New music
POP/ROCK
Begonia
Powder Blue (Birthday Cake)
Alexa Dirks, the powerhouse pop/soul/R&B singer and songwriter who performs as Begonia, should be a huge star by now. Her debut 2017 EP, Lady in Mind, built a buzz and earned the attention of the influencers at NPR Music, who named her one of 10 to watch for; her 2019 album, Fear, was nominated for a Juno Award and made the Polaris Prize long list. In February 2020, the Winnipeg-based musician was poised to introduce herself to the broader world with a tour that was launched with a fabulous, sold-out, five-night stand at the West End Cultural Centre.
We all know what happened next.
However, great achievements often spring from bitter disappointments. After a period of enduring the anger, sadness and frustration of derailed plans and forced isolation, Dirks began to work her way back to wholeness by playing with lyrics and melodies and reconnecting with her co-writers and co-producers Matt Peters and Matthew Schellenberg (a.k.a. deadmen, whose touch here is simply sublime). Over the next two years, the trio created the music and moods that are Powder Blue, a collection of 12 songs that blends elements of alternative pop, neo-soul, gospel and R&B into a rich, self-assured expression of the essence of Begonia — a giddily honest recounting of Dirks’ hopes, fears, foibles and joys.
Album opener Chasing Every Sunrise could be seen as the Begonia credo — a beautiful, baroque pop reminder to squeeze everything possible out of life and love. Heaven features a hushed vocal over trippy electronica as Dirks imagines a life free of distress. Married by Elvis is a goofy-happy love song about a wedding in Vegas. I’m Not Dying is a revelation — a jilted lover’s exultant realization that, HFS, she’s over it. Marigold is a whip-smart, razor-honest examination of sexual identity and Crying is a triumphant, quasi-orchestral gospel belter about learning to love and accept oneself that builds to a choral crescendo which should convince even the most jaded doubter – Begonia IS a star. ★★★★1/2 out of five
STREAM THESE: Marigold, Crying, Married by Elvis
— John Kendle
ROCK
Lucero
Should’ve Learned by Now (Thirty Tigers)
It would be selling Lucero short to say the Memphis band’s new album feels like what you’d take away from a visit to the Lucero store. As in, you know just what you want, you pay your money for it, and you walk away satisfied with another tasty set of rock ‘n’ roll comfort food.
Should’ve Learned by Now is more than that, for sure, but it’s that, too. And yet the reason it tastes good is because it comes from a band that has polished its sound over more than two decades but still has too many rough edges to come off as complacent or ordinary.
Sure, Lucero sounds less like a garage band than it once did. But the serrated edges of Brian Venable’s guitar-playing and the gravel in frontman Ben Nichols’ voice prevent it from slipping into the over-polished category. It also helps that Nichols writes compelling songs and growls them out with energy and conviction.
Nichols’ Arkansas roots may account for why the band’s music tends to land in the alt-country bin, but his songwriting owes more to the Replacements and Tom Petty than anything coming out of Nashville. That’s obvious from the first cowbell and electric guitar riff on the opener, One Last F.U. It continues into the second cut, Macon If We Make It, a song about a road trip through Georgia during a hurricane that rides the gale-force energy of Venable’s electric guitar. ★★★★ out of five
STREAM THESE: One Last F.U., Macon If We Make It
— Scott Stroud, The Associated Press
ROCK
Gracie Abrams
Good Riddance (Interscope Records)
The title is referenced early in its opening track, The Best: “You’re the worst of my crimes / You fell hard / I thought, ‘good riddance.’” As the music intensifies, so do the depths of her admissions.
Those confessions set the tone: this is a diary, and one whose author is well aware that everyone can do wrong. The immediacy of that intimacy forms an agreement between the artist and her listeners that the 12 tracks, co-written and produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner, will hold honest self-reflection.
She considers the nuances of growing up on Right Now — “left my past life on the ground / Think I’m more alive somehow” — and pines on Full Machine: “I’m a shameless caller / You’re a full machine / But won’t you answer tonight and say something nice to me.” I Know It Won’t Work pairs a heartbeat-like drumbeat with pleading reflections: “What if I’m not worth the time and breath I know you’re saving?”
Abrams’ words are strongest when she centres her youth, probing her emotions in a way that acknowledges possible naiveté. Instead of relief or anger, this “good riddance” is tinged with guilt, regret and unanswered questions — feelings that pair well with Abrams’ raw, breathy vocals.
Dessner’s collaboration brings a stripped back direction evident in the emotive acoustics of Amelie and This Is What the Drugs Are For. While the production is at times repetitive, Dessner also manages to channel the same acoustic wonder of Taylor Swift’s folklore, also recorded at his Long Pond studio.
Penultimate track The Blue is transcendent and refreshingly hopeful, relying on a common turn of phrase to describe the beginnings of a new relationship: “You came out of the blue like that / I never could’ve seen you coming / I think you’re everything I’ve wanted.”
That chorus is an enduring earworm, the kind that enters your brain passively, as if to remind you of Abrams’ very dilemma: situations can always change. And while the song is not rid of the anxiety that imbues the album — “what are you doing to me now?” she repeats throughout — it feels like an awakening. ★★★1/2 out of five
STREAM THESE: Good Riddance, I Know It Won’t Work
— Elise Ryan, The Associated Press
JAZZ
Chris Potter
Got the Keys to the Kingdom (Edition)
Saxophonist Chris Potter has evolved over the years by exploring various group styles, large ensemble playing and compositional challenge. Until the impositions of COVID he was hugely involved in touring, and the forced isolation led him to practice and compose more. This album, however, is a high energy quartet session that has non-original covers of some neat tunes with a high-power band. With Potter are Craig Taborn on piano (sounding at times a bit like the late Don Pullen), Scott Colley on bass and Marcus Gilmore absolutely lighting up the music on drums including several extended solos.
The album was recorded at the Village Vanguard in New York – one of the meccas of jazz performance. Within that hall with the quirky shape and legendary status this quartet simply takes ownership. There are only six tracks, which means that the quartet stretches out over 10 minutes on most of them. The playlist has several folk tunes like the Amazonian Nozani Na and Jobim’s Olha Maria and two African American spiritual tunes. The opening track is You Gotta Move from the American south, and the title track, Got the Keys to the Kingdom, ends the album neatly.
Billy Strayhorn’s Blood Count, a frequent Ellington staple, is my favourite track but it would be a close call for all the others. It is in any event the most laid back track, with stunning solos and a building emotional mood. It is simply beautiful. The only other track is a Charlie Parker tune that is definitely not laid back but full-out wonderful. It’s called Klactoveedsedstene, and reportedly when Parker was asked what that meant his answer was “obviously it’s a sound”. Here it is a blistering array of sounds that defy sitting still.
Potter is totally at the top of his game as are his bandmates. This album confirms that while jazz has few boundaries these days, when four brilliant musicians use the familiar quartet format perfectly, it is wonderful to hear. What it was like to hear live one can only imagine. ★★★★1/2 out of five
STREAM THESE: You Gotta Move, Blood Count
— Keith Black
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Credit: New music
