Dinner Music 81: The weekly lineup
Left-field dance, oddball disco via the mideast and africa, sultry 90s R&B
This week we’re drifting through sounds, a genre-blending global journey. We start with California new age, float through synth-punk, afro funk, Italian groove and some four-on-the-floor house. We pick it back up with nineties R&B, french boogie with a global slant and cosmic country before rounding it out with smooth Latin soul.
If this sounds interesting to you and you’re in Austin, come see me (as 1/2 of Horse Opera) at Howards on Friday from 9pm-12am.
We begin with Johnny “Hammond” Smith, who was featured in Dinner Music last summer. It’s no surprise that Smith was a masterful Hammond organ player, with the instrument name becoming a permanent part of his name. His album Gears rolls through jazz, funk, groove with a mix of acid and playfulness that propels you from track to track with transitions as smooth as water on windless day. We move into Anika, the self-titled debut from the UK multi-disciplinarian, who also works as a photographer, journalist and film-maker. Grainy industrial noise, directionless guitar riffs with distant vocals, as if sung over an intercom system, makes this avant-garde album feel like an acid trip through a Berlin carnival, particularly in the covers of traditionally dainty songs like End of the World. If you like Boy Harsher, start here. We take a decidedly sonic turn with Cheo, Brooklyn-based, Caracas-born artist, whose sound explores the intersection of lounge, salsa, samba, soul and Laurel Canyon folk. From Cheo: “I wanted to make the kind of album that you hit play, naked just before getting in the shower.” Cue the feel good movie montage. We move into a Togolese album from Akofa Akoussah, with sounds like hot summer nights, humid and sweaty in a way that is cleansing, like a ritual. That connection makes sense — Akoussah was the principal soloist in her Catholic school choir. The ballads and swings alike make the album sound like something of a dream, one that is wistful and just a little strange, in the best way. We end with Garrett T. Caps, San Antonio’s own “cosmic country gonzo honky tonk weirdo freak.” And that’s straight from the horses mouth.
Enjoy.
The playlist
Monday
Gears - Johnny “Hammond” Smith (1975)
Spotify / Other streaming services
Tuesday
Anika - Anika (2010)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Wednesday
Música para verse bien - Cheo (2023)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Thursday
Akofa Akoussah - Akofa Akoussah (1976)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Friday
I Love San Antone - Garrett T. Caps (2021)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Pair with
Homemade cavatelli, fried eggplant, buffalo mozzarella. A little bit thrown together, a lot of style. This is the best kind of recipe, especially when pairing it with a playlist of similar philosophy.
Martha Stoumen, Post Flirtation Red. Pop this baby in the fridge for a little while and enjoy a glass of chilled red while you’re cooking. Maybe toss in splash or two and see what happens?
The Book of Symbols. From the entry for “teeth:” “bared, sharp, snapping or gnashing teeth have ever been an image of devouring… symbolically teeth represent a kind of individual psychic mill where what’s too rough to take in directly can be ground up by the conscious consideration, digested and metabolized.”
Robert Irwin: A Desert of Pure Feeling. Documentary about one of my favorite artists that died earlier this year. His piece in Marfa, Untitled (Dawn to Dusk), is a piece I revisit often.
Thank you, thank you. Have a great week.