Mother's last Christmas

By Chuck Bauerlein

            Back in February my mother's doctor in Wisconsin told my sister, who lives near her, that Mother's Alzheimer's disease had progressed to a final stage. My mom could no longer chew her food, a sign that the end of her life was approaching.

            I went out to visit with her in July and had several memorable days with her, but it was sadly obvious to see she was fading. She slept half the day and wasn't eating much. It would take me 60 or 70 minutes to feed her a small container of yogurt and some cut fruit. She would wake up and smile once in a while and on one or two occasions, she seemed to  laugh at something I said.

            About a month ago, my sister wrote to us that Mom was losing weight and now sleeping about 18 hours a day. We should prepare ourselves for the news of her passing at any time. There is little reason to doubt next Thursday will be my mother's last Christmas.

            It is impossible to know what this loss will feel like, especially on future Christmas mornings. Her children will wake up on those days and realize Mom has passed and all we have left of her are memories of the many Christmases she made feel so special for so many years.

            We came of age in a large three-story stone house my dad christened "Kidzaplenty Place." Christmas day would start with the smells of a very special breakfast wafting up to the third floor bedrooms. Coffee brewed on the stove and the oven over-flowed with the smells of a Dutch treat my grandmother had passed down to her daughters, saucejzenbroodges.

              These were small pork sausages wrapped in a delicate blanket of flaky baked and glazed flour crust. The crust would melt in our mouths before we could bite the sausage. Mother only made them on Christmas, so these treats seemed magical because they were so rare. When we arrived downstairs, her other baked delicacy already had been placed carefully in the center of the family dining table: a large Dutch stollen (a foot-long Christmas cake crammed with jellied fruits and walnuts, sprinkled with powdered sugar).

            We came down to the kitchen one by one, wiping sleepy dust from our eyes and reaching for coffee mugs. Mother sliced grapefruit using the curved blade of a grapefruit knife, carefully carving each pod of the juicy flesh of a pink grapefruit, flicking the seeds into the kitchen sink. So adept was she with the blade, she could carve six or seven of them in the time it took me to carve one.

      She would send one of my sisters scurrying into the dining room carrying two at a time, placing them with care on small plates at our assigned places at the table.  Breakfast was ready to go by 7:30 a.m. The grapefruit, two large plates of scrambled eggs, coffee or hot chocolate, the sausages and the stollen. A feast fit for royalty.

      After the blessing my father would ask each of the children to say something we were thankful for that year.  With 11 hungry mouths staring at this mountain of exotic food, this last chore seemed like torture. We had no choice but to endure it. When we all complained, my dad pointed out it had been a year since the last such feast, what was 10 more minutes?

      We trotted out the usual tropes. Our thanks tended to be the same year after year: we were thankful for our friends; our pets; the new clothes we wore; the new bike or baseball glove or rag doll we received for our last birthday. Then one of the younger children would thank the Lord for her sister or brother. The table chatter stopped and we watched my mother and father glance knowingly at each other. The older kids would feel foolish (again) for taking so much for granted.

      This was the blessing of Christmas and our family. That moment when Dad looked at Mom and she at him, both of them surveying the domestic tableau, taking in its sights and fragrances, the children waiting impatiently for one minute more. That moment when love shined in their eyes for one another and all the hard work of their marriage was realized.  Here was the real blessing, an unspoken, magnetic bond of enduring love and gratitude. Look at this! Look at what we made!

      There was a lesson there for all of us, if we could just see it. This is what family is. This is what marriage looks like.

      We lingered at breakfast for at least an hour while the blinking white lights of the Christmas tree in the library and the sweet smell of the pine needles called to us like sirens.  Piles of presents circled the foot of the tree. Opening them would wait. We all knew breakfast was part of the special ritual, too.

      Finally, around 9 a.m., the youngest among us would feel the irresistible pull of the main event. We would all leave the table full of dishes, retreat to the library and gather in a large circle on sofas or folding chairs, the young ones sitting crossed legged nearest the tree and retrieving presents for everyone else. 

