Jessica Lea Mayfield - Make My Head Sing - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Duo Similia - Cantabile [COMPACT DISCS] Canada - Import date 06/25/2002

Jessica Lea Mayfield might make some people uncomfortable with the level of honesty she projects on her 2017 album, Sorry Is Gone, but she's not going to apologize - for that, or for anything else on her complex, confessional fourth album, recorded with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Dinosaur Jr., Phosphorescent), and featuring guest appearances from Seth Avett and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth). Jessica is known for her ominous songwriting, with a plaintive minimalist style that draws on both country and rock music. In addition to opening for many artists, including The Black Keys, The Avett Brothers, Cake, Band of Horses, Ryan Adams, Ray LaMontagne, and Jay Farrar (Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo), Mayfield has frequently toured as a headliner, and performed at the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, OH as part of A Prairie Home Companion in July 2010.

Dexter Story is an artistic spirit in the truest sense of the phrase. From his work as a multi-instrumentalist for acts like the Sa-Ra Creative Partners, to his management role with Snoop Dogg and his turn producing Daymé Arocena's 2017 album Cubafonia, Story understands the business from every conceivable angle. Initially inspired by the music and cultures pervasive throughout the Horn of Africa, Story translated his experiences there into his previous album Wondem (SNDW 076CD/LP, 2015), followed closely by the single InchWejene AolaInch featuring jazz luminary Kamasi Washington (SNDW 7022EP), both on Soundway Records. If Wondem was a brief glance into Story's new creative vision, Bahir is a pinpoint refinement of that purpose, the fine-tuning and expanding of the world he created on his Soundway debut. On Bahir, Story steps in front of those influences and melds his world into the one he fell in love with so strongly while in Africa. One way in which he's done so is by incorporating musicians from both sides of this coin. LA luminaries are featured throughout, as are African contemporaries he encountered throughout his travels. Sudan Archives gives a show-stealing vocal performance on InchGoldInch, while the Ethiopian producer Endeguena Mulu adds impenetrable and psychedelic texture to the album's title track. So Bahir finds the polymath musician not stuck between two worlds, but as a member of both. We get Ethiopian jazz tonalities, Tuareg grooves, ekista dance rhythms, Afro-funk, Somalian soul, and forays into more contemporary jazz rhythms, too. Angelenos like Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Josef Leimberg give the record it's backbone, while African artists like the Ethiopian singer Hamelmal Abate give Bahir it's glimmer and shine. Also features Kibrom Birhane, Jimetta Rose, Haile Supreme, and Marie Daulne. For fans of Sudan Archives, Kamasi Washington, Laraaji, Car