Album of the Week: Tyrese’s I Wanna Go There (2002)

Yo Tyrese, put some clothes on!

I can’t remember the first time I heard Chingy’s “Pullin’ Me Back”, but I was hooked. Tyrese’s chorus bolsters Chingy in a way that he wasn’t able to do on his own choruses, resulting in a 2000s pop/R&B classic. Recently rediscovering that and 2Pac’s “Neva Call U Bitch Again” made me feel like Tyrese must be some kind of unsung genius, so I dug into his third album, I Wanna Go There, on the strength of its single “How You Gonna Act Like That”. This track was produced by The Underdogs, who later made some of my personal favorite 2000s R&B tracks, such as Marques Houston’s “Sex Wit You” and Omarion’s “O”. Like the aforementioned tracks, the magic in this one lies in the chorus, which with its double-tracked vocals sounds wonderfully harmonious. I Wanna Go There as a whole is imperfect, but it’s still a worthy album.

In his music and public life, Tyrese puts it all out there. He has a strong vocal range and successfully employs a formula of restrained singing in his verses followed by bellowing choruses and impressive vocal runs toward the end of his songs. In late-album highlights like “All Ghetto Girl” and “Kinna Right”, his vocals really seal the deal over the music’s smooth production.

There are some lesser tracks here, like the redo of 2Pac’s “How Do You Want It” featuring the less-than-Pac-ish Mr. Tan. The Jermaine Dupri featuring “Girl I Can’t Help It” is surprisingly one of the weaker songs here as well. Still, most of the album sticks to a formula that is really solid R&B. The Poke & Tone produced closer, which samples the same Aretha Franklin song sampled on Mos Def’s “Ms. Fat Booty” is different, but it’s fun to see Tyrese explore his origin story on record. The guy may be mostly known for the Fast & Furious franchise, but he’s got some serious gems.

Listen to I Wanna Go There here.

Album of the Week: Neil Young’s A Letter Home (2014)

In which Jack White convinces Neil to play a bunch of acoustic covers inside of a coin-operated 1940s-era vinyl recording booth. The result? The 28th best Neil Young album. No, but really, there’s something comforting about lo-fi Neil. I wouldn’t want to actually listen to this on vinyl/great speakers since the recording quality is so poor; rather, this is an album to play at normal-to-quiet volume on your phone in bed at 1am. With this method you can reasonably convince yourself that Neil has inhabited the ghosts of Phil Ochs and Bert Jansch and is singing to you as you lapse into a dream state.

Bro actually recorded an album in this thing.

Alternatively, you can just treat A Letter Home as an album that a legendary 68-year-old guy would approach from the bottom of his heart. What’s especially precious about A Letter Home is that Neil frames the antiquated recording booth as a kind of magical device allowing him to speak to his late mother. This adds a note of earnestness to what would otherwise be an overly gimmicky project. It also explains the Bidenesque rambling (which I love) of the intro track and the beginning of “Reason to Believe”.

As far as song choices go, Ochs’ “Changes” stands out as an early highlight for its theme-appropriate wistfulness. Other tracks appear as memories from his youth (Willie Nelson’s “Crazy”) and/or later influences (Springsteen’s “My Home Town”). Neil approaching “Needle of Death” reveals its melodic influence on his own “Ambulance Blues”. Listening to the album 10 years later, I can’t help but think of Bob Dylan’s mid-2010s run covering pop standards (including the triple-album Triplicate). While Young’s choices are slightly more contemporary, both artists spent time in the mid-2010s sincerely channeling music of a bygone era. Neither project ranks among the respective artists’ greatest work, but they are worthy for their uniqueness and especially their maker’s honest connection to the songs.

Listen to A Letter Home here.

Album of the Week: Willie Colón & Héctor Lavoe’s Vigilante (1983)

Two legends of Puerto Rican music, Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe collaborated many times in the 15+ years before they recorded Vigilante. The trombonist Colón was recording albums in New York as early as 1967, when Lavoe first joined him as a vocalist at the recommendation of Johnny Pacheco, leader of the influential Fania Records label.

