AILSA CHANG, HOST:
It's time for New Music Friday. In a minute, we'll hear the latest from the current king of bluegrass, plus electronic stylings from an R&B pioneer. But first, a posthumous self-titled release from the iconic producer SOPHIE, who passed away in 2021. Here's Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen from NPR Music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIVE IN MY TRUTH")
BC KINGDOM: (Singing) You make me want to be in my life, in my life, in my life, in my truth, in my truth. You make me want to...
ANN POWERS, BYLINE: Sophie was a revolutionary producer and musician who argued for a fully synthetic approach to music-making. She was looking for new sounds, not trying to replicate traditional instrumentation in her work. She also was a trans woman and a pioneer of expressing, you know, gender expression through her voice, through her performances - just a really, really crucial artist. This album, "Sophie" - it was completed by her siblings, Benny and Emily Long...
DAOUD TYLER-AMEEN, BYLINE: Right.
POWERS: ...Using, sort of, the foundational tracks, which were pretty far along, I think, Daoud. And...
TYLER-AMEEN: I think so, yeah.
POWERS: ...What they brought in were a lot of vocalists and, you know, shaped the album, polish it, bring the sculpture to life out of the marble. And after several listens, I think it's quite a profound final testament from SOPHIE.
TYLER-AMEEN: I mean, it's a strange feeling because on a posthumous album that is the artist's final testament, to have the voices you hear be, in large part, somebody else's...
POWERS: Right.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...Is - you know, it's a little disorienting. But a lot of the SOPHIE stuff we've come to know is here. There are threatening, you know, aggressive...
POWERS: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...Sounds. There's a real reverence for sounds that would be ordinarily thought of as, like, cheap or ugly that have been sort of elevated to beauty here. To me, the most compelling stuff is that stuff right in the middle that sort of embodies most vividly the tension between the ugly side of pop and the pop side of pop.
POWERS: Interesting - like, a song like "Exhilarate" or something like that, or...
TYLER-AMEEN: For sure. "Exhilarate" has - that is a straight-up pop song in a lot of ways, but there are still some weirdo touches.
POWERS: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: There is a particular, like, squelchy synth sound that I can imagine an old-school, you know, cigar-chomping record executive demanding be taken out.
POWERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EXHILARATE")
BIBI BOURELLY: (Singing) I spend all my moments caught in the middle, up way too high or under the water, testing my luck or trying to be civil.
POWERS: I think the siblings did a very good job of making this almost like a - I mean, not like a biopic or - but this kind of does tell SOPHIE's life story in a sort of abstract way.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EXHILARATE")
BOURELLY: (Singing) Got my foot on the gas, got my foot on the gas. I been going way too fast for myself.
TYLER-AMEEN: That is "Sophie," the self-titled final album by the late producer. Up next, Billy Strings with an album called "Highway Prayers."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEANING ON A TRAVELIN' SONG")
BILLY STRINGS: (Singing) Where the air is clear and the road is straight, all the choices have been made. I'll keep rolling right along, leaning on a traveling song.
POWERS: This is a guy who's really transformed bluegrass in the 21st century. This is his fourth studio album, and Billy Strings always tries new things. I mean, he's an artist who loves to absorb different influences and really, like, live outside the box. Here's the thing about a Billy Strings record. It gives you everything. His last album, "Renewal," had 16 tracks on it. This one has 20 tracks.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: And this record doesn't disappoint. I mean, it goes all over the place. There are plenty of just straight-up instrumental bluegrass breakdowns, but then there are these kind of, like, contemporary, you know, rock-ish songs. There are also these country classics.
TYLER-AMEEN: Also "Catch And Release."
POWERS: I love that one. Oh, my God.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BILLY STRINGS SONG, "CATCH AND RELEASE")
TYLER-AMEEN: You have this story about a run-in with the law, but it's told with this very sort of casual slowness and times out the punchlines so they land at sort of unexpected intervals. I can see him really playing audiences like a fiddle when he does this one live.
POWERS: As it were. He's not a fiddle player, though, but...
TYLER-AMEEN: Right.
POWERS: But...
(SOUNDBITE OF BILLY STRINGS SONG, "CATCH AND RELEASE")
STRINGS: He said, where you heading, and I said, to catch some bass. He said, step on out under my magnifying glass. He made me watch his fingers and touch my nose. Then he made me count to 30, but then he let me go - made my day. I reckon it was a little catch and release.
TYLER-AMEEN: That is "Highway Prayers" by Billy Strings. Our last album is one that I kind of wish I owned a lava lamp in order to listen to. It is the return of the artist Bilal. His new album is called "Adjust Brightness."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL ME")
BILAL: (Singing) I'll chase you like prey. You smile at danger, but what will be done?
POWERS: I first fell for Bilal back in the '90s, when he was a pioneer in the neo soul movement, particularly in New York. And his albums are always very unexpected. This is only his sixth album since 2001 and his first since 2015. And he wanted to combine very abstract electronics with kind of classic R&B, you know, love man lyrics and just crooning. And the songs are strange, you know? Some of them are - almost feel like they're not songs. They drift in and out, you know? But...
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: At the core is still this, like, soulfulness, I think.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah. The opening track, the title track, "Adjust Brightness" - it has a synth that sounds like a computer beeping, sort of what, you know, people thought computers in the future would sound like in the 1950s or '60s.
POWERS: Right, right, right.
TYLER-AMEEN: There's a choir that gives things this sort of sense of ceremony but maybe an unfamiliar kind of ceremony. There's just...
POWERS: Right.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...All of these things that make it feel like it isn't taking place in the world we know.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ADJUST BRIGHTNESS")
BILAL: (Vocalizing).
POWERS: My general advice for listening to this record is play it more than once. Play it several times. At its heart, it's powerful storytelling. And sometimes the stories are, like, simple. Like, I love the song "Lay Around," for example, which is kind of just like, hey, baby. Let's lay around and recharge a little bit, you know? And it's the combo of this experimentation with those heartfelt stories that I love about this record.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAY AROUND")
BILAL: (Singing) Feel like laying out, pillow talking in the moonlight, watching the clouds embrace. Feel like the quiet before the storm.
CHANG: That was Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen from NPR Music. And you can hear more in their full episode of New Music Friday from the podcast All Songs Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAY AROUND")
BILAL: (Singing) Too much too soon. Be my peace now. Lay around. Be my - lay around. Lay around. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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