Ondara addresses isolation blues FIVETHINGS
New album gives voice to longing, desperation and anger amid pandemic’s toll
J.S. ONDARA Folk N Roll Vol 1: Tales of
Isolation | Universal Music
Born in Nairobi, based in Minneapolis, J.S. Ondara established himself as a potent singer-songwriter with a powerhouse voice on 2019’s Tales of America.
A green-card lottery winner, the young musician had resolved to head to the U.S. to pursue a musical career as a child. He was on his way to study music therapy in college, but things took off after his uploaded YouTube songs caught radio programmers’ attention in Minneapolis. From there, things just got rolling faster and faster. Nominated for best emerging act at the 2019 Americana Music Honors and Awards, he went from coffee houses to opening select dates for Neil Young and an opening slot for the Lumineers on their world tour in support of III.
Now he’s back with a surprise new release written, recorded and released during self-isolation.
It may just be the very first record to come out during the pandemic to address what’s going on right now. As he says in the news release: “They are stories about the ramifications of a whole population isolating; about the personal, political and economical scars that will linger for the rest of our lives long after we have found our way past this.”
Here are five things to know about Folk N Roll: Vol. 1: Tales of Isolation.
1
PULLED OUT OF THE MARKET/ISOLATION BLUES (BLAME IT ON THE PATHOGEN)
Talk about getting straight to the point. The opening track finds Ondara sounding the most like Springsteen that he ever has, strumming a reverberant progression on his acoustic as he repeats the title like a mantra and assumes the role of a factory worker, a social worker, an academy worker, and so on. It’s a lament for all those jobless in the U.S., now nearing a quarter of the working population. As if that wasn’t sad enough, then he delves into being heartbroken and it being “just the right time for isolation blues.” So, yeah, this isn’t a feel-good release.
2 MR. LANDLORD
If I bake you a cake/Will it help you forget/That I haven’t paid the rent/If I make you a meal/Will it ease how you feel/About my delinquent bill? There is more than a little Woody Guthrie-level anger percolating under the surface as the narrator negotiates what portion he can pay with a clear bitterness at being unable to do anything other than beg wiggle room for the next few months. A Dylan-esque harmonica rounds out the sound.
3 FROM SIX FEET AWAY
How do front-line workers hold their love when they might have the bug? They confess that if they have to they will love you from six feet away. The longing and the desperation that Ondara delivers on this song proves just how liquid and flowing his voice is at delivering emotional impact. Who would have thought that a lyric about “I’ve already seen Tiger King three times” could be tear-jerking?
4 PYRAMID JUSTICE
Calling out wealth inequity is nothing new in folk songs. Calling out someone for changing their beliefs as often as they do their flashy new wardrobe is a new spin. And as the suit fades, so does the wearer, it seems.
5 ISOLATION BOREDOM SYNDROME (IBS)
As the days go by, time starts to bend and that back-andforth debate between elation and emotional exhaustion leads to a state that Vancouver actor James RH Sanders so perfectly described as “bored tired.” It can just get worse if you don’t break out of it, too. That is probably why Ondara closes out the album with the next stage in the song Isolation Depression Syndrome (IDS).
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:
ESPERANZA SPALDING
AND FRED HERSCH: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD — THE ROUGH MIX EP | BANDCAMP
Pianist/composer Fred
Hersch has been seemingly unstoppable over the course of this pandemic, playing live streamed shows, dropping repeated singles and now releasing this duo disc with all proceeds benefiting the Jazz Foundation of America’s efforts to help jazz artists struggling at this time. The five songs are swinging, playful and show how well the two talents can communicate live. Spalding’s voice is bluesier than usual on But Not For Me and she is hilarious on the lengthy Girl Talk. It’s some of the best vocal work she has recorded, and the piano is so pure and electric that I think anything but a rough mix would be wrong.
BRUNO MAJOR: TO LET A GOOD THING DIE | AWAL
When you’ve got Billie Eilish singing your praises and her talented brother Finneas co-writing singles with you, you are bound to be getting attention. You also are likely to have quality chops and this 10-song set introduces Major’s slinky take on Old Soul. His delivery is hushed, never rushed and the lyrics on songs such as The Most Beautiful Thing (the Finneas co-write) are as unadorned as can be. The sparse production sometimes hearkens back to classic crooners (Regents Park) or melancholy love ballads (She Chose Me) that could have been hits in the 1950s. The short song length keeps the material from sounding too clingy, which is good as the songs all roll on the same slow speed.
DIPLO: DIPLO PRESENTS THOMAS WESLEY CHAPTER 1: SNAKE OIL | SONY MUSIC
It’s interesting to see which artists are delaying upcoming releases and those who are ready to step up and see if they gauged the public demand properly. Diplo logs in with a dozen tracks of electropop, including his remix of Old Town Road on his latest. It’s a guest-laden set ranging from the hooky So Long (f. Cam) to the slightly weird country club vibing Heartless (f. Morgan Wallen) and Latin-ized Dance With Me (f. Thomas Rhett and Young Thug). Do Si Do (f. Blanco Brown) is proper annoying.
FLYING LOTUS: FLAMAGRA (INSTRUMENTALS) |
WARP RECORDS
With 27 tracks, this release gives you a healthy overview of what kind of mutant jazzy, funk zaniness producer Flying Lotus has been getting up to over the while. It’s a big range, with Heroes In A Half Shell sounding like ’70s fusion on faster speed while Fire Is Coming mixes ambient buzz with weird spoken word. Oddly, there is a stylistic continuity to all that as the album seems to take the listener on a pretty chilled-out journey through Flying Lotus’ nonclub-shaking moods.