Let The Music Keep Our Spirits High

"2025, your politics is a gang sign" - JPEGMAFIA

To quote Smokey, sometimes you gotta dance to keep from crying.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a music fan, and hopefully you’ll agree with me that we need music more than ever before.

The need to listen, experience, and yes to dance to (the) music is an absolutely urgent need in order to escape the chaos of the moments we’re in. Music to connect with each other, to love and be loved, to turn shit times into good ones and good ones into great ones.

As Jackson Browne sings: “let the music keep our spirits high.”

I’ve gathered up some new things that will take you on whatever emotional journey you choose, with the exception for the one that’s currently bringing you down.

Let’s dance: FKA Twigs’ new lp is the first great lp of the year. There are electronic dancey sounds on this record that I’ve never heard before. The album pulls you in and if you let yourself go it leads you to some sort of transcendence.

Let’s rock: JPEGMAFIA’s new song, “Protect The Cross,” is hott. About seven years ago one of my really awesome interns extolled to me the brilliance of a new rapper named JPEGMAFIA and under advisement I went to see him at a small room in Fishtown, under the El, called Kung Fu Necktie here in Philly. I left an instant fan. J’s new jam rocks hard. And the lyric, “2025, your politics is a gang sign,” couldn’t be truer.

Anna B Savage’s gorgeous new lp is filled with intimate and luminous musical moments. On songs like “Donegal,” “Lighthouse” and the phenomenal “I Reach For You In My Sleep,” Savage’s songs are like calming winds that push away the wild chaotic moments that are all around us and threaten to swallow us.

A pal recently hipped me to a singer-songwriter from NYC, Anna Beckerman, who performs as Daneshevskaya. She’s got a couple new tunes out, and with a couple of albums to her credit, Beckerman’s lyrical strengths are matched by the musical breadth of the compositions. Back in ‘23, Danielle Chelosky wrote a lovely piece in Stereogum about her which has the relevant family backstory.

Finally, Nashville’s Charles “Wigg” Walker is 84 years young, sings R&B and blues. Here’s a photo of Charles from the mid-60s, when he was fronting the Sidewinders. He’s got a new lp out, This Love Is Gonna Last, that’s a master class in soul and R&B love songs. These newly recorded tunes sound instantly timeless, as if they were plucked out of the stacks of 45s circa mid-60s/early 70s. Stylistically, Charles leans into bit of Philly soul, a little slice of Jerry Butler Chicago style R&B, and the Memphis grit of OV Wright, yet he’s got his own unique singing style and the playing is first class. Have a listen below to the title song - and if you’re a fan of newer soul/R&B like Thee Sacred Souls, stuff from the Daptone and Colemine and Numero labels this album is fantastic and hits the soul music sweet spot.

That’s it for now. Take care of yourselves and each other.