Purist Platters
Album Recs for the First Half of ’24: Thee Sinseers, Sierra Ferrell, Khruangbin
There’s a certain kind of summer day, when various harrying chores or mishaps have added-up, and you’re at the end of it with none resolved, having been too long in the heat, the traffic, or that same damn room with too much or too little AC, annoyed by your partner or house-mates, and most of all by yourself, and finally, that post-sunset moment arrives when you poke your head out the door and at last, it’s only half-miserable. Time for a windows-down cruise…and luckily, you’ve got the 2024 release by the slow-jam soul-meets-doo-wop group Thee Sinseers, Sincerely Yours cued up…
…ahh…that’s sooo much better, the streets are no longer clogged, and as perfectly-crafted song after song washes over you, it reminds you of that moment in American Graffiti when The Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You” came on, echoing across the boulevard, and all movement became trance-like, as if the crickets, the cracked grey asphalt, and each brake-light, were all attending to the song’s stately pageant.
The Sinseers mine a vein of very early 60s R&B, call it “slow sweet soul,” which was also developed in the 70s by artists like the Chi-Lites and the Intruders. For reasons perhaps deducible from my little sketch above, it became a style particularly cherished by those Mexican-Americans cool with being called Chicanos and with low-rider culture. Hispanic groups in this vein included Rosie & Originals, the Midniters, and Ralfi Pagan, but the style has seen a revival in recent years: Los Yesterdays, Trish Toledo, Thee Sacred Souls, and The Altons, singles like “Is It Any Wonder” by Durand Jones and the Indications and the amazing “Parachute” by Thee Lakesiders. Thee Sinseers, a nine-piece East LA band, have been at the forefront of that whole scene. Here’s a Recordium video performance of their top single, and another of the group’s genius lead singer, songwriter, and producer, Joey Quiñones, taking the album’s lead song down to the basics:
Three things to say about the new LP., the groups’ debut: first, it probably could have come out a year or two ago—lockdown-despotism came at the very worst time for their momentum, though I suspect Quiñones’ perfectionism has had a lot to do with the delay also—; second, they have quite a few other top-notch songs available only on singles; third, and the key thing, this is a perfect album—have I ever said that?---Joey’s hard work has paid off big-time. I mean, one or two of the songs could get a little old after a hundred spins, but if you have any taste for this kind of music, you’re going to be blown away from the first play, and notice detail after detail to cherish. Each song but one is a slower-paced love song, but every moment shows devotion to this genre’s ideal sound and form. Sure, it is a time-warp back to a particular 1962, so call it “revivalist” if you want, but it’s most of all a monument to purism.
There’s also a certain kind of summer morning, when yes, all the signs of a perfect day are there: breezes, bird-song, the sun’s early-day rays on the never-greener trees, and you need something for your confident fresh feeling, not too loud, but somethin’ movin’, music to pad around the yard with the hose and the feed, but also to bake them biscuits baby, bake ‘em good and brown, and there it is, the new Trail of Flowers by bluegrassy sensation Sierra Ferrell. Sure, it has a couple wistful sad songs like “Wish You Well” or “American Dreaming,” but it’s everywhere got an old-time grit that enlivens and cheers. And comparing the delivery from song to song, you notice a nice balance of goddess-like songster authority here (e.g., “Foxhunt” and “Chittlin’ Cookin’ Time in Cheatam County”) against light self-deprecation there (e.g., “I Could Drive You Crazy” and “Why Haven’t You Loved Me Yet?”). It’s country, but unlike that other new top platter in the genre which folks also call “throwback”--I’m thinking of Ten-Dollar Cowboy by the steady-and-wary Charley Crocket--it feels open, like it might go strummin’ and fiddlin’ along in any direction, stylistically or emotionally.
I’ve previously written about Ferrell, so I’ll try to restrain my praises here. In comparing her to Quiñones, I’d say that both have stellar voices which feel unique and yet classic, that both bring to bear deep schooling in the older song-forms they respectively cultivate, and that Ferrell is the more seasoned and dynamic live performer, as well as the more flexible and personally forthright songwriter.
But she only here and there hits on what Quiñones has on every song on Sincerely Yours—the ideal. As one interview suggests, he is putting some of his own love-experiences and disappointments into these songs, but to me he seems so zeroed in on a particular zone of songcraft/soundcraft, that his lyrics are less about his own life than what timelessly fits into these kinds of songs.
The one obvious hit-candidate from Trail of Tears, definitely in the territory of the ideal, “Dollar Bill Bar,” hasn’t become one yet, but it’s a good intro to the general story of the album, in which Ferrell give us instances of the swingy honky-tonk side of classic country, placing such songs side-by-side with her existing old-timey/bluegrass style, or mixes them a bit. But maybe the song that most haunts is “Foxhunt,” a wild homage to the oft-imperative Appalachian practice of hunting for your family’s dinner: we ain’t goin’ anywhere ‘till we get a prize from the land!
So not every song she writes is a knock-out like these, but I am noticing an unusual ability on this record to slip into tough truths—there’s some stark-if-quick confessional moments in her lyrics--while still staying overall tethered to the “sunny-side” of the older tradition. This also keeps her material free from the uber-weepy side of country, though she can deliver and write those sad songs also. And this recent interview makes me suspect her next batch of lyrics and songs, if she can keep herself off her previous hard-drugs/drinkin’ vices, might have a bit more of a political and moralist side to them, and with a welcome populist bent.
My final selection here is also purist, but in a way that can’t be tagged as revivalist. It suits quite a few situations: you could play this new Khruangbin album, A La Sala, right after Sincerely Yours on that late-night cruise, or at your uber-modern hair salon, or anytime you just need to chill. It’ll fit amid the nouveau-80s or disco stuff so many millennials and Z-sters love, groups like Men I Trust, T.O.P.S., or Parcels, in a set of the echo-ier kinds of “world-music,” or amid psychedelia from the 60s or the 10s.
My description for Khruangbin’s music would be something like “echoey guitar-centered hippie-ish instrumentals melodically shaped by world-music expertise and grounded in funk elements.” Despite my use of the H-word, and my mentioning of funk, their compositions are tight, and overall, it just seems like their music has always existed, so right it feels. Interviews and close listening reveal a number of key ingredients came from Southeastern Asian guitar music, but in any case, from the moment they released Con Todo El Mundo—speaking of the “practically perfect in every way”--in 2018, it’s been difficult to get tickets for their shows. The trio’s reputation for live work preceded that release, but they’ve become a major attraction since, and have been widely touring.
However, since 2018 they’ve seemed too stretched to deliver another album of such caliber—they did some excellent work with classic soul vocalist Leon Bridges—try the Texas Sun E.P.—a whole album backing a giant of West African guitar and song, Vieux Farra Toure, that you’ll love if you like West African vocal style, a dub-redo of Con Todo El Mundo which actually worked quite well, and a standard album release, Mordechai, which while it had a few moments, seemed too soft, diffuse. With A La Sala, however, they’ve delivered another batch of their core instrumental music that is undeniably great. The impact of Markos’ unique guitar work in the mix is properly chunkier than it was on Mordechai, but a certain fluidity they’ve mastered over the years of live work also works in their favor here. My favorites from it are “Three from Two,” “May Ninth,” and “Juegos y Nubes,” but I love the whole thing.
Other purist-type new albums sounding promising on initial listens are Pokey La Farge’s Rhumba Country, the Charley Crockett release already mentioned, and News of the Universe by La Luz, apparently their last one with long-time members Lena Simon (bass) and Alice Sandahl (keyboards).
Happy listening!