This week is about wavering. In music, this could mean vibrato, warbling or tremolo. It could mean wavering between genre, style or region. In life, we know that wavering could mean anything. Usually, it’s negative, to waver. But, we’ll think of wavering more like a glimmer or a wink. We begin with Brazilian, Sessa, whose work is equally devoted to the minimal, affected style Leonard Cohen as the Brazilian, Bossa style of João Gilberto. It’s traditional, but it’s not. I can’t talk about flouting tradition without bringing up Dorothy Ashby, America’s first jazz improvisational harpist. In Dorothy’s Harp, she covers my favorite Herb Alpert track, This Guy’s in Love With You, with the same care and crescendo as the original. Buddy Merrill, one of the most influential steel guitar players, also delivers some fine covers in Steel Guitar Country. The tinny warble of the steel guitar is something of a supper bell, an offer to receive something well beyond this space and time. It’s nostalgic, but how? Maybe the same way Dougie Poole is. I’ve written about him here before; about how this album “feels like a walk down a dirt road, stars above you, mind floating in a dream.” We end the week with a different kind of dream from Avalon Emerson. From Berghain DJ to dreamy, synth-ladden indie artist, she uses “nostalgia as a foil for spiritual fatigue.” Perhaps she’s wavering, but it’s toward something sweet and new.
Enjoy.
The playlist is here*.
*As I mentioned last week, there’s now only one link for the playlist! Save it on Spotify — it’ll update every week. If you want access to previous weeks songs, become a paid subscriber and you’ll get the link to the archive playlist.
Monday
Grandeza - Sessa
Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Tuesday
Dorothy’s Harp - Dorothy Ashby
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Wednesday
Steel Guitar Country - Buddy Merrill
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Thursday
Wideass Highway - Dougie Poole
Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Friday
& The Charm - Avalon Emerson
Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Pair with:
Bang, bang chicken with warm kale and caramelized mushroom salad. Shredded Sichuan chicken and a warm salad! This could waver (sorry) between healthy and not if you sub the bang, bang chicken with a thai-style fried chicken.
Blackberry. grapefruit and sage-infused water. It’s so damn hot, drink your damn water. Put fruit in it.
Deborah Levy’s search for a major female character. Great essay about one of my favorite living writers. “My fifties had been a time of change and turbulence, energetic and exciting. A time of self-respect and perhaps a sort of homecoming. So there you are! Where have you been all these years?”
The novel Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck. “To slice away the emotion from yourself, and put it on a slide under a microscope, that was art in this bloody goddamned twentieth century.” If you like dense, beautiful books, I wholeheartedly suggest this one.
These beaded coasters. Perhaps not the most stable, but absolutely the most cute.
Have a great week.