      A family rule was that each of us had to buy at least one small present for every member of the family, so there were at least 125 presents to be unwrapped. My parents insisted we open them one at a time, and that we formally thank the person who gave it to us. This was also part of the family tradition. It made the spirit of Christmas last for hours.

     When it was done, my parents let us congregate around the tree, laughing and playing with new toys or trying on new clothes. Then they would go do the breakfast dishes, she washing, he drying.

      They would smile and listen to the sounds of Christmas from all corners of the large stone home they called Kitzaplenty Place. Squeals of happiness and laughter and of the pounding of small feet racing up the staircases, barking dogs chasing after them.

      After the dishes were dried and stacked up on the kitchen counter, my dad would carry them all into the dining room and set the table again. Mom would start the Christmas dinner.

      Paul and I, the two oldest, would sidle into the kitchen and find the left over saucejzenbroodges. The flaky crust would melt in our mouths. But the real meat of the sausage was like the day itself. Tasty, filling. In a word: unforgettable. The very essence of Mother's Christmases.

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The year in pop music: a ten best list for 2014

These were the CDs I enjoyed listening to the most this year. These all stayed in my car CD player for long stretches of time and bore up to repeated listenings. Not everyone will enjoy each of these picks. But if you read carefully, you're likely to find something that will make you glad youpurchased it or you might find something here to stuff in your family's Christmas stockings.

Happy listening!

1) The War on Drugs: “Lost in the Dream.” This album was released in March and has been in heavy rotation in my car ever since. It’s the band’s third and most fully realized album.  Starting with the epic two-chord romp "Under the Pressure," Adam Granducial and the band offer a mesmorizing collection of entirely engaging rock songs. They tend to start with predictable rock instrumentation but blossom into more interesting set pieces that feature floating ambient passages, assorted blasts of brass instruments and synthesizers. Songs like "Red Eyes" and the gorgeous "An Ocean in Between the Waves" channel the energy of Bruce Springsteen with the introspective navel-gazing of Jackson Browne’s most introspective songs. The album’s ten songs are a sprawling pastiche of deceptively simple yet utterly unforgettable reflections on modern living. "Lost in the Dream" is a meandering masterpiece of shifting moods and dreamy vibes, always anchored by Granducial’s guitar. 

2) Ought. "More Than Any Other Day". This Montreal-based post-punk band had one of the most explosive debuts of the year. My son and I caught their sparsely populated set at Johnny Brenda's for just $8 and thought we were seeing the Talking Heads, circa 1978 at CBGBs. It won't be so easy (or so cheap) to see them next time around. The energy they brought to their high-powered rock n' roll set was exhilerating to witness. The band takes a collaborative approach to their songs. They tend to start slowly and gradually build to climatic crescendoes of slashing dissonance and vocal angst. Tim Beeler's vocals (like David Byrne's) may grate on some ears, but there's never any doubt he's totally invested in the performance of the song. "More Than Any Other Day" rocks harder than any CD I heard all year. 

3) Sturgill Simpson, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. This is the second Simpson album release this year. The album’s title clearly borrows from the landmark Ray Charles' country set. But the musical precedents he’s channeling are Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Jimmy Webb. The album’s first single, “Turtles All the Way” takes an unpredictable and somewhat disconcerting psychedelic approach that works surprisingly well considering the genre Simpson is working in. His rich baritone and his phrasing sound as if he’s been taking voice lessons from Jamey Johnson. If you don’t like your country music in its most distilled form, you probably won’t dig Sturgill Simpson. But if Willie, Waylon and the boys are still rattling around your memory bank, you’ll love this one.

