Dinner Music 125: The weekly lineup
bossa nova, psychedelic funk, japanese boogie
This week we’re listening to instrument-forward albums, featuring synths, organs and finger-picked bossa nova guitar. All of these records have vocals, though it feels in service of the overall instrumentation, rather existing above the overall texture of the music. There is an ambivalence to the feeling here — some enhance a sense of optimism, while some underscore the overall melancholy of our time. Either way, the albums have a timeless ability to pull a particular mood, or two or three, out of universe.
We begin with James Mason, a guitarist and keyboardist who was a member of Roy Ayers Ubiquity, and his debut (and only) album Rhythm of Life. This strutting, soulful classic is an early precursor to acid-jazz (some say its the first example of acid jazz) and the rare groove is apparent throughout. Sophisticated and fresh, the album hardly betrays its nearly half a century of age. We move into an alternate universe with Monde UFO’s engimatic Flamingo Tower, a “trance-like fusion of psychedelia and avant-jazz,” reminiscent of long-lost library music (which I’ve featured a couple of times in 21, 76, 89 and 111). Monde UFO is a bit like a lounge-adjacent, experimental Mac Demarco. Dirtbag jazz? The album wanders through an ambient fog à la David Lynch through samba and funk, religious incantations and warbling synthesizers. This one is a big of a ride, in an intellectually satisfying way. Next, we have the opposite, with the intensely listenable city pop album Moderato by Yasuhiro Abe, full of good-feeling Japanese boogie and disco tracks. We get Abe’s golden vocals over glittering synth and soft-rock guitar, that distinctly western-style co-opted into very nice pop. City pop often feels like no bad day will ever exist again — Abe’s Moderato is no exception. Luiz Henrique’s bossa nova classic Barra Limpa feels as though life is one long, trying day that one has come to terms with living romantically through. The breezy melancholy with chanson-like vocals is like drinking a martini when your heart is thoroughly broken. Everything is terrible in a satisfyingly beautiful way. When I first heard this album, I instantly bought the vinyl. We end on a groovy, soulful re-issue from a midwest group, Synchronized by Timeless Legend.
Enjoy.
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