New albums we listened to this week
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
EMA | SZA | Spenking | Duck Sauce
EMA | A
The Future’s Void (Matador), into which Erika M. Anderson projects her noise, is here and now and 100 years ago and 100 years to come. Her voice comes filtered and layered, or naked; quiet or shrieking, constantly tearing at itself. “Smoulder” is a torch song fed into an incinerator. There’s blues, grunge, industrial noise, ballads and a stirring interpolation of “Taps.” All of it is anchored in the intense throbbing frequency of her analog synths.
—Dotun Akintoye
SZA | A
Her gorgeous protean voice slips like a wraith writhing in vapors, in and out of soundscapes that signal jazz, electro-soul, hip-hop, dream and synth pop, all swirled together to create her astral R&B. “Green Mile,” “Shattered Ring” and “Omega” are some of the most replayable songs the genre has produced in recent memory. There’s an unpackable darkness at the edge of SZA’s sound, and the touches of religiosity just add to the mystery. Everything about Z (Top Dawg) is surprising, uncanny and free of cliché.
—Dotun Akintoye
Spenking | B+
Spencer Kingman’s high, lonesome singing, frolicsome melodies and unfussy fingerpicking form some of the most strangely arresting — and straight-up loveliest — music you could hope to hear. Spend some time, though, with the songwriter’s debut LP, Bad Blood, Good Blood (Ethereal Sequence), and you’ll notice some dark undercurrents and some mysteries: “Woke up with ketchup on my pants and face” runs one notable line. Also: “How’m I gonna get this piano to play cards with me?”
—K. Ross Hoffman
Duck Sauce | B
A-Trak and Armand van Helden’s joking/not-joking partystarter DJ duo’s full-length bow, Quack (Fool’s Gold), is a campy, heartfelt love letter to NYC dance culture, rooted in string-laden retro-disco and thumping, treble-heavy house, including the still-banging singles “aNYway” and “Barbra Streisand.” It’s spiked with salsa, doo-wop, MJ-esque soul-pop and Sugar Hill Gang-style hip-hop, all interlarded with ridiculous, birdbrained skits, one of which sums up the proceedings, aptly enough, as “acid house meets Elmer Fudd.”
—K. Ross Hoffman
