Myriam Gendron – Mayday
Life has been pretty hectic for the past few weeks. I admittedly haven’t been listening to as much music as normal, but when I’ve had time I gravitate towards a specific kind of sound: introspective, unobtrusive, quietly self-assured. It’s music that doesn’t demand close attention but will reward any time you spend with it. Myriam Gendron’s latest, Mayday, is a record I’ve returned to again and again. Gendron’s last album, Ma Délire: Songs of Love, Lost & Found, saw her interpreting and interpolating folk songs from across North America; while Mayday is largely made up of originals, most sound like they’ve been passed down for decades. Nothing has changed radically since that outing. The greatest pleasures of Gendron’s music continue to be her spellbinding vocals and pitch perfect guitar playing, but I also love the way she continues to subtly expand her sonic universe: the birdcalls that pepper the opening moments of “Terres brûlées”, the skittering drum (courtesy of Jim White) on “Lully Lullay”, the whaling saxophone on closer “Berceuse”. Mayday is another subtle evolution from an artist who continues to quietly forge her own path.
Hour – Ease the Work
In early 2023, nine musicians boarded a ferry with a studio’s worth of recording equipment and set sail for Peak’s Island, Maine. The week long session that followed may have been interrupted by an island wide blackout, but it still managed to give birth to the twelve tracks on Hour’s latest album, Ease the Work. The group, originally from Philadelphia, formed in the mid 2010s as a vehicle for composer Michael Cormier-O’Leary’s instrumental compositions; avid readers of the site may be more familiar with his more traditional singer-songwriter fare, which we’ve previously covered on the site. Though Hour’s nontraditional brand of chamber music is quite different from those solo albums, it still clearly bears the mark of its maker. I’ve always loved Cormier-O’Leary’s songwriting for its keen observations, the way he can wring emotional revelation out of the mundane. Ease the Work wordlessly functions in much the same way; it’s gentle melodies and subtle textures are unobtrusive on the surface, yet they seem to ripple with the very fabric of life.
Youbet – Way To Be
Slap the adjective “psychedelic” on an album and I’m pretty unlikely to listen; it’s a style that has rarely connected with me, usually feeling more self indulgent than revelatory. Way To Be, the latest missive from Brooklyn’s Youbet, is an album that does right by psychedelia. The sounds they coax out of their instruments are full of contradictions: lucid yet dreamy, clear yet murky, familiar yet foreign. I personally love the flamenco inflected guitar riffs of “Peel”, but there’s something interesting on nearly every track: the crunchy riffs of “Trauma”, the swirling atmospheres of “Seeds of Evil”, the grungy textures of “Do”. It’s an album filled with off-kilter tracks that will make you question which way is right side up.