Delv!s, Walk Alone Tracks (Because Music)
Three-song EP from Belgian singer-songwriter Niels Delvaux, meant as a teaser for a full-length LP that’s due out in early 2022. All the promotional materials I received on this release were in broken English; I’m sure the PR guy — a top-level pro with whom I’ve dealt for like a million years now — had some nasty back-and-forth with the artiste and came away swearing a lot, but my concern here is, of course, to find something innovative somewhere in this neo-soul record. First, I had to get past the fact that the title track opener is so dangerously close to Albert Hammond’s 1973 radio hit “It Never Rains In Southern California” that if you hummed it into Siri, even she would suggest suing Delvaux for copyright infringement, and second, there’s nothing “neo” about this soul. Oh whatever, it gets kind of rub-a-dubby, which worked; it should have been a reggae song in the first place. Same for “Rebelman,” which is basically “Stir It Up” in a fake moustache. It’s lo-fi and pleasant enough; let’s just leave it at that. B-
East Forest, A Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner, VOL. I (Aquilo Records)
Odd coincidence, if you look at today’s Playlist section, I mentioned Jon Hopkins, a soundcaper who collaborated with guru and American spiritual teacher Ram Dass. This guy, East Forest, whose real name is Trevor Oswalt, released a similar album in 2019, appropriately titled Ram Dass, which featured Dass’s last teachings. Prior to that, Forest’s (also 2019-released) Music For Mushrooms: A Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner, made headlines by hitting No. 1 on the iTunes New Age chart and being included as a go-to listen in the “psychedelic-assisted therapy and research movement.” You know me by now, so you know that all this business is flooding my head with wiseass comments about people dressed for Himalayan expeditions riding on the backs of yaks, but it is what it is, and besides, there’s a movement these days pushing psychedelics as a way to relieve people’s psychic ills through chemistry, so I say whatever floats your boat, being that pretty much everyone is dealing with massive amounts of existential angst these days. Anyway, this is a collection of floaty/glittery background pieces for TED Talks (“Cloud Gaze”), and sometimes they get weird (“Slip Slope (Octopus Spaghetti Pants)”). Think freakiest-possible Tangerine Dream and you’re there; it’s listenable enough. B
PLAYLIST
• No turning back now, gang, we’re looking at the slate of new albums coming out Nov. 12, there’s no escape, winter is here. It’s the favorite time of the year for people who enjoy scraping frost off car windshields when they’re already late for work or whatever, so congratulations if speed-scraping is your jam. But whatever, look, it’s British dude Jon Hopkins with his new album, Music For Psychedelic Therapy, a record that will be in stores on the 12th. Hopkins used to play keyboards for technopop lady Imogen Heap, which of course you already know if you’re one of the five people who actually ever read the insert of an Imogen Heap CD. But that’s neither here nor there, and besides, Hopkins has been making his own records for 19 years now and deserves your respect, so let the strains of lead single “Sit Around The Fire” play. It is a sleepy ambient song for yoga classes, but there’s a lot of talking over it, by — I assume — Ram Dass, an American spiritual teacher, who was more commonly known as Baba Ram Dass! While all the cloudy happy music is going on, you’ll hear messages of love and contentment and awakening and other impossible nonsense from this fellow Ram Dass! OK!
• San Francisco indie-rock duo The Dodos, comprising Meric Long and Logan Kroeber, will release its 8th album, Grizzly Peak, this week! One of the guys is “a student of West African Ewe drumming and intricate blues fingerpicking guitar,’ while the other “hails from a background in heavy metal bands.” I’ve heard of these guys before and may have even talked about them in the past, but I don’t remember, so I’ll pretend that I’ve never heard their music before instead of going with my first guess, that I’ve heard them before and they bored me into a semiconscious state from which I may have never recovered. OK, OK, just forget it, I’m so toxic right now, let’s just get this over with and find out what these guys are even doing, to cement their rock ’n’ roll legacy. I’m now listening to the band’s new single, “The Surface,” and my stars, listen to how quirky it is! Acoustic guitar strumming, a singer with bad adenoids, then they sort of rock out a little on acoustic guitar. Think Simon and Garfunkel except redundant and unnecessary; that is to say, Vampire Weekend meets the Everly Brothers or some such. I predict that this album will not conquer the world, but I was wrong about something a few years ago, so who knows.
• Oh great, it’s Damon Albarn, the frontman of oi-pop band Blur, with a solo album, called The Nearer The Fountain More Pure The Stream Flows, and it’s on its way right now! Wow, what a ripoff, it’s not bouncy or punky or crazy like Blur’s “Song 2,” it’s like really mellow Coldplay. Who knew that the guy who sang “Song 2” could sound like Chris Martin, you know? This is like lullaby music for Zoomers, but since no Zoomers know who this guy is, they’ll never have the pleasure. I don’t even know why he did this, good lord, let’s just do one more here and call it a column.
• Finally, we have Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo with his 14th album, In Virus Times. There’s just an excerpt available now, a video where he’s drawing weird pictures while a pretty decent acoustic guitar arpeggio does stuff. And then he’s whistling, because there hasn’t been a good whistle song since the theme to The Andy Griffith Show. Oh, I get it, he’s selling prints of his weird drawings; they look like they were done using a Spirograph. So arty!
If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).