Though their collaborations were successful, Colón and Lavoe did not record together in the mid-to-late 70s and Vigilante was a sort of reunion, as well as their last album together. Recording began in 1982 as a soundtrack for the Robert Forster film Vigilante, which Colón also played a minor acting role in. Though the music was not used as the film soundtrack, it was completed and stands as a remarkable album.

Covering roughly 38 minutes in just 4 tracks, Vigilante is an example of musicians successfully stretching out and jamming, something Lavoe had previously done on albums like Comedia (1978), with its 10-and-a-half minute opener “El Cantante”. “Vigilante”, the second track here, is even more ambitious at over 12 minutes, with orchestral ambience, electric guitar solos, and Colón on vocals. While it sort of abandons the salsa format, “Vigilante” is the kind of stirring, high-concept track befitting an action movie, as was intended.

On the second side, the tale of one “Juanito Alimaña” unfolds to a hip-shaking beat. Lavoe belts as a chorus repeats,

En su mundo mujeres, fumada, y caña
Atracando vive Juanito Alimaña

The closer “Pasé la noche fumando” (“Spent the Night Smoking”) is my favorite track, with beautiful lyrics. No matter how much he smokes or drinks, Lavoe can’t forget his lost love. As he sings it,

Y a voy a fumar de nuevo
Y a pedir bebida
Al saber que luego
Por mas que trate, sin ti no sirve mi vida

This is accompanied by a horn-filled instrumental that just oozes romance and pain. There is some choice guitar picking about 6-minutes into this incredible track.

This album is a bright spot in the otherwise tragic final decade of Hector Lavoe’s life. Lavoe suffered the loss of a family members, a suicide attempt, and complications from AIDS, passing away at age 46 in 1993. Willie Colón has recorded since and performed live as recently as 2023.

Listen to Vigilante here.

Album of the Week: The Bobby Hamilton Quintet Unlimited’s Dream Queen (1972)

This gem is from a Syracuse-based group who played shows with spiritual jazz luminaries like Alice Coltrane and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Prior to this recording, Bobby Hamilton (not to be confused with jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson) played drums on several classic Nina Simone albums such as Pastel Blues and Wild Is the Wind. He then recorded the soul-jazz song “Ecology” with his group Anubis.

“Ecology” is a simple jam with funky guitars and vocal harmonies. But his first and only full-length recording would be Dream Queen, a jazzier, deeper undertaking. Despite the name Bobby Hamilton Quintet, seven musicians are credited on Dream Queen, including Mike Gipson on Musser electric vibes (amplified vibraphone) and Abram Brown on tenor sax. No guitars are present, but Pete Manning plays a funky bass.

The first two tracks of Dream Queen are fairly straightforward, with opener “Pearl (Among the Swine)” presenting a jazz-funk rave-up and “Priscilla” highlighting Hamilton’s mellow electric piano tone. “In the Mouth of the Beast” features a spoken rap over disorienting percussion, recalling Gary Bartz’s Harlem Bush Music – Uhuru album from 1971. After a couple of minutes the track settles into a great drum solo with multiple percussionists before unfolding into a full-out jam. The last 3-4 minutes in particular highlight the strength and intensity of the players (killer congas!).

The second side begins with the funky “Roll Your Own” before the title track, which is by far my favorite part of the album. “Dream Queen” is a ghostly, almost drumless meditation with shimmering vibraphone and a floating vocal melody. The sound is pure magic. When the horns enter, they just complete the vibe. I would recommend this track in particular to any fan of jazz-fusion or meditative music. With this monumental track, plus other gems and a striking cover, Dream Queen is something of an overlooked classic.

Listen to Dream Queen here.

Album of the Week: Freddie King’s Getting Ready… (1971)

Freddie King was known as one of the “Three Kings of the Blues Guitar” – I’ve covered B.B. King’s Live in Cook County Jail, and Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign (released on Stax!) is another one of my favorite blues albums. Recorded and released in the latter half of a fruitful career, Getting Ready… provides a great argument as to why Freddie is placed among good company in the blues pantheon.

