01/16 – 01/20:

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Soul Time!

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings with the 11th hour jolt to my 2011 playlist! It’s rare for a good album to come out in the last few weeks of the year. It is traditionally seen as a time when labels dump product they know no one will buy. So I have no idea why the amazing sort-of-4th album by Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings came out at the tail end of 2011, but it was a fine Christmas gift for us. Comprised of mostly unreleased songs from the group’s live Soul Revue, Soul Time! is a funky powerhouse from the dependable soul music traditionalists. While previous album I Learned the Hard Way pulled slightly away from their winning mix of funky influences and into a more traditional R&B direction (Which still sounded like nothing else in modern soul music), this release brings the heat back in a big way, as Jones and her band burn their way through twelve funk workouts that would make James Brown proud. You can’t lose with this one.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, “What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?”

Tegan & Sara, The Con Demos

Another late entry into the 2011 music world, this album is just what it says. T&S had been offering this material at their live shows for some time, but for those of us unlucky enough to miss them on their last tour, it got an official wide release near the close of the year. It’s a fascinating collection. Some of the songs are fully formed even in their demo phase, sounding more or less as they did on the final album, while others are dramatically different in these early versions. It’s every song that made the album in the same sequence, so you can compare and contrast as much as you like. It’s a cool peak behind the curtain.

Tegan & Sara, “The Con (Demo)”

Clutch, Robot Hive/Exodus

The 2nd part of a mini-renaissance for Clutch, Robot Hive formalized the inclusion of a generous portion of blues into the band’s established heavy groove sound. Coming only a year after the spectacular Blast Tyrant, if anything, Robot Hive trumps it in so many ways. Both albums present a Clutch that seems more fired up and excited than they had in some time, but Robot Hive also finds them at their most adventurous, trying all sorts of stylistic experiments and succeeding every time. From the 70s rock influence in “The Incomparable Mr. Flannery” to the strange sideshow sound of “Circus Maximus” to the truly magnificent “Gravel Road,” which morphs from straight up blues song to raging Clutch perfection, they do it all here. I don’t think they have a more varied and surprising album in their catalog, and that makes it one of the most rewarding.

Clutch, “Gravel Road”

Jean Grae, This Week

Jean’s release of the new single “U+Me+Everyone We Know” prompted me to put this on. While she’s been making a lot of waves in the last couple of years with killer punchlines, battle raps and her singular personality, “U+Me” recalls the sometimes more introspective, serious Jean of This Week. There’s still plenty of braggadocio and humor on This Week, but as a loose concept album portraying a week in her life, the lyrics cover basically every emotional experience you can have in seven days. She has since found her way to much more exciting production to rap over, but its her lyricism and her honesty that make This Week work.

Jean Grae, “Supa Luv”

There you go.

--D