4) Ex-Hex. Rips. In her earlier work with Autoclave and Helium and, more recently, Wild Flag, Mary Timoney’s virtuosic guitar work always threw up in-your-face riffs that reeked of snarky confidence. If you loved her then, you’ll really  love her new album with an old collective known as Ex-Hex, who debuted in 2005 and has been on hiatus since. A punky, feminist romp, “Rips” is an economical, throwback to classic rock albums on the 1970s. This one is similar to Elvis Costello’s first record. Every song is a gem and all 12 of them clock in under 35 minutes.  Highlights include “Hot and Cold,” “You’ll Fall Apart” and “New Kid”. But trying to pick just three cuts off an album of 12 great blistering rock and roll songs is like choosing which fingers you want to slice off your hand.  “Rips” rips.   

5) Beck. Morning Phase. It’s been six years since Beck released an album. He had some serious health issues that kept him from working or recording in the interim, but the time off seemed to add layer of reflection that’s been missing from his songwriting since “Sea Change,” his most introspective record. Like that one, “Morning Phases” shows a more philosophical side of Beck that makes this latest recording a distinct pleasure to hear many times. “Sea Change” broke from Beck’s heavy use of sampling and electronic gimmicks an acoustic presentation of the songs. So, too, does “Morning Phases.” The songs possess a warmer, gentler tone and show the subtle side of an artist who destined for the rock n’ roll hall. “Cycle,” “Morning” and “Waking Light” are songs to start the day with.

6) Teddy Thompson. Family.  Just last month Teddy Thompson (Richard and Linda’s son) released his latest collaborative project, called “Family.” His mother and father and his sister, Kami, all contribute songs to the record, as do Kami’s husband (James Walbourne) and their stepbrother, Jack Thompson, from Richard’s second marriage. In an interview with the New York Times, Teddy said “at first, I thought it would be fun and easy,” but he soon realized “I was definitely trying to repair some kind of damage.” Kami, in the same story, said the family reunion concept was “like a family song-writing competition – it’s a bloody nightmare. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?” If “Shoot Out the Lights” (a ‘70s classic five-star recording ) was the Thompson’s truth about their divorce, “Family” shows that they’ve weathered the emotional storm just fine. 

7) Temples. Sun Structures. The nostalgic trip-fest of the year goes to this debut CD from Temples, a band from Kettering, England. Lead by guitarist and vocalist James Bagshaw, the Temples’ template takes 1967 psychedelic era pop and reinvents it, adding layers of sonic tricks that are pleasurable if a tad polished. Their best songs sound like T. Rex at their glittery finest but on a few others, the sheer studio sheen makes it seem as if the band is trying a little too hard to replicate a ‘60s pop confection. I caught their gig at the Union Transfer and the band pushed the songs forward with a gritty, guitar attack that suited their material better. “Shelter Song,” the title track and “Mesmerize” all sound like top of the pops chart-toppers from the late ‘60s. Temples is a band to watch.

8) Allo Darlin’ – We Come From the Same Place. Anglo-Australian band Allo Darlin' released their third album this year and it’s another batch of well-crafted, hook-laden songs written by Elizabeth Morris, the band’s songwriter and lead singer. She’s supported here with effortless ease by her band but it’s Morris’s show and she delivers these introspective, anecdotal stories with lines that sound like tossed-off couplets but reel you in close for a hard look at her heart. “I wanted to impress you, and I think you knew” she sings in “Kings and Queens”.  There are the idiosyncratic characteristics here, especially her use of the ukulele as a center point for some songs,  but the band behind her rocks hard. This is an immensely likable pop album, reminiscent of Joni Mitchell in her prime.  

9) The Antlers. Familiars.  On “Familiars”, The Antlers abandon the electronic influences that informed the Brooklyn band’s first two records, 2011’s “Burst Apart” and 2009 “Hospice”, opting  for a jazzier vibe that showcases a reliance on horns. Peter Silberman’s controlled falsetto remains one The Antler’s most compelling assets. There’s not a cut on the album that one might hear on top 40 radio, and that’s meant as a compliment.  Nine compelling cuts that bring you to another world and craft a soundtrack that just needs the right movie to find its audience. The Antlers seem like one of the most interesting bands making music today.

