From 87- and 77-year-olds sharing knowledge from a life well lived, to rising stars who already have a unique sound, it's time for another wide-ranging Fresh Picks from the KAXE Music Team.
Featured albums this week are Show Me, the debut of THAO without The Get Down Stay Down, Sherman Holmes looking back at a life in One Step Ahead of the Blues and Jordie Lane's surprisingly hopeful Habitual.
For featured tracks, we're digging the Latin soul of Trish Toledo's "¿Para Qúe?," the blues-rock of Richard Thompson's "Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking," the jazz plus math rock plus Japanese pop plus bossa nova of Mei Semones' "2 Hands" and the transcendent gospel of Moses Boyd's "More To Life (ft. SHANTÉH)."
Check out this week's suggestions from Music Director Kari Hedlund, Asst. Music Director Malachy Koons and Volunteer Coordinator Dan Gannon.
Albums
Album of the Week: THAO - Show Me
Thao Nguyen is back with Show Me, her sixth album and first without her longtime band Thao & The Get Down Stay Down. Co-produced by Nguyen, Eli Crews and longtime friends Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner of Tune-Yards, the record includes features from Neko Case, The Linda Lindas and super collaborator Adrian Quesada. Add in flourishes from Garbus and Brenner throughout, and there's nuggets to savor.
Raised in Virginia by Vietnamese refugee parents who fled the Vietnam War, Nguyen has built a career around adventurous and unexpected arrangements. On Show Me, there is a revealing side to Nguyen on the other side of divorce, navigating a new life and the possibilities of starting over. The opening song, “Fossils,” touches on the fact that old habits, relationships and familiar ways can become relics of another life.
“Sick of the Times” with The Linda Lindas seems written directly from my brain — a blend of frustration and a need and desire to just get out on the dance floor and work those problems out through movement. “Take It Easy” comes closest to the energy of Thao's We the Common era while "Jeans/Genes" is a humorous riff on wordplay that is definitely not ready for radio.
An album worth an entire listen, Show Me is KAXE’s Album of the Week. -KH
Sherman Holmes - One Step Ahead of the Blues
With a career stretching back to the early '60s, Holmes has been One Step Head of the Blues for a long time. He's 87 now, and the last living member of The Holmes Brothers, a blues, soul and R&B group he formed with his late brother Wendell and drummer Popsy Dixon in 1979. His latest album has fitting contributions from The Blind Boys of Alabama and The Honorary Holmes Sisters (Catherine Russell, Joan Osborne, Ada Dyer & Amy Helm). It's blues music that only someone born, raised and lived a long time in the blues could make. -MK
Jordie Lane - Habitual
"Let's put the hope back in hoping again."
Jordie Lane kicks off his new album, Habitual, with a rarity these days — a song about, gasp, feeling hopeful? Except it’s not done through a sunny disposition, it’s more of a command that we must start hoping again. “Backseat Driver” sounds like Lane has attended the Paul McCartney songwriting academy, but through his own darker lens; "Mood Swing” is a quick and dirty blues rock number; while “As You Wanna” is the second feature with Nathan Evans Fox, a great pairing. The Australian folk rocker has once again put together an album that is varied, catchy, funny and clever. -KH
Singles
Trish Toledo - "¿Para Qúe?"
Toledo is an Ecuadorian-Guatemalan soul singer making her debut on Penrose Records, a Daptone imprint with a focus on the sweet sounds of West Coast and Chicano soul music. "¿Para Qúe?" is a dreamy 6/8 ballad with aching vocals asking why her lover makes her cry, and it has me looking forward to whatever comes next from the California-based singer. -MK
Richard Thompson - "Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking"
Richard Thompson is back with a mid-tempo blues-rock stomper full of wary memories and "Oh, I can see it now" hindsight. The title is less a warning about current bad choices and more of a gritty tale full of ne'er-do-wells and bad decisions huggin' bad intentions. Thompson eschews his well-known folk sound for this tune and offers crunching, distorted guitars and melodic, yet rough and weary vocals. At 77 years young, Thompson incorporates decades worth of sounds and lived experience into this tune off his Hippies, Thugs and Heroes record. -DG
Mei Semones - "2 Hands"
At the intersection of jazz, math rock, Japanese pop and bossa nova, Mei Semones is unique in music today. "2 Hands" is the second single from her upcoming sophomore album, Howl, due out Jan. 15, 2027. And like every song from her, it will have you asking how two hands can get everything she gets out of a guitar. As seen in the music video, her band is up to the tall task of following her creativity, and the violin and viola are especially a nice addition to her sound. -MK
Moses Boyd - "More To Life (ft. SHANTÉH)"
U.K. jazz drummer Moses Boyd is out with his second solo album, Songs for Sinners, and is joined by fellow Londoner, SHANTÉH on "More to Life." SHANTÉH's vocals drip like molasses all over his gentle, yet driving drums. The song transitions about halfway through, becoming transcendent, gospel-like and slightly chaotic. It's just one of the many songs on the album worth some extra listens. -KH
Pick From '76
Aretha Franklin - Sparkle
After her remarkable run of late '60s and early '70s Atlantic classics, the Queen of Soul was struggling to find her place through the middle of the decade, increasingly chasing hits with pop standards and glossy productions. You, Franklin's album in 1975, kicked off a run of four subpar albums that would eventually lead to exiting Atlantic for Clive Davis' Arista Records.
In the middle of all of that, surprisingly, was a brief return to form and one of Aretha’s best, the 1976 Curtis Mayfield-produced Sparkle, the soundtrack to a film of the same name starring Irena Cara.
The album was their first collaboration, and Mayfield drew the best out of Aretha with his progressive Chicago soul sound. Highlights include the love ballad "Something He Can Feel," her only Top 40 hit in the second half of the decade, the downright sexy “Hooked On Your Love” and the gospel funky “I Get High.”
Sparkle is proof that when Aretha had a good batch of songs to work with, even in '76, she was still untouchable, and Curtis Mayfield was the perfect complement for the Queen of Soul. -MK
