Nigel J. Anderson, Material Science (Redwave Recordings)

I literally had to weed through a few dozen emails from public relations people trying to push metal bands on me before I found this one, and I’m covering it simply because it’s not a metal album (trying to cut down here, folks, which is tough, because metal albums have been hitting this desk like tribbles during mating season). Having never heard of this U.K. techno DJ, I was delightedly surprised to hear a bunch of bright, bouncy but not smarmy attempts at upfitting traditional deep house; I honestly would have been all over this if it were still 2004 and I were looking for some drive-time euphoria, but either way it’s super nice. “Material Science” brings a faux-steel-drum sample to the percussive fore of its afterparty groove, and man, it really works. Unfortunately, “Going Home” follows in a more goth-industrial vein, at which point I sort of abandoned any hope that this would be the sharply focused genre exercise I’d anticipated, although the next track, “Octopus,” recalls Above & Beyond, which I’m always up for. Despite Anderson’s obvious case of ADD, I’m giving it high marks owing to the fact that all the tunes are on point. A

Nnenna Freelon and Pierce Freelon, AnceStars (Redwave Recordings)

One of the slings or arrows I suffer on a yearly basis comes around this time of year, when all the public relations goblins request that I vote for one of their artists in the next Grammy Awards, not that I’m part of the cabal who has any say in all that; if I indeed were some sort of cog in the Grammy machine, I probably wouldn’t vote for any modern artist, just 80-year-old Al Jolson compilation albums. But this one’s interesting at least, a mother-son duo who are up for the Best Children’s Album Grammy, so, just for the heck of it, I listened to it and am dutifully reporting and blah blah blah. Lyrically it’s based on “the spirit world,” i.e. ancestors, in particular Nnenna’s husband (and Pierce’s father) the late Phil Freelon, the architect of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History. The title track is a lilting/bouncing number combining Afrobeat with Spyro Gyra, a pleasant thing altogether. Most of the rest is hip-hop-tinged urbanity suitable for Sesame Street audiences or feel-good moments in general. A

Playlist

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• OK, wake up, everyone, we are back to a somewhat normal-sized slate of stuff for our next general-issue CD release Friday, on Jan. 12! Look at this, though, sad-face emoji, there are no new albums made by artists and bands I can make fun of, no Neil Young album, no Dolly Parton or Willie Nelson album, not even an album from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, which is weird, because they’ve been putting out new albums every two weeks for the last few years, I can’t believe this. So I am forced to do research and perform random acts of journalistic investigation for your entertainment, so why don’t we start with The Vaccines, whose new album, Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations, is fast approaching! Ack, this doesn’t bode well, fam, the aggregate Metacritic score is already 62 percent and the album isn’t even out yet, which means that a lot of people have either pirated it or they’re just trolls, so why don’t I go check out this album and make your minds up for you, that’d be great. The band is an indie band from West London in the U.K., and their hobbies include playing with other bands on stage. They’ve had guest spots with Lyle Preslar of Minor Threat, Ryan Jarman of the Cribs, members of Savages and Paul Thomson of Franz Ferdinand, and, wait, in 2013 they performed in Florida as John Fogerty’s backing band, making them honorary Creedence Clearwater Revival dudes or something! And yadda yadda, let’s go listen to “Love To Walk Away,” a song from this new album, and hey, wait a minute, I don’t mind this at all! It’s kind of no-wave-ish, in other words loud and dumb, bordering on bands like Black Lips or even Half Japanese as far as sloppy sound engineering. There’s on-the-phone patch on the vocals, too. It’s a winner, let’s go see if the next album will disappoint me, eh wot, chaps and chapettes?

• I always question the motives of bands that start out playing one genre of music and then move on to a totally different thing, like how Pantera started out as a Whitesnake band or whatever and then became Megadeth, or like how The Horrors made the greatest album of all time and then decided to become completely worthless overall, never forget! Bring Me the Horizon are another such — you know, thingamajig, like, they started out as a deathcore band and now they’re regarded as something completely different, sort of along the lines of Imagine Dragons and such. The band’s new album, POST HUMAN: NeX Gen, includes a song titled “Code Mistake” that’s sort of Imagine Dragons-like but there’s a lot of yelling and stomping, you know, like Slipknot, but less well-behaved. It’s OK I suppose.

• Marika Hackman is a British singer who’s put out two albums of cover songs, and when she’s not doing that she’s sounding a lot like a disaffected 1980s pop diva, for example on her biggest song, “I’m Not Where You Are” from 2019. Not saying it’s bad, but it’s a bit opportunistic if you ask me. Her new album, Big Sigh, drops this Friday, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about it at the moment, but regardless, the new single, “Slime,” reminds me of M83 a bit, which is more relevant than refrying ’80s-pop, at least in my opinion; as always, your mileage may vary, a scenario that’s out of my control.

• Finally we have Kali Uchis, an American singer from a Colombian family. Orquídeas is her second Latin-language album and fourth one overall; it features the single “No Lay Hay,” a bubble-pop type thing with an understated deep-house vibe. I found it sublimely acceptable.