10 Roseanne Cash, The River & The Thread. Cash’s string of terrific CDs released in the last seven or eight years continues on this well-crafted set that has flown under the radar since it was released in January. (I didn’t discover its many charms until about a month ago.) Much of her most recent work was imbued with a sense of memory and grief, coming on the heels of the death of her mother and her iconic father. The River & the Thread finds the veteran Nashville songwriter crafting songs of immense detail and emotion she delivers in her trademark plaintive voice. The uptempo rocker “Modern Blue”sounds like an outtake from her classic “King’s Record Store” but the rest of the record travels down blues and folk roads, with the able contributions from her husband, John Leventhal. "A Feather's Not a Bird" and "Etta's Tune" are highlights.

In alphabetical order, here are some CDs that almost made my end of the year list: Anansy Cissy, "Mali Overdrive"; Gary Clark, Jr., “Live”; Joe Henry, “Invisible Hour”; Parquet Courts, “Sun-bathing Animals”; Cookie Rabinowitz, “Four-Eyed Soul”. Spoon, "They Want My Soul", St. Vincent, "St. Vincent"; U.S. Rails, "Heartbreak Superstar"; Sharon Van Etten "Are We There"; Woods, “With Light & With Love”.

The right-wing uproar over President Obama's "latte salute": why I vote Democratic

By now most of you may have heard the president "disrespected" the military and the American flag when he disembarked from the presidential helicopter earlier this week and tried to salute two Marines standing at attention at the bottom of the chopper's exit ramp with a cup of coffee in his hand.

The rightwing propaganda machine went into overdrive outrage mode, castigating the president for this slip-up. The film clip of this incident is about  20 seconds long and nothing in American politics short of  Zapruder's footage of the assassination of President Kennedy has been discussed and dissected as much as this innocent moment.

I happened to be speaking about television news ethics in my "Introduction to Mass Media" class this week. Coverage of the president's "latte salute" incident served as a perfect example of all that is wrong with national TV news coverage. It ignores the most important aspects of public policy and it inflates, out of all rational proportion, the most trivial things that transpire.

In short, this incident has been used as an attempt to serve a far right-wing agenda (Fox News) or to chase high ratings and advertizing dollars (ABC, NBC, CBS). In either case, the national networks do not serve democracy. The root of our national conundrum is that America's TV media are owned by large corporations that are more interested in generating  mega-profits than in protecting the public interest.

President Obama's latte salute was the subject of a blistering battle of words and ideology on the Facebook page of a former fraternity brother who lives in Louisiana.  The fact that he resides in one of the reddest of red states (a state steeped in a legacy of racism) made the interchange between his Facebook friends particularly interesting and angry. One of the comments on the thread suggested Obama's salute was unpatriotic and showed disrespect of both the military and our nation's flag. 

After a day of bile and abuse, my fraternity brother decided his thread was "toxic" and promised to take it down. I wanted to get in one last response to his GOP friends before it was abandoned. My post was an appeal to GOP voters in Louisiana to consider voting Democratic in the November elections.

I want to reach out to Dave's Republican friends with some food for thought from an East Coast liberal. If this makes one or two of you think about your voting choices in the upcoming election, so much the better. 

There are lots of things to dislike the President for. Let me name three off the top of my head. One: He didn't include a public option in his Affordable Care Act. This might have saved hundreds of millions of middle class Americans money when they have to see a doctor. Think how much you save when you mail a letter to California if you use the U.S. Postal Service instead of FedEx or UPS and you'll get the idea. 

Two: Every time he orders the execution of an American with a drone, he ignores our constitutional guarantee of  due process. Those Americans did not get a trial. They were judged, sentenced and executed by the president. This seems like a gross abuse of his powers. 

Three: He campaigned as an opponent to the War in Iraq and on trying to dismantle and reduce American's nuclear arsenal, weapons that threaten the very existence of humankind on Earth. Yet the New York Times ran a front page story this week about Obama's decision to spend billions of tax dollars in a plan to upgrade our deteriorating nuclear defense system. 

