JJJJJerome Ellis is a Black disabled animal, a stutterer, and an artist. His album and book The Clearing were released last month by the Poetry Project, NNA Tapes, and Wendy’s Subway.
1
EMILY RICE, MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE I’M A LONDONER (First Artists Recordings)
I was grateful to witness Rice, who is known primarily as a composer of emotionally deft scores for television and film, shift her musical focus inward on her debut album.
2
THE HAWTPLATES, MAKE ME DOWN: SONGS FOR MAKING IT THROUGH ALIVE (4Be)
On this EP, The HawtPlates—a performance trio formed by family members Jade Hicks, Justin Hicks, and Kenita Miller-Hicks—“proffer the notion,” in their words, “that sometimes, songs are meant to keep us going.”
3
LUCY DACUS, HOME VIDEO (Matador)
On my favorite track from her third album, the nearly eight-minute-long “Triple Dog Dare,” Dacus patiently tells a childhood story through indelible imagery and a perfect melody.
4
MABE FRATTI, SERÁ QUE AHORA PODREMOS ENTENDERNOS (WILL WE BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER NOW) (Unheard of Hope)
Guatemalan-born cellist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter Fratti wrote this album while quarantining in La Orduña, an artist compound outside Mexico City. I particularly love “En Medio,” a track that rocks me in more than one sense of the word!
5
OMAR SOSA, AN EAST AFRICAN JOURNEY (Otá)
In 2009, Omar Sosa recorded with local musicians on a tour that began in Madagascar and continued to Zambia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Burundi, Kenya, and finally Mauritius. He and his collaborators then edited those recordings over twelve years, creating an album with the richness and flavor of a slowly prepared stew.
6
MÚSICA SOÑADA, RADIO NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA
My friend James Harrison Monaco, a translator of Spanish and Italian, suggests “Dreamed Music” or “Music for Dreaming” as possible translations of this weekly radio show’s title. Host Sergio Pagán weaves poetry, early European music history, and ornithological musings into an addictive and idiosyncratic listening experience.
7
SINIKKA LANGELAND, WOLF RUNE (ECM)
This veteran Norwegian singer and kantele player’s first solo album is full of sensitive, imaginative performances, including “When I Was the Forest,” which sets a poem by the thirteenth-century medieval mystic Meister Eckhart to music.
8
SON OF CLOUD, NOTES TO SELF (self-released)
Jonathan Seale was dubbed “Son of Cloud” as a child by the Indigenous Yukpa tribe of Venezuela. He has said of this album, “Completing each track . . . has felt like putting a piece of my pain onto a small sailboat and gently releasing it out to sea.”
9
STARR BUSBY, 9 C U P S I N T H E M O O N (self-released)
A phrase from Saidiya Hartman aptly describes the songs of Starr Busby: “experiments with freedom.”
10
YASMIN WILLIAMS, URBAN DRIFTWOOD (Spinster)
Williams responds to the past two years with guitar, harp-guitar, kora, tap shoes, and kalimba, among other instruments. She is explicit about her position as a Black female artist in the white-male-dominated field of fingerstyle guitar in a world that is still ruled by white supremacy. Her music makes me happy.