Music spotlight: Expanded Vumbi Dekula EP; new music from Drawing on Scars, the Static Sea
Play in your dog's noise canceling headphones this July 4th; also CB props
By Chilltown Blues
Last year, we reviewed the “Slavery is Crime” EP from Vumbi Dekula and the Dekula Band and featured a couple of song translations from Dekula and bandmember Gaby Kababa Nkomba.
This year, record label Sing and Song Fighter has collected and supplanted that release with a vinyl and digital release on June 5 combining “Slavery is Crime” and two-track single “Coltan Sounds.”
As was the case with “Slavery is Crime,” this new longer EP features Congolese rumba that evokes summer vibes — a perfect accompaniment for being near the water somewhere, uplifted, in part, by harmonies that build on Dekula’s deft guitar playing. In the aforementioned piece, we wrote “‘Slavery is Crime’ uses its melodic qualities to speak to horrific status quos that — familiarly — continue to be un- or under-sung, and it evokes a sense of being more free than the world may allow depending, in part, on the womb lottery.1”
Of the pointed “Coltan Sounds,” Sing A Song fighter’s notes Dekula explaining: “Coltan is minerals, like gold. In Congo they use it to produce mobile phones. There is UN military there to keep the peace and avoid conflicts about this, but … we don’t want anymore genocides under your watch. Your mission was to keep peace unfortunately it’s turning to robbery.”
Though groups tasked with helping people in dire straights having individuals exploiting those situations for their benefit is almost certain, unfortunately (everywhere), we also reached out via email to an expert on Congo in the hopes of elaboration but received no reply.
(The Associated Press released a report, “UN experts report widespread peace deal violations in eastern Congo,” today, July 2.)
The Dekula band plays on.
Drawing on Scars
On the heels of their excellent second album “Green House” — of which we wrote “anything that sounds the least bit ‘usual’ here quickly veers off into fresher territory, with lyrics that are well-wrought and uniquely expressive as the guitar soars” — Drawing on Scars duo Jodie Reid and Will Thacker released “Expectations” on June 18. This four-track EP follows suit with two heavier tracks that fit perfectly as a mix of alternative rock, metal and power pop. The two latter tracks, “Wave of Time” and “In the Dark,” are slowed and pared down but practically orchestral, building on emotion-tinged singing to big crescendos. Lovely stuff.
The Static Sea
JC-based the Static Sea released five track, “In Lieu of Nothing,” on June 19 and it’s polished dreamy folktronica the whole way through. From the music we’re familiar with, their sound evokes Father John Misty - if Misty were always operating at his most melodic. Songs can be part-straightforward lyricism and part-cryptic nooks and crannies, but they’re always sung and accompanied in a way that gives them an immediate emotional language. The last track, “Where It Ends,” is a great encapsulation of this project of this music navigating bittersweet with melodies much more sweet than bitter.
Chilltown Blues
No musical release from any of us, as of yet, but the following is from an interesting write-up on a photo of ours at https://www.fuse-pop.com/artsky-chilltownblues-pigeon.
“The post comes from the visual and written practice that defines the Chilltown Blues project: finding the texture of ordinary urban life and holding it up to the light long enough for something to become visible. A pigeon sculpture in the snow is not, on its face, a remarkable subject. That is precisely the point. The work of this kind of feature writing — and this kind of photography — is to demonstrate that remarkable is not a prerequisite for attention.”
We’d prefer if that last remarkable were in quotes — “remarkable” — but we appreciate this piece.
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