Ask yourselves, my GOP compatriots: why doesn't Fox news focus on these governmental decisions/issues that Obama has made but instead focuses on the President's "latte salute"? It's a question worth asking. 

Here's my answer: our left-wing, radical president took action in these decisions that supported huge corporations...exactly the kind of action Ronald Reagan would have taken. Why? For the life of me, I cannot understand why. But from my point of view, he sure ain't no liberal! He's as conservative as Reagan! 

Here's your party's ONLY agenda. The GOP wants to accomplish one thing: it wants to help the super-wealthy. It is owned and operated by the super-wealthy. Every time you vote for a Republican candidate, you are voting against the middle class and your own economic interests. Every time you get another Republican elected to Congress, the one-percenters break out the single malt scotch and toast your naivete. They are laughing at you behind your backs because, yet again, you drank the GOP Cool-aid. 

Here is the reality of the America we all live in, Republican and Democrat; Christian, Jew and Muslim; black, brown and white. One percent of the country's citizens own 90 percent of our collective wealth. Those same one-percenters control the flow of money; they control the banks; they control the media; they own your home if you still pay a mortgage; they own the future of your children if your kids have college loans. The ONLY agenda they have is this: they want to hang onto their wealth.The only thing they understand is money. They could care less about the good of the nation. 

Any vote for a Republican is a vote for the status quo. Think what you want, that's the privilege of being an American, but please DON'T think you are creating a "better world" or a "stronger union" when you vote for a Republican. YOU may believe in family values. So do we Democrats. WE are voting for change. The change we most desire is to live in an equitable society where the distribution of wealth is not so one-sided and doesn't favor of the wealthiest people on Earth. 

Please don't tell me they "earned" it with their sweat and toil, working with their hands. They earned it by convincing people like you to elect representatives who do their bidding, who create laws and open tax loopholes that allow them to horde wealth. They are lawyers, bankers, hedge fund managers and, most of all, corporate CEOs, defense contractors and war profiteers. They are not plumbers, electricians, carpenters or reporters. 

Please don't require me to salute the flag of a nation whose government protects the assets of the wealthiest people on Earth. Please don't call me a "traitor" for pointing out this sad reality: the super wealthy and their elected representatives are working hard to keep the rest of us down. Do yourselves a favor. Start reading a decent newspaper and get your heads out of the Fox News propaganda machine. To all of you who read this far with an open mind, I humbly thank you. God bless the First Amendment!

Let's try to see TV news for what it really is: a race for ratings, a chase for advertising dollars. Let's also stop pretending we are "informed" when we watch the news on any network broadcast. You won't find the truth on network TV. You have to search hard for the truth. Try reading the New York Times every day or watch John Stewart or Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. Read the Nation or the Atlantic magazines. Watch PBS between 6 and 7 p.m.  And demand that news bureaus start to take their special place in democracy seriously. We need the media to hold power accountable for the wheels of democracy to spin smoothly. It's way, way past time for the media to start taking their jobs seriously. 

See the footage here: 

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/09/president-obama-s-greeting-to-marines-dubbed-the-latte-salute--107459.html

Saying goodbye

By Chuck Bauerlein

Last January, my sister in Wisconsin wrote to the other siblings some news about my mother, Agnes. She is slowly dying of Alzheimer’s disease and her decline had taken an ominous turn. Mom’s physician had told my sister that my Mother was having trouble swallowing food.

Families who have witnessed their loved ones slowly dying know this is one of the final stages of this pernicious disease. When a person can’t remember to swallow his or her food, the body cannot sustain itself. Her doctor said she would likely have between six and 12 months to live.

I knew I might be pushing my luck if I waited to see her until this summer, but my work schedule was full and other siblings were going out to visit her, so I waited until this past weekend to go and say my farewells.

I arrived in Oshkosh on the evening of July 3^rd, but didn’t go visit her until the morning to the 4^th of July. She was sitting at her standard spot at a table with two other patients who could still talk. 