King’s acoustic pickings on “Dust My Broom” provide an early highlight – this song is a favorite of mine because it’s so simple. Elsewhere we hear mostly electric guitar, and King rips it on “Five Long Years” – an Elmore James classic. “Going Down” begins side 2 with what may be King’s single biggest hit. Leon Russell’s signature honky-tonk piano provide an uptempo accompaniment – Russell recorded Getting Ready… for his own Shelter Records label, which put a black mark over its logo (see above) for its litigious resemblance of the Superman logo.

“Walking by Myself”, with its string accompaniment and acoustic guitar is perhaps the most beautiful track here, also showcasing King as a strong vocalist. “(I’m) Tore Down” is notable for being the sole song here written by King, whose poor health and habits led to his untimely death of ulcers and pancreatitis at age 42.

Listen to Getting Ready… here.

Album of the Week: Rob’s Make It Fast, Make It Slow (1978)

Play that funky music, Rob!

Rob Reindorf is a native of Accra, Ghana, who recorded 3 albums in the late 70s-early 80s before disappearing into obscurity for decades. Thanks to the people at Soundway, this second album of his was reissued in 2012 and is available to stream everywhere.

Beginning with four notes on an organ-sounding keyboard, Make It Fast, Make It Slow quickly gets into funk mode, with its propulsive rhythmic big band and call-and-response choruses recalling Fela Kuti, the godfather of African funk. Horns supplied by a Ghanian army band give these songs an added bite. The sexually charged title-track is counterbalanced by the religious stretch in the middle of the album – “Speak up, to Jesus, and he shall live in you!” tells Rob on “He Shall Live in You”. This track and “Back On You” are truncated, ending unexpectedly, presumably due to an issue in remastering the original recordings.

Rob’s English is imperfect, but it’s the language used on this album, leading to a unique semi-slurred performance that can take multiple listens to decipher. Take a track like “Bargain”, where he is speaking in repeated phrases – it’s a cool twist of language that gives the album an edge.

As of 2023, Rob was back on the music scene, touring Europe due to a resurgence in popularity. Aged into his 70s, Rob is apparently still recording and crushing stages. Go Rob!

Listen to Make It Fast, Make It Slow here.

Album of the Week: Mint Condition’s From the Mint Factory (1993)

I listened to this album many years ago, initially wrote it off as average, and forgot about it for a while. But as the years went by and I got more into Babyface and groups like After 7 and Silk, I kept seeing this one pop up. Upon re-evaluation, this is an outstanding and somewhat back-heavy release.

Mint Condition hail from Minneapolis, where they were discovered by Jam & Lewis. I wouldn’t necessarily lump their sound in with Janet Jackson or Prince, and frontman Stokley sounds more like Raphael Saadiq than any Minnesotan, but they do lean on live instruments. While the Purple One was recording with The New Power Generation – a large and rotating band of at least eight members – in the early 90s, Mint Condition were releasing their first two albums, Meant to Be Mint (1991) and From the Mint Factory.

The production on this record is super slick, and I think it will be make-or-break for anyone revisiting it today. The drum programming dips into a New Jack Swing sound, which by the time of this album had been around for several years. Guy, Keith Sweat and Bobby Brown all dropped genre-defining albums in ’87-88, and even “Do the Bartman” was released in 1990. By 1993, New Jack Swing was past its critical and commercial peak. But Mint Condition sort of split the difference between New Jack pop and midwestern soul.

When it leans into live drums is often where the album finds its greatest success. “Someone to Love” is a tender ballad with drumkit and saxophone that wouldn’t be out of place in a Prince playlist. “10 Million Strong” has a cool live-sounding hiss in the background in addition to its drums. “U Send Me Swingin'” is a plain revelation. I was listening to this song a lot in 2021 and after I got my Covid shot I was up at 3am in a dazed delirium, drinking grapefruit Polar, watching Cluny Brown and singing “U send me sWANNGgANNN!” These are memories you just don’t forget.

