumental music that he says tells a story and has a narrative to it, even without words.
Speaking of instrumental music, musician and skateboard legend Tommy Guerrero and longtime collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Josh Lippi are releasing their second full-length album, “Dusty Dreams,” which they recorded in a solar-powered one-room house outside of Joshua Tree National Park.
Recording engineer and performer Steve Albini, who did much to shape the sound and aesthetic of the 90s, died of a heart attack on May 7. Among many, many other albums, Albini produced Nirvana’s “In Utero,” but before taking the gig, he wrote a letter to the members of Nirvana that said instead of getting points on the record, he preferred to be paid “like a plumber.”
The Los Angeles-based, Addis Ababa-born guitarist and composer Etsegenet Mekonnen — stage name Esy Tadesse — was recently featured on Bandcamp Weekly, alongside Jorga Mesfin, founder of the Ethio-jazz group Wudasse, which got me doing down Ethiopian jazz rabbit holes on Spotify. Mesfin is a self-taught musician who composed the score to Haile Gerima’s epic Ethiopian movie “Teza.”
The rapper Slick Rick — real name Ricky Walters — served as senior curatorial adviser for “Ice Cold,” the American Museum of Natural History’s hip-hop jewelry show that features treasures from artists like Run-DMC and Tyler, the Creator. The exhibit opened earlier this month.
The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division plan to sue Live Nation after investigating the company for more than two years. The lawsuit targets Ticketmaster’s alleged use of exclusive venue contracts for its ticketing services.
Neil Young is touring with Crazy Horse, and recently played New York for the first time in more than a decade. The New York Times, who credits Crazy Horse with more or less helping invent grunge and the modern jam band, wrote that “There has always been something outside-of-time about the ironically named Young, a man who has in some sense sung and written like an old man since he was a teenager.” The NYT has also called Young a “tent show troubador.”
The Amy Winehouse biopic “Back To Black” came out last week, and Rolling Stone says the film takes liberties with the truth. “Amy,” Asif Kapadia's 2015 Oscar-winning documentary portrait of Winehouse, the English soul, jazz and R&B singer, went on to win more than two dozen awards. The success of that film and the soundtrack helped earn Winehouse her second posthumous nomination at the 2016 BRIT Awards for British Female Solo Artist.
Sony Music Group recently sent letters to 700 artificial intelligence developers and music streaming services, warning them to not use its artists’ music to train generative AI tools without its permission. Sony Music Group, which includes artists like Celine Dion, Doja Cat and Harry Styles, is owned by the Tokyo-based electronics giant Sony Corp.
Kathleen Hanna’s book “Rebel Girl” came out last week, and the book sheds light on her time in the punk scene, her childhood, and “finding joy in expressing anger in public.” Also, her 90s punk band Bikini Kill is touring again. She told Dan Rather a few years ago that the 2018 Brett Kavanaugh hearings and the Me Too movement both helped motivate Bikini Kill to reunite. She recently told Fresh Air host Ann Marie Baldonado that the Bikini Kill song “Rebel Girl” still has legs because it can be about almost anybody, even herself.
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