Wilco/Waxahatchee. Little Simz (again). Arcade Fire. Turnstile. Christy Moore. The McGarrigles.

Some great weekend reading, with soundtracks

My favorite music writing mixes deep knowledge, clear critical vision, and heart. Here’s some recent stuff that does all that w/chips.

At the new-ish music journalism website/collective Hearing Things, key player Jill Mapes wrote the piece about Arcade Fire that needed to be written — however much of it you agree/ vibe with. It’s lengthy, fair, thoughtful, heartfelt, autobiographical, and ultimately about a lot more than just the band. If you aren’t familiar with the band, this is where to start.

Great albums reveal their truths repeatedly, and differently, over time. So it is with the 1976 debut album by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Laura Snapes, who writes regularly for The Guardian, looks at it through a 21st century lens, and finds it as profound as ever.

Coincidentally, given album release dates (1976 and ‘75, respectively), their families intertwined histories (via fellow singer-songwriter icon Loudon Wainwright III), and the fact they’re both top-flight folkie sister acts, NY Times critic Dwight Garner offered a similarly rich essay on Seductive Reasoning by Maggie and Terre Roche (gift link), an album utterly slept-on in its day, and still (The Roche sisters’ marvellous trio LP debut, produced by Robert Fripp (!) got them noticed some years later.

Speaking of folk legends, Christy Moore is the subject of a beautiful profile in the NYT today (gift link), on the cusp of Moore’s 80th birthday. Elvis Costello, the Edge, and Ireland’s president break down why the man is so beloved. It’s penned by Bob Mehr, whose book on the Replacements is one of the great band bios of the past couple decades.

This forthcoming Little Simz record is going to be amazing, to judge from the recent singles. Here’s another. I recommend listening without the video first, and let the words do the work.

The video footage adds a crazy narrative of its own. I love how some of the best rappers (Doechii, Kendrick, etc.) are lately acting out multiple characters in their work, in various voices that sometimes are in dialogue with one another. For Simz, I can’t imagine Issa Rae and Michaela Coel, among other actors, haven’t been important touchstones.

Turnstile are a hardcore band that have morphed into something more, with proggy drones and metal hooks. I don’t stage dive much these days (okay: I never have). But I’m still binging on clips from the band’s unhinged gig at Wyman Park Dell in Baltimore, MD, a couple weeks ago, a well-attended fundraiser for the local group Health Care for the Homeless with hilariously laissez-faire stage security. Here’s two views: one from the stage, the other from the audience. The action’s off-the-hook in both; I don’t know who out-performs who.

Finally, here’s a beautiful version of one of my favorite — sometimes my very favorite — Wilco songs, performed by the band with the entire Waxahatchee crew. The two bands just wrapped up a short doubleheader tour here in the States.

Everything else may be going to hell, but music remains a beacon. UK & EU readers: please take care of Bruce while he’s over there, okay? Thanks.