Political

Leyla McCalla – Money Is King (2019)

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“McCalla also grasps the potential for lively music to carry comment, critique and lament. In the title track — in which she takes a wry, salty, horn-accented turn as a cabaret blues diva — she voices impatience with the myth of upward mobility. “You keep telling me to climb this ladder,” she protests wearily. “I’ve got to pay my dues / But as I rise, the stakes get higher.” In “Money Is King,” drawn from the catalog of Trinidadian musician Neville Marcano, she aims breezily rhythmic, plainspoken wit at the corrupting power of wealth.”

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Key & Cleary – A Man + There Are Troubles (1972)

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“In the early ’70s, Jessie Key and Sylvester Cleary – two passionate idealists living in Buffalo, New York – formed a close friendship based on a mutual mission to better their city. The Attica State Prison Riot of 1971 was a burning memory, and the Arthur vs. Nyquist lawsuit – brought against the City of Buffalo for creating and maintaining a racially segregated school system – was on the docket. Key was once a cotton-laborer in Mississippi, who journeyed north for school where he met his kindred spirit, Cleary. The two struck up an intense friendship, bought a drum machine and recorded their first 45, “A Man,” a paean to self-actualization and Black American empowerment, which they custom pressed and issued privately.” Source

Mick Harvey & Christopher Richard Barker – Further Down The Line (2018)

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“Mick Harvey is best known as a long-time collaborator with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, but he has also released several solo albums and is a founding member of The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds, The Boys Next Door, and more. Author Christopher Richard Barker, on the other hand, created the character of Bourchier and his poetry while crafting his novel The Melancholy Haunting of Nicholas Parkes, and then approached Harvey for help with arranging the scores. The result is a powerful and moving fictional narrative that captures the horrors of war on using both micro and macro perspectives.”Source

Marie Davidson – Work It (2018)

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“Marie Davidson’s new album turns the mirror on herself. “Working Class Woman” is the Montreal-based producer’s fourth and most self-reflective record: it’s a document of her state of mind, a reflection of the past year she’s spent living in Berlin, and a comment on the stresses and strains of operating within the spheres of dance music and club culture. Drawing on those experiences, as well as an array of writers, thinkers and filmmakers who’ve influenced her, Davidson’s response to such difficult moments is to explore her own reaction to them and poke fun. “It comes from my brain, through my own experiences: the suffering and the humour, the fun and the darkness to be Marie Davidson.” It’s an honest document of where she currently stands. As she puts it, “It’s an egotistical album – and I’m okay with that.” Buy Here

The Liberation Project – I can Hear My Papa Calling (2018)

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“From the soon to be released album “Songs That Made Us Free”, “I Can Hear My Papa Calling” tells the story of Karim Franceschi, a young Italian activist who fought in the Syrian civil war as a volunteer for the People’s Protection Unit (YPG) against the Islamic State during the Siege of Ayn al-Arab. Karim believed he drew his strength from his father who had fought for the Italian partisans in the mountains of Tuscany. Written by Neill Solomon, Phil Manzanera and Dan Chiorboli.” The Liberation Project

Marc Ribot – Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)(feat. Tom Waits)(2018)

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“Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)” is an Italian anti-Fascist folk ballad, and the first song Waits has been featured on in two years. “I played Tom a bunch of the tunes and he immediately bonded with that one,” said Ribot in an official statement. “Of course, he brings a certain gravitas to everything he does – my Italian friends say he sounds exactly like an old ‘partigiano’ (resistance fighter).” Source

Lonnie Holley – I Woke Up…(2018)

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““I went to sleep/I went to sleep/Anticipating of dreaming,” Holley opens over delicate piano runs before blown-out drums, quaking synths, and violent, looped trombone disturb the haze. “I dreamed that I woke up/In a fucked up America,” he bellows, his soulful croon turning toward the guttural. In his other career as a sculptor, Holley has long made art from found objects, assembling refuse into immersive sculptures. Here, he pieces together a patchwork of American cruelty: connecting his childhood in Birmingham, Alabama in the Jim Crow-era South to our present moment, he laments the “breakdown of words,” Wall Street crimes, and digital “overdatafying.” But for all his despair, Holley speaks to ways forward, pleading for change and a recognition of dignity. In the dream-logic sermon of “I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America,” Holley makes clear: It’s time we woke up.” Source

Uniform – The Walk (2018)

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“Uniform attempt to make a visceral connection with their listeners on The Long Walk. Part myth and part autobiography, the New York City duo’s third effort focuses on the virtues and punishments derived from capitalism, a concept that vocalist Michael Berdan also ascribes to his formative years as an altar boy. Time has allowed Berdan to pause and reflect, to remove himself from the ugliness of organized religion without renouncing the goodness that his faith also provides to many people.” Source

Will Long – Nothing’s Changed (2018)

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“As much as is said of our current times being new lows, where things have changed for the worse and we’re unsure of the future, it’s worth returning to study the past to understand how steadily low we remain. “Nothing’s changed,” says a younger Barack Obama in a sample for the opening track. “Long Trax 2” is the second album from Will Long after his 2016 “Long Trax” debut on Comatonse Recordings. The album presents as an ongoing criticism of cultural stasis, conveyed via minimal synthesizers, sampler, and rhythm machine. Dancefloors are widely perceived by the masses as safe zones, but few can imagine how to apply notions of safety and equality to other aspects of society. We shouldn’t need clubs to hide from our fears and differences in the outside world. Looking ahead, we should look not so optimistically upon what we have accomplished, but with urgency and empathy upon what we haven’t.” Source

Beck (feat. Charlie Haden) – Ramshackle (1996)

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Charlie

“”Ramshackle” on Odelay is a brother to “Blackhole” on Mellow Gold in many ways. Both end their respective albums on a haunting, mellow acoustic note. Both feature a member of the Haden family (“Blackhole” with Petra on violin, “Ramshackle” with her father Charlie on bass). Both were produced by Tom and Rob from Bong Load. Both are about the downtrodden, the homeless.”Source