jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 02/24/2023 - Artists Only! With Karol G, Algiers, Kelela, King Britt, Skrillex, SZA, Elvis Costello...

The whole gist of what I'm doing now is to play music that swings—swings just as madly, just as profoundly as any music has ever swung—but without having to play it in the context of keeping time. In other words, I play rhythms and let the rhythms create the time itself. Open in browser Friday February 24, 2023 Free jazz meet free funk: Ronald Shannon Jackson circa 1990. (David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images) quote of the day "The whole gist of what I'm doing now is to play music that swings—swings just as madly, just as profoundly as any music has ever swung—but without having to play it in the context of keeping time. In other words, I play rhythms and let the rhythms create the time itself." - Ronald Shannon Jackson, 1981 rantnrave:// It's Friday And everyone's breaking out of one kind of jail or another. Colombian reggaeton star KAROL G is back with her fourth album, MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO, on which she transcends a pop-star relationship that was making her secretly miserable, and reggaeton, too. The album opens with an a cappella choir inspired by a trip to Kenya and, writes Variety's Thania Garcia, dips into styles from "pop, rock and reggaeton to música Méxicana and electronica." As the singer/songwriter told us on her 2021 single "Sejodioto," "I don't want any more prisons"... The guest list on ALGIERS' SHOOK reads like it was randomly pulled from the credits of albums in that one crate near the front of your favorite used record store: Big Rube from Atlanta's Dungeon Family, Mark Stewart from English post-punks the Pop Group, Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine, the guy from Future Islands, Canadian indie rapper Backxwash. "Algiers doesn't really have a genre," Stereogum matter-of-factly notes, while taking a stab at assigning one to the Atlanta group anyway: "right-now blues"... Four years in the making, SoCal rapper MAXO's second album for Def Jam, EVEN GOD HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR (released earlier this week), features Pink Siifu, Liv.e, keiyaA and, he says, a bunch of "feelings that I need to leave behind." Also possibly a label he needs to leave behind. "I just use [Def Jam] so I could make the music I imagined making, so I could almost connect history a little bit," Maxo tells Fader. "I wouldn't recommend anybody to sign to a label," he adds in a Rolling Stone interview while mentioning he doesn't expect there to be a third Def Jam album... CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE'S PRIME, made with his band NEW JAWN, is the venerated jazz bassist's 18th album as a leader. It features Josh Evans on trumpet, Marcus Strickland on saxophone and bass clarinet and Nasheet Waits on drums. "A quartet without a chordal instrument," the New York Times notes, and "one of [his] most satisfying bands"... On COOKUP, LA jazz multi-instrumentalist SAM GENDEL and friends reinterpret '90s and '00s R&B hits by Aaliyah, Ginuwine, 112, Boyz II Men and others. "Jams that we grew up with," Gendel says. Also today: Albums from Gorillaz (feat. Bad Bunny, Stevie Nicks and Beck), Key Glock, Yeat, Don Toliver, Logic, Tink, Gracie Abrams, Dierks Bentley, Iris DeMent, Gina Birch (of the Raincoats), U.S. Girls, Adam Lambert, Braxton Cook, Joe Westerlund, the Necks, Buster Williams, Tha God Fahim, Allblack, Payroll Giovanni, Russ Millions, Heinali, Godsmack, Steel Panther, Dope, Big|Brave, Venomous Concept, Shame, Model/Actriz, Miss Grit, mui zyu, Philip Selway (of Radiohead), David Brewis (of Field Music), John Bence, Unloved, the Church, Rick Wakeman & the English Rock Ensemble, Jenny O., Death Valley Girls, Channing Wilson, Lucero, Muscadine Bloodline, Dougie Poole, Rusty Truck, the Shootouts, Quinnie, En Attendant Ana, Begonia and Amanda DeBoer Bartlett. Industry-Free Baby Completing our week of catching up on the lost month of February, today's mix highlights art and artists and nothing else. MusicREDEF is industry-free for the day. Because without art and artists (take it away, ChatGPT), "we would lose an essential part of our cultural heritage and be deprived of the joy, wonder, and inspiration that they bring to our lives." I was trying to get my AI friend to say without art and artists, there would be no music industry, but ChatGPT took the wider, less jaded view. I am not complaining. Read on below for stories of KELELA, SKRILLEX, SZA, KING BRITT, LIL YACHTY, HAYLEY WILLIAMS, ELVIS COSTELLO, MORTON SUBOTNICK and more. Plus Also Too MARVIN GAYE, boxing manager... The return of trance... The Ukrainian rave scene in wartime... The Nintendo-fication of jazz... The Chinatown punk wars... History of battle rap... GUSTAVO DUDAMEL in New York... A quarter-dollar's worth of CELIA CRUZ. Rest in Peace DEM HOPKINS, a crucial patron of Chicago's punk rock scene, which found an early home at Oz, the gay bar he owned and operated at several locations. Click on that link for a beautiful and lengthy remembrance/profile by Chicago Reader's Leor Galil. "He was a righteous dude," Naked Raygun singer Jeff Pezzati tells Galil. "Without him, I don't think we'd be where we're at today with punk rock in Chicago"... JESSE GRESS, longtime guitarist for Todd Rundgren and author of several guitar reference books. - Matty Karas, curator i'm painting, i'm painting again Mixmag 'Unmistakably Black': Kelela is a liaison between the worlds within dance music By Patrick Hinton On 'Raven', Kelela celebrates Black and queer contributions to dance music through a seamlessly flowing album. She speaks to Moya Lothian-McLean about her 'hiatus' and