My Big, Gigantic Drum Kit

These were all published over the past week or so.  With my ‘punk’s influence on the late ’70s/early ’80s mainstream’ feature popping up last Monday, I thank PopMatters for creating this temporary illusion of productiveness:

Poliça - Give You the Ghost

Despite a deceptively simple formula of R&B-inflected vocals, fluidly organic basslines, and airtight double drumming, Give You the Ghost isn’t the easiest album to unwrap or decode. Poliça frontwoman Channy Leaneagh’s effects-coated and often multi-tracked voice acts as both center and outer padding, creating an unusual sonic paradox in which Leaneagh is omnipresent, but her words are frequently obscured. It’s a tension resolved with additional listens, however, as her bandmates’ important contributions become more audible, and her lyrics become clearer — as it turns out, they’re sensual, angry, and impressionistic, much like the music. This is form following function. More …

Jordan Klassen - Kindness EP

I’ve heard the argument that one should avoid deploying the word “evocative” without being able to state what’s being evoked. This may rest on a too narrow understanding of the term, but it’s a useful exercise in emphasizing the importance of specificity: there’s a difference between affecting vague “evocative”-ness and evoking distinct feelings and memories of substance. Adorned with orchestral touches like soft bursts of horn, gently swooping strings, and bright xylophone, the four pop-folk tracks on Jordan Klassen’s Kindness are “evocative” in the former, fuzzier sense of the word. They’re well-performed, dutifully arranged, and never sound anything less than wistful and portentous, because albums like Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left and Sufjan Stevens’s Illinoise have taught us the sounds that signify wistfulness and portentousness in chamber pop. More …

Jenny Gillespie - Belita EP

With a lyrical sensibility grounded in nature imagery, an emphasis on gentle acoustic instrumentation, and Jenny Gillespie’s creamy delivery, Belita might make an initial impression as simply well-played coffeehouse fare. It takes a few listens to notice the formal elasticity in Gillespie’s songs and the bee stings and bites in those woodland and water metaphors. Although these riskier elements are never quite enough to wash out the scent of espresso, Belita is nonetheless more Joni than Jewel. More …