Her head was bent low and she was slowly taking food from one of the home assistants. I took over the feeding and spent an hour slowly helping my mom eat a small canister of peach yogurt and one scrambled egg, one small swallow at a time. She was able to wash the soft food down pulling cranberry juice out of a cup with a plastic straw.
  

Mom did not know who I was; she had no recognition of me. She ate with her eyes closed.

I talked to her and tried to engage her, or at least get her to open her eyes, but without any luck. I noticed several other patients in the room were not eating either. I don’t know if they were not hungry or if they, too, were in the late stages of Alzheimer’s and simply had forgotten how to feed themselves. There were nine patients total and very little conversation in the room – except for the nurse assistants encouraging them to eat.

Afterwards I took my mother in her wheelchair out to a small garden near her room. A pleasant Wisconsin summer morning unfolded before us, alive with birdsong and the scent of blooming flowers. Mom was oblivious. I reached out and took her hand in mine and was surprised when I felt her aged, translucent fingers squeezing mine. I talked to her, but her head remained permanently fixed in a bent position. She was there, but she wasn’t in the present.

Later in the day, a driver from her care facility brought her out to my sister’s farm in Neenah, about five or six miles away. My brother Mark, who lives about a mile from my mom, prepared a typical July 4^th  feast of grilled corn on the cob, potato salad and hamburgers. Mark, my sister, her husband Michael and me and Mom sat under a huge shade tree and enjoyed the meal. Heidi spoon fed my Mother soft food that she managed to swallow.

The chitchat seemed to get through to my mother. An occasional smile would spread across her lips. Maybe she could recognize the voices of my Wisconsin siblings. Maybe they were familiar enough for my mother to recognize and remember the sound of their voices and evoke some distant memory. It was hard to know. But it was a wonderful moment to witness.

My sister took some pictures to commemorate my visit to Mother and our 4^th of July. I reached around her shoulders and pulled her close and kissed her.

On Sunday morning, my brother came with me to visit Mom. It was after breakfast and we sat with her in the garden. His familiar voice cheered her. We talked about the Phillies’ sorry season or something as trivial. Her eyes opened wide for the first time in three days and she smiled. Mark noticed and talked to her and made a comment that made her chuckle. It was undeniable. For a minute or three, she was there with us. Alive again; fully in the moment. She couldn’t talk, but she could communicate with her eyes and her face was full of love and happiness.  It was a small miracle. I felt so blessed to witness it.

Later that evening, my sister Heidi came to help me serve Mom dinner at the care facility. The morose silence of the dining room was more than Heidi could bear and she suggested we take Mom outside to the garden. There we slowly fed Mom her meal and engaged in a lively discussion about Heidi’s work for a Wisconsin corporation.

In the middle of our conversation my mother started to laugh, a belly laugh from deep inside of herself. She was trying to with all her will to articulate a thought and utter a complete sentence. She was joining the conversation. Heidi and I looked at one another in complete astonishment. Then we both laughed. And Mom laughed with us.

Before I left Oshkosh on Monday, I went back to feed her one last meal. Peach yogurt and a scrambled egg again. It took 75 minutes for her to eat a meal I could have devoured in 90 seconds. But I was conscious of every bite; every swallow. And I reminded myself how there must have been hundreds of hours when my mother was patiently waiting for me to swallow my jarred apricots or baby formula when I was six or seven months old. And how many thousands of times my mother must have performed this same chore with my siblings over the years.

And the seconds of this feeding seemed to rush by like summer lightning and I knew I might never be able to perform this task again. Ever.

I took my mother out to the garden one last time. I took her withered, wrinkled  hand in mind and I told her I hoped I might come back to see her in November for Thanksgiving and she should try to hang on if she could. But I also told her Dad was anxious to see her and it was okay if she had to go.

I told my mother she had been an incredible mother to me and my siblings and how lucky I was to have her in my life for so long. And then I said goodbye. Mom managed to open her eyes for me and I looked into her eyes. I can’t know of course if what I saw was what she saw. But it felt to me as if she seemed to sense this might be the last time we might see one another on this Earth.