“So Fine” is an electric guitar-heavy ballad, and “Back to Your Lovin'” is a slow-jam oozing with sweetness. I can’t get enough of this one. Also, the last two tracks here are really interesting because they both employ electric guitar in ways you wouldn’t normally expect for a 90s R&B album. “My High” is like a vignette and “Fidelity” has an almost heavy metal guitar and goes all-out rock to become an album closer sort of like Goodie Mob’s “Just About Over”, their rock song which is the penultimate track on Still Standing (1998). These songs are both hate-it-til-you-love-it things for me. My guy Jellybean Johnson who did the solo on Alexander O’Neal’s “Criticize” (one of the best songs ever) plays electric guitar here and really hammers it home.

“Harmony” is a little corny with its steel drums and as I mentioned earlier, some of the tracks in the first half of this album are underwhelming. Despite that, From the Mint Factory is an excellent disc. I also recommend seeking out the Ummah (production from Q-Tip and J Dilla) Mix of “Let Me Be the One” from Mint Condition’s The Collection (1991-1998) featuring a great verse from Phife – who says “Meet me at the T-Wolves game tonight!”

Listen to From the Mint Factory here.

10 Favorite Albums of 2023

As always, there is way more music being released than I can keep up with, and this list probably looks different if written next month (or even tomorrow), but here are 10 albums from 2023 that left big impressions. Honorable mentions are also included at the jump.

To a happy 2024, and free Young Thug!!!

10. Danny Brown – Quaranta

Danny Brown has never used so little of what I call his “crazy voice” as on Quaranta, and the result is his most pleasantly surprising and vulnerable work. He brilliantly flips a classic Geto Boys line into the chorus of “Down Wit Me”, a stark breakup song that leaves him sounding emotionally drained. Yet he is quick to bounce back on “Celibate” with the help of an excellent verse from MIKE. “Hanami” is a meditation on the passage of time(!) and “Bass Jam” is just full-stop beautiful. Though Quaranta was announced years ago (Brown turned 42 months before its release), it turned out to be well worth the wait.

9. Ken Carson – A Great Chaos

The state of rap is messy right now, and a lot of new releases leave me underwhelmed. But listening to Destroy Lonely’s “if looks could kill” in 2023 really scratched my itch for some youthful, Carti-like music, and coming from a guy I had never even heard of made it that much more impressive. Ken Carson does the same thing on A Great Chaos, which has 3 Destroy Lonely features but mostly finds Carson talking shit in his muddle-mouthed drawl over candy-coated beats.

8. PinkPantheress – Heaven Knows

After coming out strong in 2021 with the outstanding 18 minute to hell with it, PinkPantheress leveled up this year. The Ice Spice-assisted “Boy’s a liar pt. 2” was an absolute smash, and Pink followed it up with as great of an album as we could have expected. Full of bops and perfectly placed features, Heaven knows makes the 22-year-old star impossible to count out.

7. Drake – For All the Dogs

I don’t blame anyone who despises Drake at this point in his career: his wealth and influence is superfluous, and over a decade and a half his rap persona has morphed from an energized young upstart to a rich horny guy who abuses similes and kinda just says cringey shit. Nevertheless, I listened to songs from For All the Dogs as much as anything else in 2023’s final quarter. Like most big-name streaming era albums, it’s bloated, but there are still plenty of great songs. Chief Keef blesses “All the Parties” with a blink-of-an-eye verse that Drake riffs on, “8AM in Charlotte” finds Drizzy blacking out over a Conductor(!) beat, “Rich Baby Daddy” has SZA sliding over “My Boo” type production (not to mention the incredible chorus), “Away From Home” is surprisingly reflective etc. The Scary Hours edition released in November adds 6 mostly great songs that remind me of why I’ve been listening to this guy now for most of my life.

6. Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World

The evergreen talents of Yo La Tengo, going strong in their 5th decade, did it again on This Stupid World. “Sinatra Drive Breakdown” is their heaviest opener since 2006’s “Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind”. A pure jammer, it sets the tone for an exploratory yet succint 9-track album. Elsewhere, “Aselestine” provides the sweetness that both longtime fans and newcomers should love.

