Part one of the TVD Record Store Club’s look at the new and reissued releases presently in stores for October 2020.
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Lafayette Gilchrist, NOW (Lafayette Gilchrist Music) Baltimore-based pianist-composer-bandleader Gilchrist’s CD from last year, Dark Matter, was a superb listen, but it was also a solo set, recorded live in 2016. This 2CD, which offers nearly two and a half hours of music, expands to a trio with Herman Burney on bass and Eric Kennedy on drums, and finds the band immediately setting forth on a course of high energy and groove heaviness that effectively illuminates Gilchrist’s influences from ragtime and stride to hard-bop and blues to go-go and hip-hop, with the thrust falling comfortably between the two-handed expressiveness of Dark Matter and the vivid sound of his larger bands, which includes the New Volcanoes (formed in 1993). There are also passages of considerable lyricism, particularly “The Wonder of Being Here” on disc two, but even Gilchrist’s ballads can boom (in no small part due to Burney).
Gilchrist might be best known for “Assume the Position,” which was featured on the HBO series The Wire. A ripping version of the piece opens NOW, the choice deliberate as the song deals with police violence, an issue that continues to plague this country (this reading of the tune was recorded last year, before the latest egregious examples occurred). Indeed, the record’s very title establishes that its contents are socially concerned, and as detailed above Gilchrist’s music is a robust blend of old and new. Along with The Wire, the pianist has also been featured on two other David Simon series, The Deuce and Treme; the connection to the latter highlights a touch of New Orleans in his music, though he’s firmly a Charm City-DC guy. While the length of NOW situates it as best absorbed a disc or so at a time (the first concludes exquisitely with “The Midnight Step Rag”), the second half does find the trio progressing into less torrid, more contemplative territory (the second disc also holds many of the set’s more personal selections). Most importantly, there’s never a shortage of ideas or verve. A
Michael J Sheehy, Distance is the Soul of Beauty (Lightning Archive) Londoner Sheehy’s music-making spans back to the 1990s as part of Dream City Film Club, who released a pair of albums and an EP for Beggars Banquet in the latter half of the decade. Following that outfit’s breakup in ’99, he commenced a solo stretch, initially on Beggars for three records, and next on Glitterhouse for three more, two of them with backing band the Hired Mourners, Then, a break of over ten years. But don’t consider that span a stretch of inactivity, as along with quitting drinking, Sheehy’s been playing in Miraculous Mule and is half of United Sounds of Joy, the psychedelic electronic act where he’s joined by his partner in Dream City Film Club, Alex Vald. Along with imbibing, another thing Sheehy stopped doing for a while was solo writing, although after a few years of sobriety and then his time in Miraculous Mule, the tunes began to come together.
Following the start of United Sounds of Joy and especially after the birth of his daughter, the songs were flowing with greater frequency, and Sheehy had an album on his hands. But that’s not what’s here, as post-Covid-19, he shelved that material unfinished and then dedicated himself to recording and releasing a finished album quickly. This is the result, and while it required a few spins to get its hooks in, I’m glad I took the time. Sheehy cites the third Velvets album as a touchstone for Distance, and I can hear that, though I’ll elaborate that a few cuts here, specifically in closer “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” remind me of the gentler Ira-sung selections on Yo La Tengo’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. But there’s also a consistent Memphis-Nashville vibe (underscoring another of Sheehy’s touchstones, Elvis) and a use of electronics that drives home the influence of Suicide in a wonderfully subtle way. But the bottom line is that the songwriting here is strong throughout. A-