Then she squeezed my finger one last time and the light in her eyes seemed to flicker and fade. After a few more minutes in the garden I wheeled her back into the facility and put her in front of the community TV, where two other patients dozed peacefully. 

I pulled her shoulders into my chest and I told her I loved her very much.

I had a plane to catch. It was time to leave.  

mid-year pop music report

Pop music continues to evolve and amaze. Here are some CDs I've been listening to. I have no idea how many of these will make my end of the year list, but for what it's worth, here are a dozen CDs in heavy rotation in my car CD player and at home in the disc changer. Seems a sure bet something here might catch your fancy, too!  

Antlers – “Familiars”. In an interview in Pitchfork,  The Antler’s primary songwriter Peter Silberman dropped Gaspar Noe’s “Enter the Void”  film as an inspiration for the band’s  2014 effort: “There are different ways to look at death and they don’t have to be depressing at all.” Like both “Hospice” and “Burst Apart”, “Familiars’’ is another trippy, introspective plunge into the netherworld of death and dying. But if you’ve heard this band before, you’ll know this also means another emotionally enthralling trip to a world of transcendence and beauty. “Intruders” and “Surrender” are two slowly developing songs that produce swirls of keyboard, horns and electric guitars  in ways that make the Antler’s music groundbreaking on a grand scale.

Arc Iris – Arc Iris.  Last year, Jocia Adams, a long standing member of the Low Anthem, Providence’s notable folk rock collective, left the band to form her own ensemble, called Arc Iris. I caught her set at the Boot & Saddle in April and it’s easy to see why the slow shuffle Americana music of the Low Anthem may have felt inhibiting to her. Her new collection of songs have an aural sweep that feels mostly like majestic prog rock from the mid-1970's.  Adams sounds liberated on this record, a fresh new voice worth finding.

Beck, “Morning Phase.”  After a six-year hiatus from recording, Beck came back this spring with one of his best recordings, “Morning Phase.” After several records that wallowed in reflective self-pity, Beck’s songwriting on this effort suggests the songwriter has finally come back around to smell the roses and enjoy the taste of honey again. The songs are more fully developed by his band and the music feels less stripped down that previous records. Sonicly, it’s his most ambitious and lush recording since “Sea Change.” A triumphant return to form for one of America’s most enigmatic recording artists.

Laura Cantrell,  “No Way There From Here". Cantrell’s girlish country warble  is in fine fettle on this new collection of well-crafted folk rock songs, her first release of original songs in nine years.   In Pop Matters, Josh Koch notes “the recording quality is stunning, there’s  a serious warmth to everything…. It’s an acoustic audiophile’s dream come true.” A pleasing mélange of instruments helps to elevate Cantrell’s recordings out of the realm of pedestrian country music into something that feels more organic and accomplished at the same time. Pedal steel, slide guitar, mandolin, banjo, bass and electric guitars all blend into one distinctively wonderful album.

Anansy Cisse – “Mali Overdrive.”  Folks who know my musical tastes know already I’ve long been enamored by Mali musicians. Ali Farka Toure ,  Amadou and Mariam and Rokia Traore have all ended up on my end of the year list in the last five or six years. This year’s list is likely to include this beautiful collection of songs from Anansy Cisse, another great Mali artist whose legend is just beginning. The music is delicate and intricate, constructed on a foundation of traditional bass guitar and ngone and soku,  one and two stringed instruments in the guitar family indigenous to West Africa. The calabash, an instrument fashioned out of a gourd and strung with beads, provides percussive sounds. Cisse’s bluesy guitar and earthy, expressive vocals give this African music a distinctively American feel.  Worth finding and savoring.