5. Maxo – Debbie’s Son

Maxo blew me away in 2019 with his Def Jam debut Lil Big Man, a tight and mellow collection of raps. It took 4 years for Def Jam to eke out the follow-up, 2023’s Even God Has a Sense of Humor. Though a good release, that album represents the closing of a tie with a label that seemingly offered little promotion or support. Released independently, Debbie’s Son is both the more experimental and more personal Maxo album of 2023. Featuring only Zelooperz is a bold choice that pays off early, and the jazzy bent of “#3” and “Boomerang” will please any listener who seeks something beyond the current status quo of rap music.

4. Jess Williamson – Time Ain’t Accidental

When I met Jess Williamson after her show in Healdsburg in 2023, I complimented her choice of walk-out music: “Only Time” by Enya. She noted that since her album’s called Time Ain’t Accidental, “Only Time” made sense, which I hadn’t even considered. A music lover at her core, it only makes sense that Williamson is having her moment now as an outstanding new voice in country amidst a blockbuster time for country music in general. Seeing her perform these songs in a small venue was an absolute treat, and highlighted the pure excellence in her songwriting that stands out on tracks like “Roads” and “God in Everything”. That, and the drum machines in the title track and “Topanga Two Step” are perfect.

3. Animal Collective – Isn’t It Now?

Having listened to live versions of these songs for almost 4 years, Isn’t It Now felt wonderfully familiar to me the first time I pressed play. As a longstanding Animal Collective stan who gushed over 2022’s Time Skiffs, getting the counterpart album (songs from both albums were written around the same time) a year later was like receiving a big hug.

2. Dougie Poole – The Rainbow Wheel of Death

The more I play these tunes, the more they feel like permanent parts of my brain. “Worried Man Blues 2” is coming out the speaker while I’m driving, “Beth David Cemetery” is coming out my mouth while I’m working. The pedal steel cries, the guitar strums on, another day goes by and these songs live rent-free in my head. “I Lived My Whole Life Last Night” is perfect – a funny, scary, just plain brilliant riff on mortality. Destined to become a classic, I would recommend The Rainbow Wheel of Death to anyone who loves good songs.

1. Nourished by Time – Erotic Probiotic 2

Since 2019, Marcus Brown has been releasing singles and EPs as Nourished by Time (including the two-track Erotic Probiotic), in total about an album’s worth of material strong enough to rival that of most contemporary R&B/pop artists. That is until Erotic Probiotic 2, which lapped his previous output and finally gave the artist some deserved love: Oneohtrix Point Never recently described Nourished By Time as the “only new music I absolutely swear is next level”, and this coming from an artist as consistently on the vanguard of both the experimental and pop worlds as OPN is high praise. But Erotic Probiotic 2 warrants this claim.

A one-man production, Nourished By Time’s music averts current pop’s too-many-cooks syndrome, while still containing songs as catchy and hummable as any pop artist. Opener “Quantum Suicide” itself is a revelation, a banger and a prayer: “The journey, the pain / May it all be the same,” he belts (and there is a lot of fantastic belting on here). Initially I felt the album was front-loaded, but then it became man, I love these last 3, 4, 5 tracks on a 9-track album. After the delightfully busy productions of “Rain Water Promise” and “Soap Party”, the relatively sparse “Workers Interlude” allows NBT to bare his soul (“Now people pass me by / And all I ask is why?“) before “Unbreak My Love” provides the closing catharsis to put a bow on it all. Erotic Probiotic 2 is a watershed moment for Nourished by Time, and almost certainly a harbinger of more next-level shit.

Honorable Mentions:

André 3000 – New Blue Sun

Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily – Love In Exile

Bad Bunny – Nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana

bar italia – Tracey Denim

Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist – Voir Dire

George Clanton – Ooh Rap I Ya

Ice Spice – Like..?

Jessy Lanza – Love Hallucination

jonatan leandoer96 – Sugar World

Kali Uchis – Red Moon in Venus

Karina Rykman – Joyride

Lana Del Rey – Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd

Laura Groves – Radio Red

Lil Yachty – Let’s Start Here.

Mac DeMarco – Five Easy Hot Dogs

MIKE – Burning Desire

Natural Wonder Beauty Concept – Natural Wonder Beauty Concept

Pink Siifu & Turich Benjy – It’s Too Quiet..’!!

