Nova Ahead 4
How does music attach itself to a time period, or a person, or a season? I was thinking about this as I heard Adrianne Lenker’s new double album Songs and Instrumentals, as it dug its feet into the dawn of December, firmly cementing it as a “winter album”. I know it came out in October, and that for a lot of people I’m sure it’s very much a fall record, but as I may have mentioned before, I’m a late bloomer. Listening, moving west on 101, the snow accumulation increasing as I got closer to home, her voice holds an iciness that is both strong and fragile, double-tracked and straddling the car speakers. I’m looking forward to getting back to it.
Another album that I always consider my favorite “Christmas” music is John Coltrane with Johnny Hartman, a record that, to me, shatters any other crooner type sound. It was recorded and released in 1963, after Coltrane had already been well on his way to redefining contemporary music and improvisation. He had been pushing the boundaries, and his label, Impulse! Records, had essentially given him free reign, releasing Africa / Brass, Live at the Village Vanguard, Coltrane, and Newport 63, all of which challenged the status quo. The label asked Coltrane if he wouldn’t mind recording something more straight ahead, and since John was such a generous person, he gave them not one but three perfectly mellow albums, each one crushing in its own way: Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, Ballads, and the aforementioned record with Hartman. He then went on to go even further out; when I first arrived at this point in his discography, these three felt a little out of the blue, but once I began to understand him more not only as a musician, but as a person, it made sense, and became an inspiration. It is possible to scream into the void of space in one moment, and then deliver a heartfelt, and wholly inside, take on a Rodgers & Hammerstein classic the next. Our hearts cover too much ground to only speak one language; though I will allow that a person may be so deeply fluent in a single tongue, that they will exclusively communicate in that way for their lifetime, and that is spectacular in itself. (Quick note: this is not technically a holiday album, it just feels that way to me.)
If you haven’t guessed, I’m figuring this out as I go; maybe I’ve been digging too deep into those mid to late nineties stories; in fact I was harassed about it only yesterday. We’ve canceled the last couple live shows unfortunately, so we’ll have to wait to dial up that Village Vanguard vibe. Tiffy did a live stream last night and it made for a lovely evening, and definitely helped me to see how amazing that room is going to be post-pandemic, filled with people nodding along to a band. I interviewed Tiffany Sammy, the lead singer / songwriter / guitarist, before the set, which of course filled me with anxiety, but she’s a trooper, and it worked out fine. It made me feel like maybe I could do some good interviews, if I could stop being such a goofball. So keep an eye out for more of those, as well as performances, as we start burrowing into this new, weird season. Maybe you will see something through the electronic haze, telegraphed through satellites and underground conduit, that you could fall in love with. Something that you’ll keep with you, and at some point even forget how you ever were alive without it.