William Dart features some recent releases from Nonesuch Records, with new music by Lake Street Dive, Rhiannon Giddens, k.d. lang and Caroline Shaw.
Rhiannon Giddens Photo: Rhiannon Giddens ex artist website
After almost sixty years of operation, Nonesuch Records has ended up with a boundary-defying stable of artists that includes the Kronos Quartet, Laurie Anderson, Emmylou Harris, The Black Keys and Randy Newman . . . and the list goes on, considerably.
Seven months into 2021, Nonesuch continues to knock any would-be barriers asunder.
The band Lake Street Dive's new album Obviously has quietly and absolutely captivated me. This fivesome, most of them erstwhile students at the New England Conservatory of Music, dish out some of the savviest grown-up pop you’re likely to hear. And this, the group’s sixth album and third for Nonesuch, is the ultimate in utter infectiousness.
Rhiannon Giddens’ second collaboration with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi is yet another instance of two artists working through the Great Lockdown of 2020. And they had something to live up to — their first coming together in 2019 was a particularly refreshing and wide-ranging collections of songs.
The pair’s new album, They’re Calling Me Home, centres around songs of death and non-specific gloom, exquisitely and imaginatively rendered.
Canadian singer k.d.lang has been on Nonesuch’s books since 2004 when she recorded her Hymns of the 49th Parallel, a folio of songs by fellow Canadian writers, including Joni Mitchell and Jane Sibery. Sadly it’s been a long 13 years since her last studio release of new material, titled Watershed.
Now Nonesuch has brought together a collection of lang’s dance floor remixes from throughout her career, for an album titled makeover. Frivolous, you might think? Well, not necessarily, with lang insisting that this was the music that did so much to build up and consolidate the gay community at the time, in those not so far-off days before the internet, mobile devices and dating apps.
Caroline Shaw is a youngish American composer who prompted Stacey Anderson in The Guardian to ask, five years ago, whether she might be the "future of music". This suggestion came after she’d not only carried off a Pulitzer Prize with her Partita for 8 voices, but also had been involved in some offbeat collaborations with rapper Kanye West.
Shaw’s new Nonesuch release, Let the soil play its simple part is a collaboration with Sō Percussion. It's sure to provide some intensive listening pleasure over the winter months.
Music Details
'Song title' (Composer) – Performers
Album title
(Label)
'By the Sleepy Lagoon' (Coates) – East of England Orchestra/Malcolm Nabarro
The Three Elizabeths Suite
(ASV)
'Dominic' (Bartlett, Muhly) – Thomas Bartlett & Nico Muhly
Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music
(Nonesuch)
'Hypotheticals' (Kearney) – Lake Street Dive
Obviously
(Nonesuch)
'Nenna Nenna' (Trad) – Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi
They're Calling Me Home
(Nonesuch)
'Miss Chatelaine (St. Tropez Mix)' (Lang) – k.d. lang
Makeover
(Nonesuch)
'Miss Chatelaine' (Lang) – k.d. lang & Orville Peck
Miss Chatelaine (Iron Hoof Remix
(Nonesuch)
'Theme from the Valley of the Dolls' (Previn, Previn) – k.d. lang
Makeover
(Nonesuch)
'Partita: II. Sarabande' (Shaw) – Roomful of Teeth
Caroline Shaw: Partita for 8 Voices
(New Amsterdam)
'A Gradual Dazzle' (Shaw) – Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion
Shaw: Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part
(Nonesuch)
'Lay All Your Love On Me' (Ulvaeus, Anderssen) – Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion
Shaw: Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part
(Nonesuch)
