We wear short shorts
Stretching the single format this month are Joe Armon-Jones & Fatima. Their Tinted Shades EP (Aquarii) features drummer Moses Boyd, whose acrylic beats add trip-hop edge to Fatima’s smooth R&B vocal and JA-J’s spacey electric piano on the title track. Young Brit pups Dog Unit debut with four long, guitar/bass/ drums instrumentals mixed by Kieran Hebden on Turn Right And Right Again (Brace Yourself). Wired but mellow, like Jim O’Rourke’s jazz-not-jazz work with Gastr Del Sol, they consistently hit invigorating, highly saturated grooves. Old dog: new tricks, as Bob Mould offers radical alternate perspectives on his hallmark amped rage with a three-track acoustic EP, The Ocean (Merge), recorded live in Mould’s San Francisco studio for NPR. The title track and Forecast Of Rain were standouts on his 2020 album Blue
Hearts, while the version of Hüsker Dü’s Divide And Conquer proves that even an unplugged Mould turns the lights on. Guitar sorcery apprentice Steve Gunn releases a collaborative EP, Nakama, in which friends remix/rework tracks from 2021’s Other You. Mdou Moctar’s bassist and guitarist, Mikey Coltun and Ahmoudou Madassane, quicken the pulse of stand-out Protection.