Album Review: Friday Round Up - Jordan MacKampa, Caroline Rose, CocoRosie, 070 Phi

It's Friday and I'm shaking it up a bit. Below are some recommendations for artists who are not metal, not punk, not jazz, not weirdo noise stuff. All stuff that I've been listening to this month so far... Ok, the CocoRosie album is still pretty weird, but it's also a lot of fun. Give them a spin. See what you like!  

Jordan MacKampa – Foreigner

What are any of us supposed to do about this great big mess of a world? This is a question that Jordan MacKampa poses on the simple, soulful, guitar-led swaddle “What Am I,” one of the leadoff singles from his debut album Foreigner. The British-Congolese singer and songwriter admittedly doesn’t have the answer to this question, but it’s clear that he’s willing to put in the work to find it. Foreigner is a modern mediation couched in the traditions and iconic idioms of soul music, lifting inspiration and accepting guidance as much from Marvin Gaye and Al Green as Erykah Badu and Pharell Williams. A lone songsmith with his guitar is not likely to be the image that rushes to mind when you thinks of soul music, but MacKampa’s reliance on the unassuming folk instrument gives his sound a grounded and human feel, preserving its intimacy and earnestness, especially on the flowy, feather kissed jog “Love at First Sight” and the delicate gripping prayer “Foreigner.” There is a lot of serious self-reflection and reckoning with the state of the world taking place on his debut, but that doesn’t mean that MacKampa is all stiff-collars and starch. He knows how to have fun too. Opener “Magic” is a funky, love drunk, block-party bop, while the disarmingly earnest “Under” will be the song that some couple falls in love to this summer. Foreigner is a fantastic debut from a big-hearted man, who is no stranger to the worries of the world, but who is also not about to let these trails impede him from finding the good in others as well.

Get a copy from AWAL Recordings, Ltd., here.   

Caroline Rose - Super Star

Who loves a good underdog story? Everyone, that's who. The popularity of these kinds of narratives boils down to a simple fact. People generally see themselves in a lower position than their peers. So when they encounter a story about someone down on their luck and striking it big, they like to imagine that the fortunes of the story's hero are their victories as well. It's not rare for young writers to draft such accounts as a mirror for their ambitions. What's not common is for an artist to ruthlessly mock their own ambitions for the pleasure of others. Welcome to the beautiful, twisted, vain-glory nightmare of Caroline Rose's Super Star. It's the follow up to 2018's Loner, that phenomenally entertaining ass-backwards take on '80s soul music, and a concept album about a woman who heeds the call of the west and sets out for California to make either make history, or die drunkenly crashing a convertible into the neighbor's pool. It's an admission of Rose's one drive towards stardom, and the ridiculous lengths she'll go to for a shot to see her name in lights. The arch of the story is intentionally predictable leaving Rose room to experimentation within the margins of this familiar tale of folly. Super Star is as strange and brilliant as its predecessor, while being more consistent and conscious in its style and approach. You'll hardly believe that the funky fresh, lush and lipstick-stained rubber soul numbers like "Do You Think We'll Last Forever?" were recorded in Rose's home, closet-sized studio. Some of these songs just sound too big for the album, which to their credit, is kind of the point. More fun is to be found in the confident, wide-swagger, disco lighted swank of "Feel The Way I Want," and the submerged prurient purr of "Freak Like Me." Both of these tracks help flesh out the album's perverse plot, while setting up its climax on the leather-gripped, late-night head-hunt "Command Z." Super Star is a testament to the fact that for your dreams to take flight, sometimes you have to shove them off a cliff first.

Grab it from New West Records, here.

CocoRosie - Put the Shine On

CocoRosie is sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady. They've been releasing strange, maximalist bedroom pop since 2004's La maison de mon rêve.... and some people absolutely HATE them. It may come as a surprise to some, but music critics (yes, even those at large, influential media outlets) have arbitrary opinions about artists. And many times these objections are based on little more than the musician simply being too weird for the critics more buttoned-up sensibilities. Which seems fair, but not when it comes to CocoRosie. These girls are odd in all the right ways. CocoRosie's genuinely adventurous, and often bewildering, post-genre approach to songwriting may be polarizing to some, but if you dig on Amanda Palmer and feel like she could use to cut an album with Dan Deacon, then you're likely to get a lot out of their music. Put the Shine On is CocoRosie's seventh LP, and is distinguished itself from past efforts by its darker tone, as well as the sheer number of times that the sisters slipping into a rapping song cadence. You'd think that this last part would be off-putting, and it is, but only in the same way that some people find tapioca pudding off-putting. If you embrace the girt and texture of it, you'll be alright. "Burning Down the House" has the most confident melody of any track on the album, with one of the sisters laying down a Santigold-esque flow over darkly jovial, electronic orchestrations. "Restless" is piano-driven, backed by highly distorted, bending guitar chords ala St. Vincent. "Smash My Head" is a beautiful, but ghostly march through shuffling ambient soundscapes, menacing guitar stabs, and deep-fried drum machines. Lastly, "Hell's Gate" has a lapping, R'nB melody that floats over a hybrid space rock/ gospel gangster rap beat. Put the Shine On is peculiar, bleak, and demonstrates concerning preoccupations with morbid subject matters, but honestly, I dig it. I dig on all of it.

Give your money to Marathon Artists, here. 

070 Phi - My Father's Gun

070 Phi is a New Jersey rapper with an extremely smooth flow, and a preference for ambient, jazz-funk beats. His slapping, grinning flow falls somewhere between Common and Kanye West- forceful, but laid back, with a hint of latent weariness. My Father’s Gun is Phi’s leap of faith from the ledge that was his 2019 EP Outside, and a precocious album-length prelude to his forthcoming LP 7 Summers. As far as trailers are concerned, it’s a bold move to release one that is feature-length, but My Father’s Gun is more than capable of standing on its own as a complete and coherent statement of intent, with sober, reflective writing examining decisions made and memories tarnished by the traumatic act of being thrown out the house and forced to live on the streets. A true-life event that prefaced Phi’s actual writing of the album. My Father’s Gun is rife with themes of family dysfunction, love, loss, and misdirected anger that should give us all plenty of food for thought concerning our own familial relations. Common’s Be feels like an obvious inspiration for the heavy, “The Deep End,” a track that makes classic jazz rap concessions, although with a spike of venom and an albatross wrapped around its throat like a new necktie. “No Mannas” is all bad intentions and wet, tittering beats, with a cup that overfloweth with bitterness and regret. Things take a turn toward redemption on “No Resources,” a smooth and humble, bass lead banger about life on the streets, a vibe that you can ride into the heavenly bright and dub infused “100 Bands.” The metaphor of a weapon inherited from one’s father as symbolic of the anger one feels as a young man is fully explored on the cursed soul echo-chamber “I Bought a Badu Vinyl.” It’s easy to see that Phi has come a long way on this album, and I’m excited to see how much farther he will go on his next release when it drops later this year.

Pick up a copy from Mass Appeal, here.