“Invisible Hour,” Joe Henry.  Henry’s latest effort is a collection of powerful songs that investigates the inner-workings of marriage. The songs are reflective set pieces that delve into the subject matter with sensitivity and insight, full of observational moments and tiny telling details that have always been the songwriter’s forte. Without ever pointing the finger or placing blame with his characters, Henry brings both the joys and heartaches of marriage to this cycle of songs that make his listeners think and feel their way through the labyrinth of love. It may be the most remarkable exploration of the sacred institution since Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks.”  

Jon Langford – “Here Be Monsters”. The former front man for Britain’s Mekons has long brought a touch of Billy Bragg political populism to his craft.  Langford’s been living in the states long enough to know the more things change, the more they stay the same. Thankfully, we still have his critical eye and sense of sarcasm to carry us through the day. “Be Here Monsters”, played with his new musical collective Orchard Skulls, is worthy of his best, most chaotic work with the Mekons. A mature, seasoned songwriter, working at the top of his game.

Ought. “More Than Any Other Day.”  This one came as a recommendation from my 30-year old son. The kid’s got great taste! (Great singing chops, too!) Ought is a Canadian band that got together during the student protests in 2012 when the provincial government in Quebec tried to raise tuition by 75 percent, provoking school boycotts. Although none of the eight songs on “More Than Any Other Day” deal specifically with this political movement, they seem to channel the anger of those supercharged “Maple Spring” days. If these guys sound like anarchists, you know why. Played with the finger-pointing fury and fervor of American bands like Social Distortion and Flogging Molly.

Parquet Courts, “Sunbathing Animal.”  Parquet Courts manages to sound resoundingly fresh and relevant, despite wearing their musical influences proudly on their sleeves. “Sunbathing Animal” sounds alternately like Pavement, the Velvet Underground, Ween, Wire and Television, sometimes all at the same time. This post-modern mash-up of some of punk rock’s greatest bands  does more than honor the genre. Like most great bands, they seem to reinvent it and call it their own. “Black and White” has a propulsive pace that is downright addictive. “Sunbathing Animal” takes the perspective of a house cat trapped in an apartment. Primal punk: don’t punt! Purchase promptly!

Cookie Rabinowitz – “Four Eyed Soul.” My local public radio station has been playing this local neo-soul singer with the improbable name of Cookie Rabinowitz for about a month now. I caught his show at the “Make Music Philly” festival in a public  park in  Roxborough on Saturday evening. It was a dance fest of the first order. Rabinowitz sounds like he’s taken Sly Stone’s template and run it through a meat grinder with his Kanye CDs. Lyrically whimsical and unabashedly soulful, Cookie’s got a good thang going on with “Four Eyed Soul.” Don’t let those sports goggles fool you, folks! This cat ain’t no freakin’ geek. “I Want to Text You With My Mouth” and the CD's first single, "Self-Loathing". are as infectious as pop music today gets. Cookie cooks!

Temples - "Sun Structures" -- Temples – “Sun Structures”.  Noel Gallagher proclaimed  Temples, the hottest new band in Britain. But try not to hold that against them!  The Temples, following Tame Impala’s template, showcase a wide variety of 60s psychedelic sounds that owe as much to California acid-tripping bands like the Doors, the Electric Prunes and the Jefferson Airplane as much as the pop sensibilities of England’s T-Rex and the Zombies. Lead singer James Bagshaw carries a charming confidence through his performances on these songs. If “Rubber Soul” or the Monkee’s foray into psychedelic music, “Head” float your boat, you’ll probably have lots of fun listening to this updated version of music inspired by Haight-Ashbury. 

War on Drugs, “Lost In a Dream.”  You might have thought losing a talent like Kurt Vile would leave the gas tank empty for this local band. But War On Drugs, fronted by songwriter Adam Granduciel, seems to have lots of mileage left to go. While Vile has gone on to make his own terrific solo records, Granduciel has made his most relevant, ear-pleasing album to date. His trademark tasty guitar work is in evidence on the CD’s first song, the sprawling “Under the Pressure.” The rest of the record seems locked under the opener’s mesmerizing spell.  If you love guitar rock, you’ll love this.