The music this week aims to capture the feeling of a summer night. It should make you want to two-step at a honky tonk, drink a glass of salty wine, watch city lights come into view from the window of an airplane. The albums are loud and quiet. They should all sound familiar, even if you don’t know them. Each has a warmness that sloughs off like sand. We start with La Luz, which I’ve featured once before. The Seattle-based trio is all-female, all harmonies and all wham and whirly. “La Luz” means light in Spanish and this album will light a fire under you. Gabriella Cohen softens the heat, but materializes something at once ethereal and urgent. The tracks form “an epitaph of electric wonder” — a journey through the electric self. The self is on display in My King of Folk Songs, where Gale Garnett speak-sings a-la Nancy Sinatra over tinny guitar, monotonous bongo and soulful horns. Imagine a mid-century lounge in Nashville, red velvet curtains and sawdust on the floors, with sounds of exotica, twang, bubblegum pop, folk ballad and lone horseman harmonica. The album calls for a martini or two. Now imagine the other side of that coin — outlaw country-folk on the wrong side of the curtain. Lucky Strikes and Liquid Gold is a slur of story, an ode to “hitch-hiking and rambling the crumbling countryside.” We end the way a lot of summer nights mysteriously end: by listening to reggae. Pachyman makes “an ‘x-ray’ of reggae music, breaking it down to its bare bones.” It’s a cosmic-ladden, psychedelic, earnest homage to Jamaica and the music it brings us. It’s your cool friend in LA’s favorite reggae record.
Enjoy.
The playlist is here.
Monday
It’s Alive - La Luz (2013)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Tuesday
Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love - Gabriella Cohen (2018)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Wednesday
My Kind of Folk Songs - Gale Garnett (1964)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Thursday
Lucky Strikes and Liquid Gold - Jeff Cowell (1975)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Friday
The Return of... - Pachyman (2021)
Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Pair with:
Skillet Roasted Chicken With Hen of the Woods, Leeks, and Pan Sauce. It’s too hot to make anything other than a whole chicken. Put this entire thing in the oven and move far away from your kitchen until it’s done.
Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread with Honey Butter. I’m just on a cornbread kick. I’m constantly thinking about the rotating, seasonal cornbread at Odd Duck in Austin, TX and this recipe reminded me of the joy of a delicious dish of cornbread.
Salted Citrus Salad with Fennel, Radish, and Olive. Keep the olives or don’t, maybe swap in green olives. Add some more fruit to make it more fresh. Add some beets to make it earthy.
Pink Salt by Ovum. Look, this is not your trendy natural wine. But, it’s in a lot of grocery stores and it’s easily the most accessible. I buy the white wine, Big Salt, all the time as a house wine. Get yourself a preferred house wine!
Thank you, thank you. Have a great week.