Album of the Week: Pigments by Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn

2022-12-022022-12-01 ~ Liam ~ Leave a comment

This will be my last Album of the Week of 2022 (and possibly, ever, but more on that later) as I won’t have time to listen to new albums and do them justice, but I do hope I can do a round up of some of the best albums I missed before the year’s end.

Album: Pigments
Artist: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
Release Date: October 21, 2022
Label: Merge Records
Favorite Tracks:

Vantablack
Crimson
Umber

Thoughts:

Dawn Richard, whose earlier work fell more into the pop and R&B genre, adds her ethereal voice to the layer of atmospheric sounds made with her collaborator Spencer Zahn. At times, this album sounds like one of those New Age relaxation tapes, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. At any rate this is a very deeply expressive form of music that definitely deserves repeated listening to understand better.

Rating: ***

Album of the Week: 2022

January

February

Tanya Taqaq – Tongues
Various Artists – Summer of Soul soundtrack
Mitski – Laurel Hell
Shamir – Hetrosexuality

March

Lady Pills – What I Want
Stromae – Multitude
Jenny Hval – Classic Objects
Yumi Zouma – Present Tense

April

Ibibio Sound Machine – Electricity
Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems
The Linda Lindas – Growing Up
Deer Scout – Woodpecker
Sault – Air

May

Congotronics International – Where’s the One?
Oumou Sangaré – Timbuktu
Various Artists – Daptone Mood
Wet Leg – Wet Leg

July

Editrix – Editrix Goes To Hell
Medicine Singers – Medicine Singers
Mourning [A] BLKstar – Celestial Bodies
Lizzo – Special
The Ballroom Thieves – Clouds

August

Petrol Girls – Baby
Beyoncé – Renaissance
Peter Mulvey and SistaStrings – Love is the Only Thing

September

Courtney Swain – Silver Lining
Russian Circles – Gnosis
Sudan Archives – Natural Brown Prom Queen
Santigold – Spirituals
The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field

October

Björk – Fossora
Alvvays – Blue Rev
Tove Lo – Dirt Femme

November

A New Kind of Love by Ghost Funk Orchestra
Endure by Special Interest
KALAK by Sarathy Korwar
Revolver (Super Deluxe) by The Beatles

Album of the Week: Revolver (Super Deluxe) by The Beatles

2022-11-252022-11-24 ~ Liam ~ Leave a comment

Album: Revolver (Super Deluxe)
Artist: The Beatles
Release Date: August 05, 1966, Super Deluxe release: October 28, 2022
Label: Calderstone Productions Limited
Favorite Tracks:

Eleanor Rigby
I’m Only Sleeping
Yellow Submarine
Good Day Sunshine
And Your Bird Can Sing
I’ve Got to Get You Into My Life
Tomorrow Never Knows
Paperback Writer
Rain

Thoughts:

A few years back I reviewed the Super Deluxe re-release of The Beatles’ “White Album” so I figured I’d do the same for Revolver. This is, in fact, my favorite Beatles album and we’ll be seeing in it in my All Time Favorite Albums countdown in a couple of weeks. Revolver is well-known as the transitional album for The Beatles from the lovable moptops of Beatlemania to a studio-oriented art rock group. The new instruments, studio experimentation, and influence of psychedelic drugs and philosophy are all well documented, so I won’t get into that here. It’s a bit mind-boggling that the Beatles were on their final U.S. tour when this was released, including their final show in San Francisco, but were performing songs from 2-3 years earlier because Revolver could just not be played lived with the technology og the time.

Here are some reflections and personal memories on the songs:

“Taxman” – probably the one song on the album I don’t love because it’s rich people whining about having to pay their share to society, and thus The Beatles’ most conservative song. It’s got a great groove though, so it’s easy to ignore the lyrics.
“Eleanor Rigby” – when I was a kid my family had the “Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine” 45 and I used to listen to it a lot! The song about lonely people was always very poignant, even as a kid.
“I’m Only Sleeping” – Kind of a theme song for me as I, like John Lennon, enjoy spending time in bed.
“Yellow Submarine” – even before listening to the single, I remember the neighbors putting this on their old stereo system and all the kids dancing around. Kind of perfect that it was already a classic children’s song a decade after it was released.
“She Said She Said” – kind of weird that this song is inspired by Peter Fonda being obnoxious at a party. Can’t imagine what young Beatles fans who’d never used drugs thought of this one in 1966.
“Good Day Sunshine” – my sister made a short documentary about newspaper hawkers in Boston when she was in grad school and used this as the theme song.
“And Your Bird Can Sing” – kind of the perfect power pop tune, and ideologically opposite to “Taxman.”
“I Want To Tell You” is a great George tune that fits in the style of “Paperback Writer” and the Monkee’s “Last Train to Clarksville”
“Got To Get You Into My Life” – I’ve always loved this song and when I was a kid I didn’t even know it was a Beatles song because it was played on the radio all the time. Later I learned that it was released as a single in the US in 1976 and somehow fit in perfectly with 70s soul.
“Tomorrow Never Knows” – I remember this being discussed in the documentary The Compleat Beatles and thinking it was so weird and wonderful and just needing to hear the whole song. Only this year I learned that the “seagull” sounds are actually recordings of Paul McCartney laughing that were speed up and played backwards.

In addition to a remastered version of Revolver, that sounds excellent, the Super Deluxe edition includes two albums of demos and outtakes from all of the songs, the complete album in mono, and the “Paperback Writer”/”Rain” single remastered in stereo and mono. It’s all good!

Rating: *****