San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Listen: Vallejo artist H.E.R. keeps soaring.
The Chronicle’s guide to notable new music.
NEW ALBUMS
Sun June, “Somewhere” (Run For Cover/Keeled
Scales): Austin indie quintet Sun June’s 2018 album “Years’’ was one of that year’s hidden gems, filled with sweet and melancholy love songs led by singer Laura Colwell’s embracing voice aimed directly at a hopeful heart. Now on their second album, Colwell has found love with bandmate Stephen Salisbury and it’s reflected in songs like “Everything I Had,” “Real Thing” and “Everywhere.” The band has started expanding their sound into richer pop songs, but it’s Colwell’s voice that still channels the unmistakable nostalgia of young love in anyone who hears it.
Virginia Wing, “private
LIFE” (Fire Recordings): On their fourth album, the experimental pop trio based in Manchester, England, showcases music that straddles the line between Kate Bush’s pop expressiveness and Laurie Anderson’s avantgarde conceptual artistry. The group has a penchant for asking questions of themselves via singer Alice Merida Richards’ deadpan deliveries as they navigate existential dread, with equal parts gravity and wit.
Over Krautrockstyle synths on single “St. Francis Fountain” (no relation to the bygone Mission District cafe), Richards asks: “Do you think about your options (when you’re alone?) Are you waiting for a time to (finally know)? Is there an anagram of everyone who has entered your thoughts? Can you tell me if your fantasy is missing the point?”
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Femi Kuti and Made Kuti,
“Legacy+” (Partisan): The son of Afrobeat originator Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti got his start playing saxophone in his father’s band, Egypt 80, in 1979. He formed his own band, Positive Force, in 1986 and in the Kuti family tradition, his son Made got his start in the same fashion, before sharpening his skills at his grandfather’s alma mater, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London.
Now the second and thirdgeneration Kutis are releasing a double LP featuring one album by each musician. Where Femi’s “Stop the Hate” album follows more in the Afrobeat tradition of explosive horn sections and thunderous African drums, Made’s “For(e) ward” — in which he plays every instrument — takes a more progressive approach, hinting at the future of the genre from the new heir to the Afrobeat throne. Both albums are steeped in their desire for social justice and calling out of corrupt politicians in their native Nigeria and beyond.
“I’ve learnt so much from my father politically, socially, philosophically and musically that I know this lovely project is only the beginning of more beautiful things to come,” Made said in a statement.
LOCAL PICK
Kelly McFarling, “Delicate”
(selfreleased): The latest single from Atlanta native and longtime Bay Area resident Kelly McFarling is a timely track about the power of language, namely the power it has to inspire as much as it can deceive. McFarling’s airy vocals recall Stevie Nicks but with a Southern charm as she rolls alongside Tim Marcus’ pedal steel, which keeps building as the track crescendos and McFarling cautions: “We wanna hear what it sounds like out loud/ But be careful this is delicate/ What we say is gonna follow us around.”
Her fourth album, “Deep The Habit,” is out March 12.
SONG OF THE MOMENT
H.E.R., “Fight for You”
(RCA): H.E.R. is on a roll. Over the course of the past 12 months, the Vallejoborn Grammy Awardwinning R&B singer has been releasing a steady flow of singles and collaborations, including the radio megahit “Damage,” released in October.
She just appeared on last weekend’s Super Bowl LV halftime show with the Weeknd and Jazmine Sullivan and now “Fight for You,” the lead single from the soundtrack to the film “Judas & the Black Messiah,” which made its world premiere
at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, has arrived. Set to a groovy soul beat (reminiscent of Marvin Gaye), H.E.R. sings a message of freedom and unity in the fight for racial justice. It’s a fitting jam for the soundtrack to the Ryan Cooglercoproduced biopic on activist and Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton.
#ICYMI
The Weather Station, “Igno
rance” (Fat Possum): The fifth studio album from Toronto’s the Weather Station represents a far more expansive sound for the typically traditional folk music project of songwriter Tamara Lindeman. As excellent of a starttofinish album as you’ll hear this year, “Ignorance” is an ode to the natural world and a newfound exploration of rhythm.
“I saw how the less emotion there was in the rhythm, the more room there was for emotion in the rest of the music, the more freedom I had vocally,” Lindeman said in a statement.
Her gorgeous voice towers next to the decadent strings, drums and horns of “Wear,” whereas the dance beat of “Parking Lot” serves to elevate her storytelling. But it’s the lead single, “Robber,” with its hazy production and striking vocals, that exudes the album’s triumphant nature and stays with you long after the music fades out.