Elucid - Valley of Grace [2017]

"Black Joy Matters"

Elucid, who released the fantastic Save Yourself just last year, is back again with Valley Of Grace. This project continues in the same vein of Save Yourself: it's dark, industrial, socially aware and pro-black abstract hip hop music. Elucid has great wordplay - his firm delivery and grim voice mixes extremely well with the production style and the subject matter here. The album opens with an instrumental with a fantastic title that is ridiculously relevant in these horrible times politically - especially for people of color - "self care is a revolutionary act", which consists of a dark instrumental with a sample that states "I'm taking time away to dream". Although it is arguably not a highlight musically, despite being quite good, it sticks out based on it's message alone. Just as Solange's "Borderline (An Ode To Self Care)" did last year, "self care is a revolutionary act" reminds marginalized people that sometimes it's ok - and arguably necessary for your mental health - to just tune out from all the horrible news.

Mary Halvorson - Meltframe [2015]

Meltframe, Mary Halvorson's first solo record, features the guitarist applying her unconventional style to both classic compositions by jazz greats and modern compositions by her contemporaries. What is immediately apparent, even from a cursory listen, is the range of the sonic palette of this record. Halvorson sometimes opts for an extremely aggressive and distorted hard-rock ready approach, like the first half of "Cascades" (Oliver Nelson), but also knows when delicacy is key, as shown in the subtle echo of the guitar in "Solitude" (Duke Ellington). Despite the fact that many of her fans may think of terms like "angular" and "cerebral" when looking for ways to describe Halvorson's approach to guitar, the solo setting seems to have freed her up to be just as expressive emotionally as she is impressive technically.

Mary Halvorson - Away With You [2016]

Mary Halvorson is an idiosyncratic guitarist who first burst onto the scene as leader with Dragon's Head, a well put together trio record. Since the release of Dragon's Head, Halvorson has continued to collaborate with fellow musicians, in and outside of jazz, while also recording more albums as a leader and adding more members to her original core trio with John Hébert (bass) and Ches Smith (drums). Taught by fellow rule-breaker, the avant-garde saxophonist Anthony Braxton, Halvorson's unique way of attacking guitar playing often features very angular playing and arrangements, complete with unexpected shifts in rhythm and tone that are undoubtedly influenced by free improvisation. Due to her difficult to classify style and knack to push boundaries, throughout the years she has become well known in the more eccentric side of the jazz scene of New York City. On Away With You, Halvorson presents the listener with her biggest band yet, an Octet which, in addition to the core trio, includes Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Jon Irabagon (alto sax), Ingrid Laubrock (tenor sax), Jacob Garchik (trombone) and Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar).

Juçara Marçal - Encarnado [2014]

How one takes to the most jarring and immediately apparent feature of Encarnado, the solo debut of Juçara Marçal, will likely be the single most determinative factor in whether the listener enjoys it or not. This is of course, the complete lack of a rhythm section throughout the entire LP - 41 minutes with no drums or bass. This is an aspect of this record that, on it's own, is quite odd, but when you factor in that this is an album coming out of Brazil - a country that is known for it's danceable samba and breezy bossa nova rhythms, it makes the absence of a rhythm section even more glaringly apparent. Despite the fact that at times, the minimalism can give the album quite a skeletal feel, Marçal and the band she has enlisted to accompany her beautiful singing can do so much - sound so grand - with so little, that the listener could be forgiven for forgetting that at it's core, Encarnado is a brilliant and experimental conversation between, in most cases two or three - at times four, instrumentalists on each track and one vocalist. Although there are things like the bleeps and bloops on "E o Quico?" and Marçal herself playing kalimba on the sweet "Canção pra ninar Oxum", more than anything, a large bulk of the album's sound consists of two guitars.

Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels 3 [2016]

Hip-Hop is funny isn't it? Honestly, who would've thought that one of the best recent hip-hop groups would be formed from El-P, of abstract hip-hop Def Jux fame and Killer Mike, who earned his stripes working in an Atlanta hip-hop scene that couldn't sound any more different than that? Even more surprising is that the fruits of this combination have given both rappers, who could have definitely been described as veterans before Run The Jewels was even an idea, an unprecedented level of attention. In a way, RTJ operates as a modern day M.O.P. - although they sound radically different and (unlike M.O.P.) get blatantly political, there are two things that you are guaranteed on every RTJ album that you would be guaranteed in M.O.P's hey-day (Firing Squad, First Family For Life, Warriorz): aggressive lyrics filled with braggadocio accompanied by extremely banging beats.