Sampha – Lahai

Titanic – Vidrio

6LACK – Since I Have a Lover

Album of the Week – Michael Naura’s Vanessa (1975)

Recently I discovered Michael Naura Quartet’s Call (1973) and fell in love. Born in Lithuania, the pianist Naura moved to Germany and released music on the German label MPS. Call featured longtime bandmates Wolfgang Schlüter on vibraphone and Joe Nay on drums, as well as upright bass extraordinaire Eberhard Weber. For Vanessa, his ECM debut, Naura’s band is augmented to a quintet with a bassoonist in Klaus Thunemann.

As Naura notes on the album’s back cover, he had by 1975 been playing jazz with Wolfgang Schlüter for two decades, and listening to several of their albums it is hard to understate the presence of Schlüter’s vibes, which seem to highlight Naura’s recordings more than even Naura’s own instrument. Still, Naura’s writing, presence as bandleader, and ability to establish the mood of his tracks is palpable. It is the element of this core duo, with Naura’s calm rhythms and Schlüter’s colorful leads, that makes Naura’s albums so compelling. Weber, the biggest name in the group, and Joe Nay, who according to Naura’s liner notes “[once] sold his mother’s carpet in order to be able to afford his first drum-kit,” fill out the rhythm section.

All that said, the first thing you really notice on Vanessa is a bassoon. Klaus Thunemann was a classical soloist and a Vivaldi specialist who really knew his way around the woodwind (and still does, I’m sure). His bassoon vamp over a murky groove on “Salvatore” makes the song a level-up from the band’s (bassoon-less) sound on Call. Around 8 minutes in, the drums drop out, and then Thunemann plays notes that sound like feedback. It’s amazing! After this nearly 12-minute opener, Weber, himself an ECM mainstay, spends most of the brief “Hills” just absolutely getting it in. “Vanessa” itself is a beautiful track – consisting mostly of just piano and vibraphone, it’s a reverie. Naura and Schlüter’s dynamic partnership is especially present on “Listen to Me”, where they really push each other. Thunemann’s track, the closer “Black Pigeon”, finds him rounding out the last 2 minutes of the record with eye-popping skill.

I believe this is the only recording of Naura or Schlüter with Thunemann, which is a shame, because he added another dimension to Naura’s band that makes Vanessa really superb. You can find some of Thunemann’s classical work here, and I also recommend the Naura Quartet’s spacier outing Rainbow Runner (1972).

Listen to Vanessa here.

Album of the Week: Roberta Flack’s Chapter Two (1970)

An artist must be relaxed and free of tension in order to record properly. -Roberta Flack, back cover of Chapter Two

My first ever AOTW post (over three years ago now) covered Flack’s Feel Like Makin’ Love, a 1975 album that diverted from her earlier piano ballad style in favor of keyboards. But on Chapter Two, her sound was still relatively spare. Though not as popular as her debut First Take, Chapter Two is far from a sophomore slump.

We begin with “Reverend Lee”, a great tale of lust and faith. “Do What You Gotta Do” will sound familiar to fans of Kanye’s “Famous”, in which Rihanna sings the vocal part (West originally sampled Nina Simone’s version). “Let It Be Me” is so tender, it’s like The Everly Brothers’ version in slo-mo.

T.I.’s mammoth single “What You Know” samples this version of “Gone Away”, and listening to this album illustrates how brilliant Toomp’s sample is: he turned something wistful, almost mournful into an absolutely triumphant beat. Flack’s track itself wows in its graceful, beautiful buildup and release. The album should seemingly end with the climactic “The Impossible Dream”, but instead it finishes with the ominous war commentary “Business Goes on as Usual”. “Business Goes on as Usual” reminds me of Nico’s best work: its military march has an unsettling quality to it, and the spare arrangement allows the voice to take center stage. You can hear Flack breathing.

Chapter Two is ultimately a great showcase in Flack’s taste and form. She takes pop and folk songs (boy, Dylan was everywhere at this time) and makes them her own.

Listen to Chapter Two here.