self-renewal, defying rigidity and why she's no longer interested in being a translator of sound. Resident Advisor In King Britt's Blacktronika Class, Electronic Music Legends Become Educators By Jessica Kariisa Herbie Hancock, Jeff Mills, Honey Dijon and Goldie have all dropped into the one-of-a-kind course at University of California San Diego. All City Pain Music (part one) By Ciaran Thapar How Drill -- the sound of Chicago's streets -- rewrote the rules of the music business. The New Yorker A Big-Tent Party at Madison Square Garden By Kelefa Sanneh Dance music is full of divisions. But a recent show with Skrillex, Four Tet, and Fred again.. felt like a big coming together. The New York Times Remaking Country's Gender Politics, One Barroom Weeper at a Time By Carlo Rotella The Nashville songwriter Shane McAnally is behind many of country music's No. 1 hits, which aren't as straight as they seem. Pitchfork The New Weird Virtuosos Making Jazz for the Post-Internet Age By Andy Cush Led by artists like DOMi and JD Beck, a generation of rising players is infusing jazz with absurdist online irreverence. But are they playing jazz at all? Los Angeles Times SZA glows up in public By Suzy Exposito The singer-songwriter took six years between album releases, a lifetime in the streaming era. The result? She's now one of pop's biggest and boldest stars. Switched On Pop Switched On Pop: The L.A. guitar shop that reinvented indie folk By Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan This sound, and the mythos of the rubber bridge guitar, has turned Reuben Cox into a local celebrity and put Old Style at the center of Los Angeles's indie music scene. Vulture Lil Yachty's Great Gig in the Sky By Craig Jenkins The rapper's surprising new psych-rock album delights in sensory overload. SPIN Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Night Ten: 'If You Ask Me Nicely, I'll Write You Up Well' By Connor Ratliff "I'll have to stop now," Costello remarked, as midnight drew nearer and he approached the 250th song, "and write some more." i'm cleaning, i'm cleaning again British Vogue Rihanna Reborn: How A Megastar Became A Mother By Giles Hattersley A new era begins -- and for Rihanna nothing will be the same. As she emerges from her most seismic reinvention yet -- becoming a mother - she talks to Giles Hattersley about her new confidence, her new music and her new life as a parent alongside A$AP Rocky. The Washington Post Why aren't more bands trying to be like Screaming Females? By Chris Richards There's a killer song on this new Screaming Females album called "Beyond the Void" that implies that the other side of nothingness sounds like Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy dancing a cosmic waltz. Rolling Stone Women In Puerto Rico Are Ending Urbano's Boys' Club For Good By Frances Solá-Santiago A new generation of artists -- including Villano Antillano, RaiNao, Paopao, Chesca, and Young Miko -- are breaking barriers and demanding to be heard. Westword Yan Soe Was a Famous DJ in Myanmar. As a Political Refugee in Denver, He Drives DoorDash By David Gordon The 35-year-old Myanmar native is an internationally recognized composer and DJ, but sitting in his Denver home studio, he's a political refugee hiding from his home country's armed forces. The Vinyl Factory Deep beneath the streets of London, musical wax cylinders reveal lost histories By Will Pritchard Will Pritchard speaks with Adam Tovell and Isobel Clouter at the British Library about their wax cylinder archival project, True Echoes. Billboard The Secret Life, House Arrest and Rebirth of YoungBoy Never Broke Again By Meaghan Garvey Despite spurning traditional models of success, the iconoclast became one of the planet's most popular and prolific rappers. Now he's atoning for his past — and contemplating what's next. Jezebel I Can't Stop Listening to Kelsea Ballerini's Surprise Divorce Album By Caitlin Cruz "i've never been this open, i've never been this bold," the country singer posted to Instagram on Valentine's Day alongside the surprise EP. Interview Magazine Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish Fall in Love By Billie Eilish Ahead of her ninth studio album, the singer calls up one of her biggest fans for a cathartic conversation about validation, gratification, and obsession. VAN Magazine Collapsing Time: an Interview With Composer Morton Subotnick At 90 By Elliott Sharp A pioneer of modern electronic music, Morton Subotnick not only encouraged technical innovations but defined new sonic paradigms for the creation of electronic music. Approaching his 90th year in April, he remains as energized and dynamic as ever. Mixmag Uncovering Moodymann's Detroit hip hop origins By Patrick Hinton Moodymann is famed as one of the greatest house music artists of all time, but his roots as a hip hop producer are less well known. Patrick Hinton speaks to Kenny Dixon Jr. and his former rap collaborator K-Stone to find out more. The New Yorker Hayley Williams, Without a Guidebook By Amanda Petrusich The singer-songwriter talks about growing up in the South, trusting your teen-age self, getting divorced and getting exhausted, and the search for a home. Literary Hub Tom Verlaine was the Strand's Best Customer By Colin Groundwater Booksellers remember the coolest celebrity "cart shark" of them all. what we're into Music of the day "The Art of Levitation" Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society From "Mandance" (1982). Music | Media SUBSCRIBE Suggest a link "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" Jason Hirschhorn CEO & Chief Curator HOME | ABOUT | SETS | PRESS Redef Group Inc. LA - NY - Everywhere Copyright ©2021 UNSUBSCRIBE or MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTION