A couple weeks ago Fish released his new single.

Fish, if you don’t know, is a Scottish singer with a long pedigree. He was the original singer for Marillion, back when they were disciples of ‘70s progressive rock, and with him the band scored their biggest hits. After he left Marillion in 1988, Fish launched a solo career that has certainly had its ups and downs. But lately – heck, ever since 2003’s Field of Crows – he’s been on a mighty upswing. 2013’s A Feast of Consequences may well be his best work.

At least for now. For years Fish has been working on what he is billing as his final album. He’s called it Weltschmerz, a German phrase that means “pain of the world.” I’ve liked what I’ve heard, from the menacing “Man With a Stick” to the expansive “Waverly Steps,” but this new single, “Garden of Remembrance,” is the first time in Fish’s long history that he has made me cry.

The song and its extraordinary video are about dementia. They detail an elderly couple as they struggle with one partner’s loss of memory and identity, and Fish digs into the ways dementia can make longtime lovers feel like strangers. The video depicts how moments of clarity can feel like tender reunions. It’s beautiful stuff, and it got me thinking about dementia as a subject. My grandmother suffered from it in her final years, and it’s always been a particular fear of mine, to lose my grasp of who I was and who I am.

This, of course, led me to research other musicians who have tackled this subject, and that rabbit hole led me to The Caretaker. I’d heard of James Leyland Kirby before, and in fact listened to both his solo work and his music under the Caretaker name, but I apparently missed hearing anything about his magnum opus. About four years ago, Kirby began releasing a massive project called Everywhere at the End of Time, billing it as the final Caretaker album.

And really, even just reading about it, this has to be the final Caretaker album, because there’s nowhere else for the project to go. As the Caretaker, Kirby crafted haunting soundscapes out of old recordings of 1920s ballroom music, adding effects and editing them into loops to simulate memory and nostalgia. I can’t explain how or why it works, but it does. Listening to a Caretaker album feels like being very old and looking back on fading moments of joy. It’s beautiful and sad and dark and magical stuff.

But I’ve never heard any of Everywhere at the End of Time, and today I plan to correct that. This album, released in six distinct stages, is six and a half hours long, and is intended to mirror the experience of dementia. The music, so evocative of long-ago memories, is meant to deteriorate over time, and listening to it all in a row is intended to depict, from Kirby’s point of view, what losing one’s memory and sense of self must feel like.

Sounds like a good way to spend a pandemic Saturday, no?

I’m listening to Stage One now, and will write my impressions of this monster as we go. I expect this will be emotionally overwhelming about five hours from now, and I will try to capture it as best I can. If it gets too overwhelming, I will stop, but I hope to liveblog this entire experience from start to finish in one go. If you also want to have this experience – and I understand I am saying this before I take the plunge myself – you can download the whole thing for surprisingly little money here.

OK, here we go.

1:30 p.m.

Stage one: Here we experience the first signs of memory loss. This stage is most like a beautiful daydream. The glory of old age and recollection. The last of the great days.

That’s Kirby’s description of this first of six albums, and it tracks perfectly. Here are twelve pretty, hazy pieces formed from 1920s ballroom records, with the pops and crackles intact to add even more of a nostalgic feel. This is most similar to other Caretaker music I’ve heard, with a deeply romantic feel, like remembering the best dance of your life. There are a couple here, like “Slightly Bewildered” and “Quiet Internal Rebellions,” that speak to a hint of loss, but mostly this is gorgeous.

I find this music so easy to get lost in, so evocative of holding on to a life well lived. Everything here feels new, but also familiar. There’s a tinge of melancholy to it, but an ever-so-slight one, and the overwhelming emotion is joy. The horns on “Into Each Other’s Eyes” are punchy even through the mist, feeling like springtime in the movies. These days do feel great, and I expect I will soon wish they were not the last. Stage two is looming.

2:15 p.m.

Stage two: The second stage is the self-realization and awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that. More effort is made to remember so memories can be more long form with a little more deterioration in quality. The overall personal mood is generally lower than the first stage and at a point before confusion starts setting in.

Oh, this is already getting to me. Stage Two feels like the same memories, only glimpsed through a thickening fog. Everything is slower, less full of life. The strings and horns weep instead of dance. I can feel the joy of Stage One slipping away, and the worst part is that none of it is gone yet. The songs are still recognizable, the memories still tangible, but you can feel that something is off kilter, something is slowing everything down.

When Kirby re-uses source material, that’s when this hurts the most. “What Does It Matter How My Heart Breaks” is built from the same piece that opened Stage One, only deteriorated and worn and sluggish. It’s like the song is trying to remember itself, but can’t quite get there. This stage ends with a song called “The Way Ahead Feels Lonely” – all of these titles feel like suggested meditations while the music is playing – and it’s almost desperate in its attempt to claw at the sadness surrounding it. The ending feels like sinking beneath the waves. This all still feels nostalgic, but that nostalgia is getting harder and harder.

3:00 p.m.

Stage Three. Here we are presented with some of the last coherent memories before confusion fully rolls in and the grey mists form and fade away. Finest moments have been remembered, the musical flow in places is more confused and tangled. As we progress some singular memories become more disturbed, isolated, broken and distant. These are the last embers of awareness before we enter the post awareness stages.

Functionally, this stage is not too different from Stage Two. These pieces are deteriorated further, some of them doubling back on themselves in an approximation of confusion. (My grandmother would ask the same questions multiple times in the same conversation, and this feels like the musical equivalent of that.) Some of these deteriorations are subtle, some are drastic as compared to Stage Two. The same piece of music that opened the first stage reappears here again, for instance, as “And Heart Breaks,” and it’s sadder and slower and harder to pin down.

There’s more noise here as well, which feels to me like the brain spinning fog around these memories, making them more difficult to access. A track called “Internal Bewildered World” barely feels like the music it is based on, the big band sounds only faintly audible beneath the static and drawn-out moans made from the melody lines. It’s haunting. Things get more confused and chopped up from there, as these memories gasp for life. This one is more jarring than sad, although a drone like “Aching Cavern Without Lucidity” no doubt presages some of what is to come.

I feel a little worn out already, and we’re just launching into the more difficult parts of this. The three stages I’ve already listened to encompass 38 of the 50 tracks that make up the whole, but only two of its six and a half hours. The final three stages are all made up of four tracks each, with each track running more than 20 minutes. We’ll see how I do. It’s not emotionally overpowering yet, but I am feeling this music, especially the sheer amount of it, in ways that I am not sure I expected.

4:30 p.m.

Stage Four. Post-Awareness Stage Four is where serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror. It’s the beginning of an eventual process where all memories begin to become more fluid through entanglements, repetition and rupture.

Oh man. This stage was an hour and a half long, and it’s draining. Three of the four tracks are titled “Post Awareness Confusions,” and they sound like it. Everything is jumbled up and difficult to make sense of. These tracks are clearly built with the same source material as the previous three stages, but nothing coheres. There are snatches of pianos and horns, but they are soon swallowed up by the noise and fog. I found this music hard to concentrate on, but at the same time I found it difficult to concentrate on anything else.

That’s sections one, two and four. The third section is called “Temporary Bliss State,” and it’s something else entirely – a respite, a reprieve for 22 minutes. It’s probably constructed from the same pianos that made up much of the earlier material, but these have been manipulated to sound like ethereal chimes, and they float through the noise, carrying you along. This section is no less confusing, but it is less abrasive, less horrifying, and in that way it lives up to its title.

More than anything, what I took from this section is that the length of this experience is the point. This bewilderment is unending, and an hour and a half of it is nothing compared to the everyday torment of a post-awareness dementia patient. Even so, I can’t imagine what the next three hours of this thing are going to do to me. My head is swimming, and I feel like I cannot remember the songs I heard only a couple hours ago. I have never listened to anything else but this noise.

6:00 p.m.

Stage Five. Post-Awareness Stage 5 confusions and horror. More extreme entanglements, repetition and rupture can give way to calmer moments. The unfamiliar may sound and feel familiar. Time is often spent only in the moment leading to isolation.

Oh. Oh.

I am spent. This is tough going. Stage Five is a story in two parts. First is the 45-minute “Advanced Plaque Entanglements,” which is the most harrowing part of this journey. It is like Stage Four’s most abrasive moments, but everything is ramped up. It is denser and more confusing, with more bursts of noise and disorientation. The most affecting parts come when Kirby lets us hear moments of the recognizable music from the first two stages – a few piano chords here, a horn line there. It’s memories peeking through the cacophony of terror, snatches of a former life that can no longer be remembered. These bits go on for mere seconds, barely long enough to register, before we are back to the howling. It is legitimately horrific.

The second part, just as long, is a descent into dissolution. “Synapse Retrogenesis” calms things down, sinking slowly into “Sudden Time Regression Into Isolation,” which is almost an ambient dirge. This is the last of the memories and identity being wiped away, and replaced with a dull nothingness. I cannot imagine living this way, hearing this inside my head at all times. I also am not sure how I am going to make it through the next 90 minutes if they are like this. This might be the most physically draining music I’ve ever heard.

I’m in it for the long haul now, though. No matter how emotionally and spiritually exhausting Stage Six is, I’m not stopping.

7:30 p.m.

Stage Six: Post-Awareness Stage Six is without description.

While I don’t agree with Kirby here – I am certainly going to try to describe this – I do think that nothing I write here will emulate for you what it is like to hear this, especially at the end of this six-and-a-half-hour journey. The exhaustion is part of the experience, the sense that nothing has ever been right and will ever be right again. While the previous two stages used medical titles for their tracks, this one returns to the emotional titles of the first few stages. (“A Confusion So Thick You Forget Forgetting,” as an example.) You’re meant to feel this, meant to succumb to its cavernous despair.

Stage Six is 85 minutes of near-nothingness, of darkness opening its maw and swallowing you. There is no sensory awareness for this stage – the noise has enveloped everything, but worse, the noise itself is distant and quiet. There are waves of it, but nothing like we heard in Stage Five. This stage is numbness, a mind unable to access even itself. What is remarkable is that it is clearly built from the same elements as the first couple stages, only slowed down to an almost time-breaking degree. We still hear the occasional piano hit, but it’s part of the empty nothing. The horns come in, distorted and sad, near the end of “Long Decline is Over,” but they quickly lose form and are folded back into the chasm. Everything has degraded until none of it exists.

And it emptied me right out. I’m not sure how to explain what it feels like to hear this, to come to this destination after such a long walk. And I am certainly not going to be able to explain the flood of emotions wrapped up in the final six minutes of “Place in the World Fades Away,” the concluding track. This whole thing is a dirge, in which individual elements can barely be discerned. It is the final dimming of the light, the final smearing of the lens. It’s louder than I expected, after the near-silence of the first three tracks.

And then, six minutes from the end, the dirge cuts, the record cues back up with the crackles at their normal speed, and the full-on 1920s music begins. And it is gorgeous. I think the idea here is that memories are restored at the moment of death? But hearing music, especially music this sad and glorious, after four and a half hours of confusing, heart-sinking noise, is inexpressible. It may be one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever had with an album. It’s stunning. The last minute of the album is the silence of death, and its abruptness is shocking and perfect.

This is a thoughtful, difficult, hard-to-digest work. But it is also capable of devastating you emotionally, of cutting past all the questions about how it was made and what it signifies and just stabbing you in the heart. I end it tired and sad and uplifted at the same time. I had more to say here, but I have forgotten it. I am lying down. I am lost in thought. My words are gone. This will have to do.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Everyone loves a good story, and Taylor Swift’s Folklore comes with a really good one.

I assume no one needs me to tell them who Swift is. A darling of the country circuit as a teenager, Swift has masterfully evolved herself into one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Along the way, she’s shown a legimitate knack for tuneful, catchy songcraft, and for choosing some of the best collaborators in the business to bring her songs to life. The effervescent thrills of a record like 1989 or last year’s Lover cannot be overstated, and they helped elevate Swift to a position where her every move is watched and scrutinized.

So the fact that she made an entire new album in secret, while in lockdown like the rest of us, is a strong hook. Even on paper this is intriguing stuff: Swift’s main collaborator here is Aaron Dessner of the National, a band that exists about a thousand miles away from her usual fare. Folklore contains a duet with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and musical contributions from Bryce Dessner, Rob Moose and James McAllister. It comes adorned with monochromatic photos of nature scenes.

And the fact that Swift did not even tell her record company that she was making Folklore is all part of its legend, which Swift has spun here with aplomb. Every part of this story is designed to tell you that this is unlike any Swift album you have heard. Dropping it 24 hours after announcing it, which she did on July 24, was an essential part of the story: everyone will be talking about this album for the next couple weeks, and if you want in on the conversation, you better buy it.

I mention all of this up front because I did buy it directly from her, and the story behind it is one of the reasons why. I like Swift, and have picked up her records in the past, but I’ve not felt that pull to be part of the discussion about her the way I have with Folklore. I kinda bought in – I had to hear this right away so I could talk about it. I don’t know if this is a failing or not, but I expect this is going to be part of the new music experience going forward. FOMO will play a part in how well projects like this do.

Thankfully, while I appreciate the story, I appreciate the record even more. Folklore might be a calculated move, a bid for respectability and critical acclaim, but there’s a genuine artistry behind it, and its songs point to significant growth in Swift’s writing. Dessner turns out to be a strong partner for her. I have struggled to like the National, and a lot of that can be attributed to the lack of passion in their delivery. Their songs just kind of sit there. But the Swift-Dessner songs on Folklore, despite using the same trappings, are never boring. The best ones are melodic and interesting in ways we’ve never heard from Swift.

Yes, I know it’s a cliché to consider the slow, quiet folk-pop that makes up all of Folklore as more mature than a record like 1989, but hear me out. The main step forward here for me is in Swift’s storytelling. Her previous records have felt at times like extensions of her Twitter feed, addressing her romances and her celebrity with first-person bluntness. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s the first-draft way to make her points. Folklore is more oblique – it finds Swift speaking through characters, delivering third-person narratives, and leaving clues for attentive listeners to pick up.

The two best examples of this are ones I picked up by being part of the conversation around this record as it unfolded. First there is “My Tears Ricochet,” which reads like a broken love song, but is sneakily about her travails with her record company. It’s the same lovely trick Aimee Mann pulled on Bachelor No. 2, and if you’re drawing comparisons to Aimee Mann, you’re doing something right.

Second, of course, is the teenage love triangle trilogy, which includes “Cardigan,” “August” and “Betty.” These three songs are each sung from the point of view of one character in this love triangle, with little lyrical breadcrumbs sprinkled throughout. Together they tell the story of a summer affair, from the perspective of the boyfriend, the girlfriend and the other woman. Swift does a nice job of telling the same events different ways, putting us inside the minds of all three characters. This is just good songwriting, of a caliber we haven’t seen from Swift before.

And these are not even the best songs. I have three favorites on Folklore that I think are as good as any songs I’ve heard this year. (While I do like the Bon Iver duet, “Exile,” it isn’t one of them.) “The Last Great American Dynasty” spins the story of Rebekah Harkness, who first lived in the Rhode Island mansion Swift now owns. Swift draws some nice parallels between herself and Harkness, and tells her tale sympathetically. “Seven” is a wonder, a song I would gladly accept from Tori Amos. It’s a nostalgic look back at a long-lost friend who had to hide her queerness from her father, told with the clarity of adulthood.

And then there is “Invisible String,” a song I cannot stop listening to. Its central idea is a reference to Jane Eyre, and Swift uses it to discuss the hand of fate connecting people and moving them together. It’s a very pretty lyric married to a gorgeous piece of music – the descending melody on “me” is my favorite thing on Folklore. This is a remarkably rich song, and I would have suffered through an album far worse than this one to get to it.

My main issue with this album is that it is too long, and that some of the songs here don’t pop like others. The CD version sports 17 songs over 67 minutes, and paring down some of the lesser tunes (like “Mirrorball” or “Mad Woman”) would have helped. But there isn’t much of Folklore that I don’t like. This album represents a shift not only in sound but in substance for Swift, and it’s an impressive one. It lives up to its story, and given how compelling its story is, that’s an achievement. I’m glad this album was a success, and now I can’t wait to see how she moves forward from here.

* * * * *

Of course, great albums are not always accompanied by backstories or by a cultural conversation that dominates social media. Sometimes the best records are the ones no one is talking about. Do I have an example? Of course I do, and it’s the self-titled album from Lianne La Havas. And frankly, this is a record that more people should be discussing.

La Havas is a British singer-songwriter whose work with Matt Hales, better known as Aqualung, brought her to my attention. Her work on her own is a complex form of R&B that centers her supple, soulful voice, and this – her third album – is the best example of it she’s given us. It is her first in five years, and it’s a breakup record, but a deeply joyous one. There are shades of Esperanza Spalding in these songs, but La Havas’s work is more straightforward and accessible.

It’s also awesome. Opener “Bittersweet” lets you know what’s up – it flutters to life on a slinky beat, and when La Havas draws back and lets those pipes loose halfway through, the moment is revelatory. “Green Papaya” is a lovely, jazzy folk song, while “Can’t Fight” is a loose and funky number with some sweet harmonies. La Havas again works with Hales behind the boards, and the production is exactly what it should be – the guitars are airy and rubbery, the bass is minimal but effective, and the sound is full without being crowded. There’s a live-band feel to most of this, and it works really well with her voice.

And at track six you get the best Radiohead cover you’ve ever heard. “Weird Fishes” is such a fascinating choice to take on, but she transforms it from a fussy bit of math-rock to a jazz-soul showstopper. I don’t know where the hell this came from, but I’m so glad it exists. Lianne La Havas is an artist who deserves far more attention than she gets, and I hope this album brings her some of the acclaim she’s been due. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter how many people are talking about it, or not talking about it. A great record is a great record, and this is certainly a great record.

Next week, something that scares me a little.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Gonna do some quick ones this week. I’ve chosen four albums with no connections between them that I can see, except that they’re all worth your time and attention. I’ve been going to the same record store (Kiss the Sky in Batavia) for 16 years now, and they’re used to me now. But I do miss the strange looks I used to get from record store clerks when I would buy four albums like this together. “Yes, they’re all for me. Yes, I like all of this.” (Heck, at the same time I picked these up I also bought Inter Arma’s covers record, and I’m not even featuring that one here.)

Anyway, four albums, no connecting threads. Here we go.

Noah Gabriel, Summer’s Gone.

I’m sometimes wary about talking up my friends in this space, because how would you know if I’m genuinely impressed with an album or just helping out someone I know? I hope I’ve spent the last 20 years in such a way that you’d be surprised if I promoted something I didn’t truly admire in this space, but I’m always cognizant of the need for full disclosure. So yeah, I know Noah. I’ve even shared a stage with him. And yes, I really like his new record, Summer’s Gone, and would even if I didn’t know him.

Summer’s Gone is Gabriel’s tenth solo album, and each one of those has been a different beast. This time he’s stripped things down – acoustic guitar, bass, drums and vocals – and made a sparse yet full-sounding album that lets the rawness of the performances take the spotlight. Gabriel has always had a love for ‘90s music, and this one combines that with his more obvious inspiration here, Chris Whitley.

The songs are all Gabriel, though, and they’re good ones. I’m impressed with how smoothly “Rocking Horse Road” switches from 5/8 to 6/8, and how nimbly bassist John Abbey and drummer Gerald Dowd navigate these changes. Gabriel is a hell of a guitar player – you can hear him in full electric mode on the two records he made with his band, Noah’s Arcade – but here he sometimes barely plays anything, just enough to set the song’s atmosphere and nothing more. That’s especially true on standout “Crazy,” which feels like it’s hanging together through sheer willpower. I admire Gabriel for not touching that performance, for letting it appear here just as it is.

Gabriel has been clear about his inspirations for this album, but this never sounds like an imitation or a pastiche. It’s just Noah trying on new clothes, and finding that they fit beautifully. The sound of this record is remarkable, minimal yet room-filling. And I love that he ended it with a song called “Never Say Goodbye.” Gabriel is a prolific writer – I’m sure in the time it took me to formulate these thoughts he’s written another album or two – but this one feels like an album to pause on for a bit, to really take in. It’s a special one.

You can hear and buy Summer’s Gone here.

Margo Price, That’s How Rumors Get Started.

I’m not sure why Margo Price isn’t already a household name. But if there’s any justice, her third album, That’s How Rumors Get Started, will be the one to do it.

Price is part of the alt-country movement that includes Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson, who produced this new record. She sings like a bird and writes impressive, heartfelt songs. Really, that’s it. There’s no other gimmick or hook here, just ten lovely songs, sung beautifully and played by a dream team including Simpson, Benmont Tench and Pino Palladino. If that sounds good to you, buy this now.

For my part, I think this album is her best. The more traditional twang of Midwest Farmer’s Daughter is all but gone, and in its place is a mix of Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac that works brilliantly with her voice. “Letting Me Down” is a perfect barnburner of a single, “Stone Me” is a classic epic ballad, “What Happened To Our Love” rides a “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” groove, and the terrific “Hey Child” gives that voice a workout, with a choir of voices backing her up. She saves the best for last with “I’d Die for You,” a song that feels magical to these ears. The performance here is stunning.

I can only hope that we live in a different world than I think we do, one that will embrace this record and give Price the attention and love she deserves. Three records in and she’s firmly established herself as a songwriter worth watching and a performer worth falling for. She’s one of the most straightforwardly great new voices in popular music, and I recommend this album (and her other two) highly.

Enuff Z’Nuff, Brainwashed Generation.

I think this time I’m going to skip all of the “you don’t know Enuff Z’Nuff” rigamarole and just get right to it. Let’s take it as a given that EZN is one of the most consistent and consistently overlooked power pop bands in the world, with a catalog far richer than their two hits back in the late ‘80s would indicate. Let’s also take it as a given that Donnie Vie’s solo career is similarly rich and overlooked, and that you should buy his wonderful album of last year, Beautiful Things, right now.

Brainwashed Generation is the 15th Enuff Z’Nuff album, and the second to be led by bassist Chip Z’Nuff. Donnie Vie left the band acrimoniously some time ago, but kept coming back for new recordings. But with 2018’s Diamond Boy, Z’Nuff took full control of the band, writing and singing all the songs. And it was pretty good, honestly. Not nearly the same level of quality as the Vie-Z’Nuff partnership produced, and Z’Nuff’s voice leaves a lot to be desired. But it was pretty good.

Brainwashed Generation is similarly pretty good. It’s in the same vein as its predecessor, if a little darker and more drawn-out. Songs like “Drugland Weekend” and “Help I’m in Hell” are pretty much what you think they will be from their titles – crawling riff monsters that emphasize the harder aspects of the band’s sound. Z’Nuff never forgets the melodies, of course, and the Beatles influence remains as strong as ever. The songs are longer and slower than on Diamond Boy, but they still sound like EZN.

And then there is “Strangers in My Head,” the one song here to feature Vie on vocals. He wrote this one with Z’Nuff, their first collaboration in about a decade, and (sorry Chip) it’s the best thing here. I have been enjoying Chip’s version of the band, but I find myself hoping that “Strangers” is just the start of a renewed partnership. I’d love to have at least one more Vie-Z’Nuff album.

In the meantime, Brainwashed Generation is a decent record that serves as a fine addition to the catalog. All power pop bands should have this one’s sense of harmony and tunesmanship. I’m happy to have found them and to have followed them all these years. Long may they run.

Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride and Brian Blade, RoundAgain.

I don’t talk about jazz too much in this space, even though I’m a fan. The main problem is that I can’t figure out what to say about most jazz records. “Hey, listen to this, the playing is really good.” Like, over and over again. I’m afraid that’s what this little review will boil down to, but in my defense, the playing here is really good and you should listen to this.

Back in 1994, saxophonist Joshua Redman released an album called Moodswing. It was the first of his albums I picked up, and it remains in rotation at my house. His backing band consisted of three young guys just starting their careers. You can see their names up there, and if you know jazz, you know that in the ensuing 26 years, all three have carved out remarkable careers. I’m a piano player, and Brad Mehldau is one of my idols. And I’m not sure there are better bassists and drummers in jazz than Christian McBride and Brian Blade.

RoundAgain is a reunion album, then, only this time all four players are significant enough to have their names on the cover. They play here like they’ve been practicing together for all of those 26 years. These seven songs all give the players room to jam, and their interplay is electric. Redman can sometimes be a little sedate for me, but he’s on fire for much of this, feeding off of his rhythm section. Blade is astonishing, as always, thinking through every percussion hit and how it serves the song.

All four write here, and I was struck by how clear the authorship was. Redman’s tunes are straightforward bops, like “Silly Little Love Song,” where Mehldau’s are complex workouts. There’s a rhythmic shift near the end of the what-the-hell-time-signature-is-this-in “Moe Honk” that feels so organic that it’s almost supernatural. McBride’s “Floppy Diss” leaves room for the bass to shine, while closer “Your Part to Play” is Blade’s ballad, a generous offering that provides the most spare and atmospheric five minutes of the record.

Really, though, this all can be summed up by saying “the playing is really good.” It’s a joy to hear these four guys back together, making gorgeous music, and I can only hope that they have another one or two (or ten) records in them as good as this one. I’ll be first in line.

Next week, I’m not sure, but I have a few options. August is crazy with new releases, but July leaves me wanting a little bit. We shall persevere.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So there’s this new Ben Folds single.

It’s called “2020,” and it’s his first new song in almost two years. I’ve not heard whether this is the first rumblings of a new Ben Folds album, but if it so, it will be his first in five years. He’s spent that time writing a memoir and working as the artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., so he hasn’t been idle by any means. But this is the first real Ben Folds single in some time, and I was excited to hear it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like this song a lot. It’s got a classic Folds piano foundation, a sweet melody and a good hook. But it also sounds like a tune Folds could have written in five minutes. (I know it’s a product of his regular quarantine live shows.) It sounds very much like the b-sides he used to write quickly, like “One Down.” It makes its singular joke a couple times, takes a bow and leaves.

I want to reiterate that there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s fun, it’s of the moment, it’s well put together. But for a songwriter known for his observational skill and incisiveness, this one doesn’t rank among his best. It’s perfectly fine, and I’m happy to hear it and happy that it exists. But will I remember it fondly in ten years? Probably not.

I mention this because this is how I am starting to feel about the new Rufus Wainwright album, Unfollow the Rules. Wainwright’s story is similar to Folds’ – Rules is his first new album in four years, and his first pop album in eight. He’s spent a lot of that time writing his second opera and re-staging his first, and it feels like his heart is truly in these projects. I’m glad we got at least one more glittering orchestral rock record from him.

And the album itself is quite good. Let’s start off by saying that I would listen to Rufus Wainwright sing my tax returns back to me. His voice is absolutely flawless, and at 47 he hasn’t lost an iota of impact from that instrument. He sounds amazing on Rules, from first song to last. The production by Mitchell Froom is as big and ornate as you could want, and these songs are treated lovingly.

The songs themselves, though? They’re fine. They’re good, even. The opening one-two punch of “Trouble in Paradise” and “Damsel in Distress” draws you in nicely, the title track builds convincingly over six and a half minutes (and that falsetto in the climactic minutes is lovely), and tunes like “Romantical Man” sound like they were lifted right from a Broadway show. Wainwright indulges his funnier side on “You Ain’t Big,” and it’s a hoot.

I had a really good time listening to Unfollow the Rules, even when it started to drag in the middle. I especially appreciated the final act, where things get dark – “Early Morning Madness” and “Hatred” are minor-key powerhouses, and the wild bridge of the former may be my favorite moment on this album. The closing track, “Alone Time,” is a perfect comedown after that. The third act contains the rise and fall of emotion that I missed in the previous two acts, and when it arrives it’s a nice surprise.

So yes, this is a good record, and I’m happy to recommend it. But as I listen to it again, I’m struck by how often these songs are content to stay within the realm of good, and don’t break out into great. If you’ve been reading this column for a while, you know I think Rufus Wainwright is one of the best songwriters in the world, and that Poses and the two Want records are close to perfect in my mind. This one doesn’t do it for me quite as much as those masterpieces did. It reminds me more of Release the Stars, a record I like but don’t often return to.

That is, of course, fine. These 12 new songs are pretty and dramatic, and as I mentioned earlier, Wainwright sings them like a dream. If they don’t match up to his earlier material, well, his earlier material is almost impossibly good. Unfollow the Rules is a fine record, and I hope I grow to eat every critical word I’ve said about it here. But as of right now, I like it a lot, but I don’t love it like I used to love Wainwright’s work.

I can say the same about the new Ray LaMontagne album Monovision. Like with Wainwright, I’ve been a fan of LaMontagne’s for a long time, back to his first record, 2004’s Trouble. He’s got one of those husky yet silky voices and his catalog is impressively restless, moving from the orchestrated folk of Till the Sun Turns Black to the pop of Supernova to the electrified psychedelia of Ouroboros. I’ve liked most of it, but loved his work only sporadically.

In case you couldn’t see this coming: I like Monovision, but don’t love it. For this record – actually recorded in mono – LaMontagne challenged himself to play every instrument, which results in a stripped-back, breezier affair. There’s little but acoustic guitar and vocals on several of these tracks, like the Robert Plant-ish opener “Roll Me Mama, Roll Me,” which is fine, because he’s a serviceable drummer at best on tracks like “Strong Enough.” The focus here is on his voice, and it’s stunning as always.

But am I going to remember these songs next year? I don’t think I am. The whole record feels somehow weightless. “Summer Clouds” is nice but a little formless, while the Western-tinged “We’ll Make It Through” is very pretty but very surface-level. I admire LaMontagne for making an album so steeped in positivity and peacefulness during these times, and in many ways it’s exactly what I needed right now.

But it wafts away on the wind as soon as it’s done playing, and I don’t know how much of it will stick. LaMontagne’s best work is indelible – I can still remember the first time I heard “Be Here Now” – and this sweet little thing makes as little noise as possible, almost apologetic in its slightness. I hope LaMontagne got what he wanted to out of it. For my part, I like Monovision, but don’t have a lot to say about it. It is, in the words of one of the songs, here and gone again.

Next week, probably a few records that have no discernible connection. Come on back to find out what they are.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of isolation.

As David Lee Roth once sang, I ain’t got nobody, so I’ve been riding out this pandemic on my own. Some days I’m totally fine with it – I’ve always enjoyed my own company, and I certainly have enough books, movies, TV shows and music to keep me busy for ten or so years. Some days (and even weeks), though, it all gets to me and I find it hard to motivate myself to do anything.

June, as I may have mentioned last time, was one of those days extended to a whole month. Getting out of bed felt like a triumph some days. With the world on fire and Corona still raging and my health fluctuating and having had no human contact since March, I honestly give myself credit for seeing the other side of the month. I tell you all this not because I want pity, but because I made a bit of a mistake last week and I want to put it in perspective.

I forgot an album on the Second Quarter Report, one that undeniably belongs there. I’m not sure how I did it – my only excuse is that there’s no physical version of this album yet, and I do sometimes find it difficult to bring download-only efforts to the front of my mind. (Although Fiona’s record is download only too, so whatever with all that noise.) This is my issue, definitely, but it’s another reason I don’t like paying for air, and will hold out for a CD release from all but the most important artists to me.

Michael Gungor is one of those, though. I think I hesitated all of five seconds before paying to download his new solo project under the name Weiwu. It’s called Are You Perfect Yet and it’s absolutely stunning. And I can’t believe I forgot about it.

You may remember Michael Gungor as one-half of the band that shares his last name. Quite a lot has happened since I named their album I Am Mountain the best of 2013. The band made a trilogy of excellent records after Mountain and then went on a farewell tour. Michael, who started his career writing liturgical music, underwent a deconstruction of his faith, exploring Buddhism and Hinduism. He now calls himself Vishnu Dass, partially because his own name, Gungor, is so entrenched in the music world he left behind.

His journey continues, but Are You Perfect Yet provides a musical and spiritual touchstone, giving you a glimpse of where he is now. And it’s far, far away from the music and spirituality he used to traffic in. It’s also far, far away from 90 percent of the music I own. It’s electronic at its base, full of programmed drums and synth washes, but it’s difficult to describe it from there. It’s an insanely complex electronic symphony with Eastern overtones and lots of beautiful melodies, and it is clearly meant to be experienced as a whole.

I say that because these songs bleed into one another, but also because they turn on a dime, going different places every few minutes, and the joyous disorientation feels like the intention here. No individual track – not even the catchy single, “Ya Wei,” the closest this record comes to a complete done-in-one tune – can give you the effect Gungor is hoping for. Are You Perfect Yet is a meditation, carrying you through from first note to last, and it is like taking your soul for a long drive.

Sufjan Stevens might be the best touchstone for this, and that is not a name I invoke too often. Are You Perfect Yet has the same electronic glitchiness and miles-wide grandeur of The Age of Adz, and it changes dramatically every few minutes, as if Gungor can’t wait to get to his next idea. “She’s Fire” is almost a pop song for a minute or two, but it lasts for six, and flips itself upside down more than once, crashing its own momentum to head off in new musical destinations.

There isn’t much linear about this record, but from a 30,000-foot view, it moves from laments like “Growing Tired” to joyous spiritual dance parties like “Ya Wei” and “Shiva.” And like most stories, it ends in death – the concluding trilogy, beginning with “Color on a Pale Dark Ground,” is among the most beautiful in Gungor’s arsenal. The closing track, “Stillness,” is six minutes of ethereal vocals surrounded by chimes and gongs, and it sends this out on a note that feels bigger than a mere set of songs. It’s clear we are meant to connect with something deeper, something eternal, through this music.

I still have a lot of listening to do before I can claim to fully understand Are You Perfect Yet, but that’s my failing, not Gungor’s. He certainly put a lot into this, and even in my half-dozen listens so far I’ve gotten a lot out of it. But this is the rare record that feels like it has only just begun to share its secrets. Luckily continuing to explore its contours is not even remotely a chore. I can’t believe its existence slipped my mind, because it’s easily one of the most memorable albums of 2020 so far.

If you’re wondering, Are You Perfect Yet would slot into the top 10 list at number four, dropping everything else down one notch. Hopefully I’ve made you want to listen to it, and if so, check it out here.

Next week, we have a ton to choose from, including the first new Rufus Wainwright pop album in eight years.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

If I needed any further indication that ending Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. this year is a good decision, this month did it for me. I just haven’t felt like writing one of these for the past four weeks, and as I watched the days ticking by, I felt less and less like catching up. When I started this thing I couldn’t imagine going seven days without wanting to write about music. But lately I’ve had more important things on my mind.

One of them is my health, which has been an interesting roller coaster for the past few months. Suffice it to say that the doctors looked for cancer and didn’t find any, which was a huge relief. So now we have to figure out what is causing the symptoms I do have. I’m all right, I feel good, nobody worry. But it’s been on my mind a lot.

Another, of course, is the fact that the world is on fire. I’ve written and erased a couple columns about the murder of George Floyd and the protests that ensued, but decided in the end to listen rather than speak. I hope no one is turning to a silly music column to hear that Black Lives Matter. Similarly, I hope that no one who knows me would expect me to say anything else. I’ve been quiet here but not on my personal page, and not with people I know. I’ve also been donating to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and I’d certainly recommend giving to them or to the racial justice organization of your choice.

I also made my own album, which took some of my attention away from other projects. It’s a strange, homemade set of songs about living in quarantine. It’s called A Dream of Outside, I’m pretty proud of it, and you can have it for free if you want it.

And I’ve been listening to music. It’s been strangely freeing to hear a new album and not think about what I want to say about it. (Yet another indication that it’s time to let this column go.) There have been so many good records in the past 30 days, and I’ve been trying to soak them in. Just this week I added a ton to my to-listen pile, including Elbow’s acoustic live album, Ray Lamontagne’s one-man Monovision and a four-CD box set of Frank Zappa’s 1970 iteration of the Mothers. I hope to pick up my weekly schedule after this and straight on to the end, so I’m listening.

I thought what I would do this week is give a brief rundown of some of the records I have enjoyed, and then cap it off with my traditional Second Quarter Report. (Truth be told, it’s the report that brought me back – I didn’t want to miss my last opportunity to compile one of these at mid-year.)

I guess we can start with Bob Dylan, since everyone’s talking about Rough and Rowdy Ways, his 39th album. I’ve never been the Dylan fan that a lot of my friends are, and the gushing over this thing leaves me a little mystified. I do like it – Dylan returns to the bluesy rock and slower-paced shuffles of Tempest, his last album of originals. (He’s since made three records of Sinatra covers, of all things. One of them a triple album. Gah.) I know people like to pore over Dylan’s lyrics for the secrets to the universe. I found the poetry on Rough and Rowdy to be, you know, fine, and the music adequate. I still can’t quite make it through the 17-minute “Murder Most Foul,” his eulogy for John F. Kennedy – it sounds like the Muppets teaching history to me. Thankfully, that song is on its own disc, so it’s easy to skip.

Stephin Merritt is a much less celebrated songwriter, but I’ve always liked him. In his guise as The Magnetic Fields he has made some undeniable gems, including his two multi-disc endeavors, 1999’s 69 Love Songs and 2017’s 50-Song Memoir. His latest is called Quickies, and it’s fun once, maybe twice. It’s 28 short songs – the longest is 2:35, the shortest 17 seconds – and it goes for cheap and easy laughs more often than not. These feel like sketches instead of the full-blooded pop songs Merritt usually gives us.

Another one everyone seemed to talk about for five minutes this month is Lady Gaga’s Chromatica. I liked it. It’s shorter than her average, and its pure synth-pop feels like what Madonna should have been giving us for the past 20 or so years. Nothing here stands out, but nothing feels out of place either, and it moves like a rocket. If we’re talking about short records made up of short songs, I vastly prefer this one to Merritt’s effort, and I’m surprised to hear myself say that.

But ah, now we’re into the music I have loved, that has sustained me for the past few weeks. Start with Look Long, the delightful 15th album from the Indigo Girls. It’s hard to believe they’ve been at it this long – their self-titled record, the first one I heard, came out 31 years ago – and even harder to believe that they still sound this good. Their voices have aged, but still blend beautifully, and their songwriting styles still push and pull against each other perfectly. It’s Emily Saliers who takes this one for me. She’s just on fire here, from “When We Were Writers” to “Feel This Way Again” to the gorgeous picture postcard of “Country Radio.” They’re so good, still.

It’s been a while since Norah Jones knocked me out, but her eighth album, the fittingly titled Pick Me Up Off the Floor, is superb. It is dark and full-bodied and atmospheric, and not even two duets with Jeff Tweedy can deter my love for it. I have similar feelings about Teddy Thompson’s sweet Heartbreaker Please, an old-school country-pop record of great songs sung in his rich tenor. Thompson hasn’t sounded this focused in a while. Sarah Jarosz made a swell little return with World on the Ground, too. It’s not as life-changing as her earlier material, but I like it.

The biggest surprise (well, until last week, but we will get to that) has been Phoebe Bridgers’ new one, Punisher. I’ve been aware of her work in boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center, but nothing on those records quite prepared me for the dark dream that is her second album. This one deserves a full review at some point, because it heralds the arrival of a major new talent. The songs are nicely written, but it’s the production, the sheer sound of the thing, that really makes this one. It’s a headphone folk album, and a beautiful one.

I’ve also been loving the new ones from instrumental collectives Unwed Sailor and Gogo Penguin, and I thought I’d have to rely on them to scratch my big-weird-music itch. That is, until last week, when Hum – Hum, of all bands! – returned out of nowhere with a masterpiece of a new album called Inlet. I don’t know if you remember Hum, but they made two albums in the ‘90s that combined stoner metal, alt-rock and My Bloody Valentine shoegaze in a way no one had quite done before. Downward is Heavenward remains one of the finest records from that era, up there with OK Computer. No, I’m not kidding.

Inlet doesn’t do anything different, despite the 23-year absence, but it doesn’t have to. No one else sounds like this. Its eight songs stretch to almost an hour, with half of them topping eight minutes each, and it’s clear the band felt free to dig into their sound, to build on it without changing its essence. It still sounds like the loudest thing you’ve ever heard, and still feels almost impossibly fragile at times too. I’ve been used to saying that Hum was a great band. Now I get to say that Hum is a great band, still. Listen here.

And a couple days ago Semisonic made a surprise return as well with their first song in 19 years, “You’re Not Alone.” It’s from a new EP out in September. I can’t get enough of this song. Classic Dan Wilson.

OK, let’s do the Second Quarter Report. It’s changed drastically from the first quarter, as you’ll see, and a lot of the names from the paragraphs above found their way onto the list. Here’s my top 10 as it stands right now:

10. Indigo Girls, Look Long.
9. Vanessa Carlton, Love is an Art.
8. Derek Webb, Targets.
7. Watkins Family Hour, Brother Sister.
6. Sarah Jarosz, World on the Ground.
5. Nada Surf, Never Not Together.
4. Phoebe Bridgers, Punisher.
3. Matt Wilson and his Orchestra, When I Was a Writer.
2. Hum, Inlet.
1. Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters.

I cannot even picture in my head the album amazing enough to knock Fiona off the top spot this year. But I’ve been surprised before.

Anyway, hope to be back and riding this train to the final station. Next week, more music. We’ll see what strikes my fancy.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

In order to tell you about what I have been listening to for the past week, I have to tell you about someone I haven’t spoken to in 20 years.

As most of you probably know, I began this column with Face Magazine in Portland, Maine. Face was an independent music mag that came out every two weeks. it had a gritty, homemade quality to it that mirrored the DIY scene it covered. The Face folks hired me right out of college, and I spent four years with them, asking people what they’ve been listening to and writing features on local artists. Two years in I noticed that while we had a lot of regular columns, none of them were dedicated to the new music that drove my interests. So I started one.

But I don’t want to recount all of that here. I do want to tell you about one of those regular columnists, a guy named Seth Berner. Seth wrote the punk column, called Undertones, and he was pretty much born for that. His tastes tended toward the fast and sloppy and counter-cultural, and he happened to encounter me at the height of my “social context doesn’t matter, it’s the MUSIC, man” late adolescence. I argued with Seth about a lot of things that, these days, I would not, and he was right about much more than I ever told him.

Anyway, the one time Seth ever surprised the hell out of me was when he recommended Gentle Giant. I had been so used to him extoling the virtues of six-minute seven-inches made by people who just learned their instruments an hour ago, and so used to him dismissing the (I thought) extraordinary musical skill of my favorite musicians. I thought I had him pegged. So when he, of all people, introduced me to one of the greatest obscure progressive rock bands in history, I was gobsmacked.

And I remain grateful to him. My two-decades-strong Gentle Giant fandom is entirely down to Seth, who made me cassette copies of his favorite albums. Tops on his list was their fifth, In a Glass House, and I can’t argue. (The fact that it had never been released in the United States at that time, I’m sure, only made Seth love it more.) Glass House was the first one I heard, and frankly, I’d never encountered music quite like it. Can you imagine music that is equal parts Yes and centuries-old folk? I couldn’t either, but that’s what much of Glass House sounds like.

Why am I telling you about a band that broke up in 1980? Well, a couple weeks ago I received something I’d been eyeing for months – an all-in-one Gentle Giant box set called Unburied Treasure. This thing represents the most money I’ve ever dropped on a single item of music, and I thought I’d missed out on it – the first pressing came out in December and sold out almost immediately. The band organized an even more limited second pressing, and that’s the one I picked up.

And I’ve spent the last week or so listening to it. This is no mean feat – Unburied Treasure is 29 CDs, consisting of all 12 officially released albums, 15 full live shows (most of which were unreleased) and a disc of rehearsal recordings. It also includes a gorgeous hardbound book with a full history of the band, a tour book with notes on every show the band played, several other mementos, including a puzzle with a missing piece (produced to promote 1977’s The Missing Piece) and a full giant-head mask. All of this is packaged in a beautiful box that is the largest brick in my collection. Seriously, it’s so much bigger than I expected it would be.

After listening to all of it, I can only say that this extravagant package feels like giving an unjustly ignored band its due, finally. Gentle Giant grew out of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound in 1969. Its core was the Shulman brothers: Derek, Ray and (for a time) Phil, along with Gary Green and Kerry Minnear. There were a few drummers through the years, but when they found John Weathers in 1972, they stuck with him. The Shulmans, Green and Minnear were all multi-instrumentalists, which means on stage they would swap constantly, or bring out the horns or vibes or other orchestral elements.

I can’t say I’m surprised that this music has largely been lost to the winds of time. Almost none of it is what you would call accessible. Gentle Giant began and ended their career playing more straightforward rock, but in between constructed songs like no one ever has before or since. Complex multi-part harmonies, ornate arrangements, demanding instrumental sections, melodies that only step forward and make themselves familiar over time. It’s incredibly demanding stuff, both to play and to listen to, but it’s also immensely rewarding once its contours and shapes map themselves out for you.

I won’t go album by album here, but I will mention some songs that stood out to me this time. Before acquiring the box I’d never heard Acquiring the Taste, the band’s second record, and it’s easily one of their weirdest and least inhibited. But here’s the thing about Gentle Giant – their music never feels self-indulgent. Their records hover around half an hour in length, their songs usually about four minutes. Acquiring has a few longer ones, but the longest is seven and a half. This album is pure artistic freedom, and I’m still parsing it, but the string section on “Black Cat” is a firm favorite already.

Anyone who wants to call 1972’s Octopus the band’s best will get no argument from me. I have loved songs like “The Advent of Panurge” and the insane, harmonically dizzying “Knots” for years, but this time the standout was “Think of Me With Kindness,” Kerry Minnear’s gorgeous song of separation. (I requested a cover of this from my friend Ian Tanner, and he obliged, and it was lovely.) Man, this melody is unbelievable. It’s on Brian Wilson’s level, and if you know me you know what a compliment that is.

I still think In a Glass House may be their best. The folksy elements are played up here, and good lord, does this stuff sound timeless. Out of time, really. There’s never been an album quite like this one, and the band would emphasize the rockier and funkier parts of their sound on subsequent efforts like the great The Power and the Glory. If I had to pick one song from this middle period, I would choose “His Last Voyage” on 1975’s Free Hand, though. Imagine a prog-rock Enya. That’s what this haunting acoustic tune is.

Of course, if I had more to choose, I’d throw in “Experience” and the dissonant “So Sincere” and “On Reflection” and “Timing” and and and. It’s really an unassailable run of records, through 1976’s Interview. This is not to say that the final three albums are bad, they’re just more straight-ahead. The Missing Piece contains a side of rock and a side of proggy folk, and that second side includes “Memories of Old Days,” the band’s last real classic. 1978’s Giant for a Day is the band’s worst, but it’s still a fun rock record, and 1980’s Civilian(which I had also never heard) goes out with a bang, bringing Gentle Giant roaring into the new wave moment. “All Through the Night” should have been a hit.

But it wasn’t. Gentle Giant had no hits, and went away as quietly as they’d arrived, as far as the general public is concerned. Those who got to see them live, however, know that there was nothing quiet about them. The 15 live shows included in Unburied Treasure span their entire existence, and range from audience recordings to the beautiful multi-tracks used for the four shows that were edited into their only official live album, Playing the Fool. Listening to these in chronological order was a treat – they prove beyond a doubt that the albums only tell half the story.

Gentle Giant live was loud and jammy, in ways I did not expect. Much of their more complex material never made it into their setlists, since it would have been nearly impossible to replicate night after night. Instead, the band picked a few favorites and messed with them throughout their live tenure. There are 14 renditions of “Funny Ways” here, for instance, and each one evolves into a fascinating vibraphone solo that is different every time. “Nothing At All” becomes an excuse for the whole band to play drums in an extended midsection. Octopus is mashed together into a 15-minute medley that changes over time, and is just maddeningly complicated.

Above all, Gentle Giant was fun live, something that may not come across on their studio records. They kept the joy of performing all the way to their final show from 1980, documented here on the set’s final disc. The band blasts through the Civilian material and mixes in some older classics (like “The Advent of Panurge,” played in full for the first time in ages), and they sound like they’re ready to go on and on, not call it quits. “We’ll see you again” is the last thing Derek Shulman says before leaving the stage for the final time.

The Shulmans, especially, have gone on to have quite an impact on the music world. Derek Shulman became an A&R representative for PolyGram and Atco, signing (among others) Bon Jovi, Dream Theater, Pantera and Slipknot. (And my boys Enuff Z’Nuff.) Ray Shulman produced albums from the Sugarcubes, the Sundays and Ian McCullough, to name a few. The rest of the band has pursued various and sundry musical projects, but none with the scope and breadth of Gentle Giant.

It would have been so easy for me to live my entire life without hearing a note of this band’s work. I imagine roughly 90 percent of the population remains unaware of them. So I am grateful for a big, lavish box like this one celebrating a catalog unlike any other I’m aware of. And I’m grateful to Seth Berner for making sure I heard In a Glass House all those years ago. My life is richer with this music in it.

There are still copies of Unburied Treasure left. Pick one up from Burning Shed here.

Next week, back to the new stuff. Indigo Girls, Lady Gaga, the 1975. So much to choose from.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I had an interesting realization while listening to the new Jason Isbell album: I am guilty, often, of victimizing artists for their own success.

I can name a million examples. I haven’t truly loved a Radiohead album in 20 years, mainly because I cannot get past how good OK Computer is. Kendrick Lamar’s perfectly respectable DAMN got a lower grade from me because To Pimp a Butterfly was so defining. Do I need to bring up Tori Amos? Three immortal albums that changed my life, and nothing since has measured up for me.

The problem is that I miss a lot of what is good about these later records by comparing them to their authors’ best work. In some ways that’s the job of a reviewer. The number one question I get, when people care about my opinion on things, is some variation of “Is this one as good as the last one?” Sometimes the answer is yes, but sometimes the answer is “no, but listen anyway.” Still, that “no” at the start there, that turns a lot of people off.

So my initial take on Reunions, Isbell’s seventh album (and second in a row to be credited to him and his band, the 400 Unit), was disappointment. Isbell is one of the best songwriters in the game right now, and his last three records, starting with the incredibleSoutheastern and continuing through 2017’s great The Nashville Sound, have been pretty close to perfect. I could name highlights, but I’d just be copying and pasting full track listings. These three records have been showcases for a songsmith at the absolute height of his powers.

Reunions isn’t quite on that level. I posted my first-blush opinion online, and it got a lot of pushback. That opinion was that when a writer as good as Isbell makes something that is merely great, instead of transcendent, it feels like a dropoff. I tried to emphasize that Reunions is really good, but some still took it as a harsh criticism. So let me be clear now: Reunions is really good. Nashville is full of songwriters who will never make a record this good. These ten songs would be the envy of most people with recording contracts. It’s honestly really good.

We can talk highlights of this one, no doubt. Start with the overall tone – Isbell’s guitar has rarely sounded better, and the 400 Unit has rarely sounded more live on record. The first song is a six-minute mantra called “What’ve I Done to Help,” about the personal responsibility we all share to make the world a better place. (It’s one of the songs here that I think is a little simple and a little on-the-nose for Isbell.) The highlight of this track is how it takes its three-chord structure and makes something gripping out of it. And man, don’t even get me started on the lead guitar work on “Overseas” and the slinky Tom Petty groove of “Running With Our Eyes Closed.” Mwah. Beautiful.

“Running” is another example of a song that could have used more – the chorus repeats the title four times, the exact same way, and I get that the music Isbell is homaging here does the same thing, but I wanted it to go a few more places. I know Isbell can give us perfectly formed songs, because he does it here several times. “It Gets Easier” might be the album’s masterpiece. It finds Isbell looking back on his own alcoholism – he’s been sober for years – and admitting that it’s a daily struggle. “It gets easier, but it never gets easy, I can say it’s all worth it but you won’t believe me…”

I’m a huge fan of “Be Afraid,” which treads similar ground. “Every one of us is counting dice that we didn’t roll and the loser is the last one to ask for help,” he sings, before hitting the hook line: “Be afraid, be very afraid, but do it anyway.” The band is on fire on this one. “Overseas” tells two stories about people in different countries, and Isbell melds these tales expertly. “St. Peter’s Autograph” is a delightful love song (“What can I do to help you sleep, I’ll work hard and work for cheap”), and the closing track “Letting You Go” travels with Isbell as he brings his newborn daughter home from the hospital and imagines the day he will have to give her away. (“It’s easy to see that you’ll get where you’re going, the hard part is letting you go…”)

These are all great songs, and the rest of Reunions is very good as well. Taken on its own, and not compared with Isbell’s past musical miracles, it’s excellent. So what’s the point of comparing it, then? I don’t really know anymore. Everything I’ve said is true, but it all kept me from really digging into Reunions and hearing it on its own terms. It’s a lesson I need to learn. I can get caught up in the rankings, in the which-one-is-better game, and miss the charms of the music in front of me. Don’t let any such comparisons stop you from hearing Reunions. Even if it isn’t Isbell’s best, it’s well worth your time.

* * * * *

If you think I hold Isbell to a high standard because of his past work, you can imagine my expectations for a Jellyfish reunion.

For those who know, you know. For those who don’t, Jellyfish was one of the best pop bands to ever walk the earth. I don’t say that lightly. I own very few perfect albums, ones about which I would change nothing. Jellyfish’s two records – 1990’s Bellybutton and 1993’s Spilt Milk – are perfect. They are perfectly written, they are perfectly arranged, they are perfectly performed and recorded. My sole complaint about Jellyfish’s output is that there is not more of it.

Alas, the band broke up in 1994 after touring Spilt Milk, a tour I got to see as a very excited 19-year-old. I’ve followed the musical adventures of the Jellyfishers through the years, always getting a little thrill when I see Roger Manning’s name pop up on an album, or see that Jason Falkner has released another record in Japan. It’s been 26 years, and the possibility of a reunion grows ever dimmer. And I wonder if a reunion could even live up, honestly. Jellyfish was a once-in-a-lifetime lightning-in-a-bottle kind of thing, and comparing anything to the two records they made together would be a fool’s game.

But of course I’m doing it anyway. Three months ago I heard about The Lickerish Quartet, a trio (ha!) named after a 1970 erotic movie from Italy. The three members of the trio are Roger Manning, Eric Dover and Tim Smith, all former members of Jellyfish. This is probably the closest we will ever get to a true-blue Jellyfish reunion, a truth only magnified by their first EP, Threesome Vol. 1. These four songs come nearer than almost anything I’ve heard since to capturing the spirit, sound and style of that band.

To be clear, this is not Jellyfish. You’d need the voice and drums of Andy Sturmer for that, at the very least. But this is lovely, silly, ornate pop music, made with undeniable skill and a sense of history, just like Jellyfish. This EP is beautifully arranged, candy-coated and sparkling. In true Jellyfish tradition, opening track “Fadoodle” makes me think about how much painstaking work went into constructing a song this silly. It’s about a guy asking for sex, but it’s charmingly ridiculous. You could listen to just the backing vocals (“Buzz buzz! Beep beep!”) and have a great time.

The rest of Threesome is more serious in tone, but no less glorious. “Bluebird’s Blues” is a gorgeous pop song. Those harmonies! Those guitar lines! The vibes! It’s all wonderful. “There Is a Magic Number” is a dark and terrific strummer, Manning providing keyboard accents over a swaying groove. And the EP concludes with its finest moment, the six-minute epic “Lighthouse Spaceship,” which is like Queen, ELO and Stevie Wonder all at once. It’s amazing, and it catches the spirit of Spilt Milk wonderfully.

I had very high expectations for Threesome Vol. 1, and even though it’s not Jellyfish, I loved it anyway. My main complaint about it is a familiar one – there isn’t enough of it. Four songs is barely a taste. I’m hopeful that there will be further volumes, and that the Lickerish Quartet spins this melodic gold for a long time to come. Listen and buy here.

Next week, a deep dive into the catalog of an obscure ‘70s prog band. That sounds exciting, right? If you answered yes honestly, come back in seven days.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

We lost Little Richard this week.

If your tastes tend toward the more theatrical side of rock ‘n’ roll, you owe Little Richard basically everything. While Chuck Berry and Fats Domino pioneered the art form, Richard Penniman was the one who gave rock its wild and unpredictable quality. He himself once said that if Elvis Presley was the king of rock ‘n’ roll, he was the queen.

Dressed to the nines, Little Richard burst out of nowhere (actually Macon, Georgia) with “Tutti Frutti” in 1955, playing piano like a wild man. Imagine hearing “a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-wop-bam-boom” on the radio for the first time. It must have been like hearing a bomb go off. Richard had hit after hit in the late ‘50s, from “Long Tall Sally” to “Good Golly Miss Molly,” and earned the nickname “the architect of rock ‘n’ roll.” Certainly no one else from those early days embodied the danger and freedom of rock the way he did.

You can draw a straight line from Little Richard to Prince, with a million little points in between. Like Prince (and like James Brown, who counted Richard as an influence), Richard was an electrifying live performer. Like Prince, he was sexual while also being sexually ambiguous. Like Prince, Richard struggled with the ramifications of his Christian beliefs, taking a hiatus from music in the ‘60s to become a traveling preacher. That struggle felt intrinsic to his music, which paired the energy of black gospel with the down-and-dirty feel of the blues. He was a man torn between two worlds.

His influence is undeniable and wide-reaching. Every flamboyant rock ‘n’ roll performer owes him a debt, for starters. His songs landed him in the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, and Paul McCartney has said that “Long Tall Sally” was the first song he sang in public. (The Beatles’ version of it came out on an EP of the same name in 1964.) He’s in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. But more than that, I think, he crossed racial and sexual lines, bringing people together over music that was deeply fun and immensely historically significant.

Little Richard died of bone cancer on Saturday, May 9. He was 87 years old.

* * * * *

I mentioned this last week, but for real, I don’t have anything in particular to talk about this week. It’s one of those rare weeks in which I didn’t buy a single new album. I’ve been listening to old stuff while I work – I made my way through Suzanne Vega’s whole catalog in two days, for instance. My major recent purchase was the Gentle Giant box set Unburied Treasure, but I just received that on Friday and haven’t even begun to explore its riches.

So I guess I can talk about what’s coming up, as a way of rounding off this week’s missive. I’ll contain myself to five or six things, but there’s quite a lot of interesting music coming our way in the middle third of 2020. A balm for the continued insanity that is our world. (Murder hornets? I mean, of course there’s murder hornets now.)

Next week is the new Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit album Reunions. I’ve liked what I have heard, especially “Be Afraid,” though some of it seems like a different style for him. Isbell is one of the most consistently satisfying songwriters we have, and I’m hopeful that streak will continue. Speaking of great songwriters, one week later we’re getting Look Long, the 15th Indigo Girls album. Emily Saliers’ songs from this one have hit me so far, from the pensive “When We Were Writers” to the timely “Country Radio.”

