Songs by Iris DeMent, Sunny Struggle and Margo Value converse urgently to the present second : NPR

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

That is FRESH AIR. Three ladies have new albums out. And our rock critic, Ken Tucker, has chosen a standout music from every of them. Whether or not it is the folks protest music of Iris DeMent, the cutting-edge blues of Sunny Struggle or the hard-charging Americana of Margo Value, Ken says there’s urgency in every of those songs. Here is his evaluate.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GOING DOWN TO SING IN TEXAS”)

IRIS DEMENT: (Singing) I am happening to sing in Texas, the place anyone can carry a gun. However we’ll all be a lot safer there, the largest lie below the solar. Go forward and shoot me if it floats your little boat. However I am going to dwell by my conscience even when that is all she wrote. I am happening to sing in Texas, the place anyone can carry a gun.

KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Iris DeMent has a brand new album out referred to as “Workin’ On A World.” It is full of songs that preach love inside a Christian framework. And DeMent’s astringent voice is as stately as her piano enjoying. The album has an apparent centerpiece. It is an eight-minute excoriation of dangerous deeds referred to as “Going Down To Sing In Texas.” Its opening moments, which I performed at first of this evaluate, decry what DeMent sees as flimsy gun management legal guidelines. However she’s simply getting began. In every of its many verses, she takes goal at a unique goal, together with Donald Trump, George W. Bush and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. DeMent desires to talk so urgently, so bluntly, that it appears as if she will’t be bothered to tidy up her rhymes or work up clever metaphors. However that is a part of her creative technique. The music works like a speech delivered on a avenue nook when standing on a soapbox wasn’t a cliche however moderately an insistence on being heard.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GOING DOWN TO SING IN TEXAS”)

DEMENT: (Singing) I do know a few Muslims, they usually appear to be fairly first rate of us to me. I might take any considered one of them over that evangelist I am watching on TV. You wish to ban one thing? I bought a plan. Let’s ban hate from each nook of our land. Nicely, I do know a few Muslims, they usually appear to be first rate of us to me.

TUCKER: One other piece of pressing music comes from Sunny Struggle, who, on the music I am about to play, mourns the demise of a romance as a sort of loss of life. The Tennessee-based guitarist and singer’s new album known as “Anarchist Gospel.” And he or she creates a contemporary kind of gospel blues by which guitar, harmonica and an array of digital results converge on this music referred to as “Love’s Demise Mattress,” as Struggle blends her voice with these of Allison Russell and Chris Pierce.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LOVE’S DEATH BED”)

SUNNY WAR: (Singing) Maintain your tongue.

ALLISON RUSSELL AND CHRIS PIERCE: (Singing) Maintain your tongue

WAR: (Singing) Phrases minimize.

RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) Phrases minimize.

SUNNY WAR, ALLISON RUSSELL AND CHRIS PIERCE: (Singing) Like a knife, a knife so deep.

WAR: (Singing) However your mouth.

RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) Your mouth.

WAR: (Singing) Is a gun.

RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) Is a gun.

WAR, RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) Acquired our bodies dropping each time that you simply converse.

WAR: (Singing) Babe, I am carried out.

RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) Babe, I am carried out.

WAR: (Singing) Acquired to run.

RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) Acquired to run.

WAR, RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) I heard you loud and clear this time.

WAR: (Singing) However I hope.

RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) However I hope.

WAR: (Singing) It was enjoyable.

RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) It was enjoyable.

WAR, RUSSELL AND PIERCE: (Singing) Being the final heartbreak of mine. On love’s loss of life mattress, I lay my bouquet of flowers. On love’s loss of life mattress, I cry away our remaining hours.

TUCKER: Lastly, there’s Margo Value, whose new album, “Strays,” pulls away from her normal nation music to work in loads of rock and pop. For me, the clear standout is the music referred to as “Radio.” Value and visitor vocalist Sharon Van Etten sing the primary two verses with a peaceful, cautious precision, a lyric about being overwhelmed and exhausted. After which abruptly, the music’s huge, lush refrain rushes up at you, and the music appears without delay immediately acquainted and fully new. It serves to remind you of the outdated energy that radio has all the time needed to take you out of your on a regular basis existence.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “RADIO”)

MARGO PRICE: (Singing) I believe I must take a while out. And I wish to flip my telephone off. I simply wish to be alone. Simply let me be alone right now. I am saving all my more money. Exit get what they’d by no means purchase me. Why do I really feel so sick and drained? I am sick and drained day-after-day. Individuals try to push me round, run my identify straight within the floor. I can not hear them. I tuned them out, and I turned them method down low. The one factor I’ve on is the radio. Solely factor I’ve on is the radio. Do not get confused about how I really feel.

TUCKER: Within the pantheon of nice radio songs, I am considering Value’s “Radio” matches in someplace between George Harrison’s “Satan’s Radio” and Joni Mitchell’s “You Flip Me On I am A Radio.” Within the radio station of my thoughts, all three of those songs by Margo Value, Sunny Struggle and Iris DeMent are enjoying in heavy rotation.

DAVIES: Ken Tucker reviewed songs from new albums by Iris DeMent, Sunny Struggle and Margo Value. On tomorrow’s present, Terry speaks with Ari Shapiro, one of many hosts of NPR’s All Issues Thought-about. He is written a brand new memoir about shifting between totally different worlds. He is traveled the world as a journalist and has sung all over the world with the group Pink Martini. He does a cabaret act with actor Alan Cumming. When he got here out in highschool, he was the one brazenly homosexual pupil. I hope you possibly can be a part of us.

FRESH AIR’s government producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer right now is Therese Madden. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and evaluations are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the present. For Terry Gross, I am Dave Davies.

(SOUNDBITE OF PINK MARTINI’S “ANDALUCIA”)

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