SOUNDTRACK: MOSES SUMNEY-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #61 (August 10, 2020).
Moses Somney has an otherworldly voice–it soars to unfathomable heights. He has a couple of albums and EPs out although I haven’t really explored them very closely.
He starts with “Bless Me” which starts with some washes of chords before he starts his amazing singing. I love the addition of the guitar chords, which add a heavy grounding to this song. When he loops his voice at the end of the song, it sounds just fantastic.
I am just so taken with his voice. And in an interview about the album he said:
“With this album, I was like yo, I could die any minute so let me sing all the high notes but also all the low notes and also, also, also.”
His camera work is fascinating for this show. There’s constant glitches and lines that make it look like it was recorded on a VHS. Are these effects added afterward top make the footage look older, or is he possibly using old technology?
For the second song, “Me in 20 Years” the camera angle changes back and forth between a left and right view of him sitting at the keyboard. But it seems to be random and you can’t even see the cameras.
The song is beautiful–more conventional than the soaring of “Bless Me” but focusing on some great songwriting.
Much of Somney’s latest album, græ, foreshadowed current events in ways he couldn’t even imagine, but his sense of humor about it is intact. “I’m performing songs off of my new album which I released in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, so that was fun,” he says, “but all of the songs are about loneliness and isolation so, who’s laughing now?”
“Polly” is played on guitar. I love that the guitar work is simple and pretty but his voice floats all around the melody, soaring to the ether. The song is quite long and tends to meander–it no doubt takes a few listens to really latch on to the melody.
For his Tiny Desk (home) concert, he recreates three songs from græ and closes with 2018’s “Rank and File,” yet another song all too relevant in 2020. He introduces the song by saying that as he records this “The nation is ablaze with anti-police brutality protests. This song is is dedicated to the protesters and the rioters and to black lives … which matter”
“Rank and File” is my favorite song by far. The song has a powerful message and the music is fascination. In this case the music is created on the fly with looping.
He crates a beat by thumping his microphone. He adds a “Hey” and some scratchy sounds on the mic. He makes a melody with a cool vocal sound which he loops and shifts the pitch of. Snapped fingers add a percussive element and he sets up the later refrain of “Hey 23456.”
He sings the powerful lyrics over all of this–which he judiciously adds and removes as needed. He occasionally sings some really high notes. The end of the song allows him to loop his soaring vocals as he improvises with the samples and some scatting.
Fantastic stuff.
[READ: August 10, 2020] “The Gamblers”
Two men, a bookkeeper and a poet are alone in a shack. From morning until night they plated stuss. Between them they had one pair of boots and no money. They would forage for crusts of bread and kindling.
Then the poet had a stretch of good luck. He won many hands, including winning the pair of boots back.
It was, thus, his turn to go out and forage.
The bookkeeper stayed inside. Then he heard machine gun fire. He stayed alone in the room all night long.
The next day the bookkeeper woke to a commotion outside. Several women were surrounding a dead body.
The end adds a couple of surprising moments.
This is not, apparently, an excerpt. It feels very Russian. It was translated Joanne Turnbull.
SOUNDTRACK: NILÜFER YANYA-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #54 (July 22, 2020).
Nilüfer Yanya is a pretty mesmerizing singer. I feel lucky to have seen her live and would like to see her again.
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