There’s lots of stuff coming in the following weeks, from Lady Gaga to Haken to the Magnetic Fields, but I’m probably most excited about Sarah Jarosz’s new one, World on the Ground, out on my birthday, June 5. Jarosz is a stunningly good songwriter – her last album, Undercurrent, made my top 10 list – and while I liked hearing her in I’m With Her, I’m jazzed to get another ten songs from her.

I suppose I should mention Bob Dylan, who announced his 39th album (and first in eight years that isn’t a collection of Sinatra covers), Rough and Rowdy Ways, out June 19. As many of you know, I struggle with Dylan, both as a writer and a performer. I’ll buy this and try it, but I have to say I made it only a few minutes into his 17-minute ramble about the Kennedy assassination, “Murder Most Foul,” before having to shut it off. Thankfully that song is on its own disc here, so I can safely just ignore it.

I’m very much looking forward to the return of Rufus Wainwright, though, whose tenth album Unfollow the Rules hits on July 10. It’s been a long eight years since Out of the Game, Wainwright’s last pop record, and I’m very much looking forward to another set of ornate, glittering orchestral wonderment from him. We’re also getting a new Jayhawks, a new Margo Price and the second album from Chip Z’Nuff’s incarnation of Enuff Z’Nuff on that day, so it’s a pretty good one.

For archival material, you can’t beat the recent announcement of Mothers ’70, a four-disc collection of unreleased material from Frank Zappa’s 1970s band. This lineup was the first to feature Flo and Eddie, and the only released remnants from them ended up on Chunga’s Revenge. This set is four and a half hours of live and studio tracks, another treasure trove of Zappa vault material. I am also giddily anticipating the 17-disc Book of Iona box set, including every album and hours of unreleased stuff from one of the most overlooked progressive folk bands to ever walk the earth.

But all that’s in the future. For now, listen to what you can find, stay safe and be good to one another. Next week, Isbell. And probably one or two others.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

We’re in a bit of a dry season this week and next. There was some decent new music out last week, including the new Man Man and ten new songs by Damien Jurado, but nothing to get the pulse quickening. And I currently have nothing slated for this week at all.

As always when I hear a great, year-defining record – and Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters is certainly that – new music has to fight for space in my consciousness. So even if I were expecting some revelatory new works over the next couple weeks, chances are good that I’d only half-heartedly listen anyway, intent on returning to the seismic powerhouse Apple has delivered. So in a way, this is a good thing – had the universe chosen this week to give me something world-class, I may have missed its magic.

I’m glad to have the opportunity instead to point out a couple records that may have slipped through the cracks, but which brought me (and continue to bring me) joy. I’ve been thinking about the first one I have for you because I’ve been reminiscing about the two times I have seen Fiona Apple live. (Aw, remember concerts? Remember seeing other people in person?) The first was just after her debut album Tidal came out, when she joined Sarah McLachlan and others on the inaugural Lilith Fair. I liked her performance a lot, and enjoyed that she and her all-male band all wore dresses.

The second time was five years ago at City Winery in Nashville, as part of the Watkins Family Hour. Sean and Sara Watkins are two-thirds of bluegrass wonders Nickel Creek, and the Watkins Family Hour was their traveling sideshow of like-minded performers. They played mostly covers, as heard on their eponymous debut album, and Apple was one of the singers they tapped. (Others at the show I saw: the great Buddy Miller, the great Benmont Tench and the Secret Sisters. It was awesome.)

It also felt like a one-off, with both Watkins siblings exploring solo work in its wake. (Sara is also in supergroup I’m With Her.) So imagine my surprise when a second Watkins Family Hour album, called Brother Sister, showed up on my radar screen. This one is a lot different – where the first record felt more freewheeling, more ramshackle, this one plays like a polished suite of songs. Where the first record dove into influences, this one is mostly original songs. Where the debut was often more about the guest players, this one is about the Watkins siblings and how they work together.

But forget all that, because this record is gorgeous. However we get these songs, under whatever name the Watkinses want to give them to us, it’s a beautiful gift. “Just Another Reason” is a perfect reason all by itself to treasure this record. Written by the siblings and featuring drums by the superb Matt Chamberlain, the song is a sprightly ode to burning down what holds you back, and leaving it behind. Sean and Sara intertwine their voices beautifully. This one takes flight at the first note and never comes back down.

The seven original songs on Brother Sister run the gamut of emotions. Opener “The Cure” is a slow, folksy number about rising up despite oneself. The wonderful “Lafayette” aches with nostalgia and regret, the harmonies slipping right into your heart. “Fake Badge Real Gun” is as angry as its title, taking on vigilante justice with some sharp verses: “You only see a battle won, you’ll never know the damage you’ve done…” And there are two instrumentals, which showcase the siblings’ interplay on their instruments, Sara’s fiddle snaking around Sean’s guitar, the two acting as one. (There’s a jam at the end of “Miles of Desert Sand” that shows this off as well.)

Three covers round things out, and my favorite of them is Warren Zevon’s classic “Accidentally Like a Martyr.” Zevon’s version is rougher around the edges, but somehow Sara evokes more emotion from one of Zevon’s best lines: “The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder.” The siblings close things out with Charley Jordan’s “Keep it Clean,” which has the live-in-a-room feel of much of the first record. This one even brings John C. Reilly (yes, Dewey Cox himself) in to shout along.

Brother Sister is short – just over half an hour – but it covers a lot of ground, and by the end of it I’m ready to take the ride again. If this is the start of a new collaborative effort between Sean and Sara, focused on their own songs and performances, consider me on board. I love to hear these two play and sing together, and these songs are so good that I want more right away. I hope we get more soon.

I’ve also been thinking about artistic evolutions, and about songwriters who grow up before our eyes. Naturally I’m referring to Apple again, who has come to her own summit with Bolt Cutters, maturing as a writer and producer in surprising and delightful ways. But I’m also thinking about our second contestant this week, Vanessa Carlton. Among my friends I have a reputation for sticking with artists long after most people forget about them, and I do that to track evolutions like the one Carlton has undergone. In this case it has been more than worth it.

Eighteen years ago, Carlton burst onto the scene with “A Thousand Miles,” as perfect a pop single as I have ever heard. She was 22 at the time, and from the evidence of her lavishly produced debut Be Not Nobody, she was intent on making a splash. And I think she kept that idea of her own work in her mind through her third album, the energetic Heroes and Thieves, five years later. Her first three records are of a piece, and while they are fine slices of piano-pop, she hasn’t sounded like “A Thousand Miles” since.

No, since then, Carlton has focused on making strange, intimate, singular albums of uncommon beauty. Her sixth, Love is an Art, is one of her strangest, most intimate and most beautiful. Produced by Dave Fridmann, who has spent much of his career capturing the odd whimsy of the Flaming Lips, Love is an Art takes a few listens to truly sink in. Nothing here does what you expect it to, songs are built on the smallest and most minimal of foundations, then build to towering climaxes. Carlton’s still-youthful voice never drives this thing – her vocals blend into the beds of pianos and synths, part of the sound instead of apart from it.

In short, it sounds nothing like anything she’s done. But sink into it, allow its many detours to map themselves for you in your mind, and it reveals itself as her finest work. Its songs are small things, tiny dollops of wisdom with strong melodies that don’t trumpet themselves. If you’re looking for a pop hit, there isn’t one. But if you want little moments of stunning beauty – the harmonies on “Back to Life,” for instance, or the swirling crescendo in “I Know You Don’t Mean It” – well, this album is full of them.

The individual songs are much less emphasized than the whole experience here – witness the minute-long “Patience,” and how it leads perfectly into the pretty “The Only Way to Love” – but multiple listens will show the songs to be uncommonly strong too. I’m a fan of “Die Dinosaur,” her fierce anti-boomer anthem, but I’m more a fan of the in-love-with-life pieces here, like “Companion Star” and the title track. The aforementioned “The Only Way to Love” has one of the record’s most soaring choruses, but a song like the closing “Miner’s Canary” ends up sticking with you just as much.

Carlton will be 40 this year, and she has grown into an artist who doesn’t care whether you like her work or not. You can hear that freedom from expectation all over this record – she’s grown beyond the twenty-something pop star she once seemed to want to be. You just don’t make a record like Love is an Art if you’re invested in popularity or acclaim. You make a record like Love is an Art for yourself, because you have to, because this is how the world sings its song through you. I’m so glad she’s following her own muse, and I hope to follow her for many years to come.

Next week, I have no idea. It’s the rare week with no new music I’m interested in. We’ll see what I come up with.

See you in line Tuesday morning.