Music Week (8:2)

A few select reviews from week 2 of month 8 (August).

I spent a couple hours yesterday at the local Toyota monopoly, for what was supposed to be a free service — every six months for the first two years, part of the new car purchase deal. I complained about numerous glitches with the "infotainment screen" that fills up the middle of the dashboard, where cars used to provide such useful things as a CD player, radio, and various HVAC/lighting controls. The lack of a CD player has kept me in a bad mood for a year now, exacerbated by Toyota's schemes to sell me extra-cost subscriptions. The upside of the system is supposed to be its integration with my cell phone. I've generally been able to stream music from Spotify using Bluetooth, but it's only been in the last two weeks that I've been able to get Android Auto working. Until then, the system was plagued by glitches too numerous to list here.

So I complained to Toyota, and to the dealer. The dealer at least took a look at the problem, and concluded there wasn't one — at least one that they could fix. I've been locked out of the Toyota app for nearly a year, so they gave me a phone number to talk to someone else about that. Not their deal. Nor is the confusion over the rot of expiring subscriptions to "services" that never made any sense in the first place. I wrote a Substack post earlier this week called Yahoo Mail Really Sucks. I've thought about doing a Toyota Sucks piece, but I still feel the need for further research. I have a pretty old phone, which I use very little: mostly as a phone, occasionally as a camera. I find it extremely frustrating to try to look up anything on the internet. I've never gotten voice commands to work. (The car also has a microphone icon, but has yet to understand anything I say. On the other hand, is it possible that it's picking up ambient noise and turning them into those glitches I complained about?)

I don't like going through life with giant chips on my shoulder, but that seems to be my life these days. I don't understand it all very well. I used to be better at coping. But I used to be better at getting all sorts of things done. I probably need to focus on the "serenity prayer," and other "core AA slogans." (Drinking isn't an option, at least one with any appeal.) And as far as chips go, I'm in nowhere near as bad shape as Donald Trump. That's a guy whose neuroses have really screwed up his life — a situation that isn't helped by having the power to inflict his misery on others.

I was pretty despondent when I got up this morning. Then I saw that Yahoo's POP server had coughed up 124 of my emails, with more arriving intermittently throughout the day. I did nothing to get this working again. And I have no communication from Yahoo saying they did anything, or were even aware of a problem. It may be that someone there did notice my post, or maybe they just looked at their own error log files, or maybe a broken server went offline and the slack got picked up by a working machine. At any rate, dozens of suggestions from their chatbot did no good whatsoever. They mostly served to deflect attention, with not the slightest care as to how much aggravation they caused.

But that left me with one less thing to do today. Not knowing what to do with this vacuum, I decided to go ahead and knock out this Music Week post. I'm running a day or two short of a week, but that's ok. The bigger problem is that when I look at the full weekly file, I'm not very happy with the reviews I've written. For instance, I have written virtually nothing to back up B+(**) reviews for Johnny Blue Skies, Kiss Facility, Caroline Kraabel, Ravyn Lenae, Arlo Parks, The Strokes, Syd, Juanma Trujillo, and Yard Act, and even less on a B+(***) Wiki review. I also held back a more substantial A− review of Oliver-Smith Incomparables, as the album isn't scheduled for release until Aug. 28. I've had it for a while, and was anxious to get to it.

On the other hand, I did write more about the albums below, if only because they have more history to frame. I'm surprised to find two of my favorite acts of the 1960s and 1980s have come up with top-tier albums this year, although both have had post-peak albums that I liked quite a bit, even if they never turned into regular plays. (Not much ever does these days.) That's probably the case here, too, but I've played them both a lot this week, and they do hold up.

Pussy Riot was a slightly harder call. I've never paid much attention to their singles, and had little preconception going into this album. I also noted that so far it's gotten poor reviews (AOTY 63/4; I've read several, and they align poorly with what I'm hearing). Conceptually, one problem is that they don't have a signature sound or style: there are 4-6 different approaches here, but most of them are remarkable on their own terms. Also, it's mostly in Russian, which blunts the politics, aside from "Disobey." Not that I know or care much their political agenda: while I blamed Putin for invading Ukraine, I have long thought that the war should be ended as quickly as possible, based on the current stalemate, and not drawn out in some vain hope of justice prevailing. But Putin is still their problem, even as my problem is Trump.

As for Satoko Fujii's second orchestra album this year, she's on a roll. I just got the third one in the mail. I've let my demo queue accumulate, as they're mostly advances, some out to October. I'll catch up in due course.

Michael Blake: Piccolos Before Rifles (2025 [2026], Baby Tank): Canadian saxophonist, a couple dozen albums since 1997, many more group- (Blake Tartare, Slow Poke) and side-credits. Plays tenor/soprano here, plus flutes, with Guilherme Monteiro (guitar), Skye Soto Steele (violin), Gil Lopes (bass), and Rogerio Boccato (drums) — three of those from Brazil, the other Puerto Rican. B+(**)
[Bandcamp]

Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: After the Storm (2026, Libra): The second of this year's promised batch of five big band albums, a new recording where Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra was an archive from 2014. That was around the time when Fujii released four big band albums with different orchestras. At the time, I compared one of them to Basie's Atomic Orchestra from the 1950s, at least in terms of power and sheer brassiness. The new series is impressive so far, and this is one of the most immediately appealing of her large-scale efforts. A−
Bandcamp]

Iceage: For Love of Grace & the Hereafter (2026, Mexican Summer): Danish post-punk band, sounded solid on their 2011 debut, uninteresting on three (of four) 2013-2021 efforts, but getting a lot of hype for this sixth album. Not punk in any meaningful sense, but upbeat, engaging, with a few hooks. I like the song that goes "life is for the weak," for the words but also for the extra noise. B+(**)

Madonna: Confessions II (2026, Warner): Conceived as a sequel to 2006's Confessions on a Dance Floor, which could just as well have been a sequel to 1987's You Can Dance. Downside is that everything here sounds like something you already know. Good news is that it all sounds great (except maybe for the soft landing). A−

Pussy Riot: Cyka (2026, Stem): Russian feminist performance art collective, fiercely anti-Putin (and these days pro-Ukraine), founded in 2011, membership fluid and often jailed or otherwise harassed, has released an EP and several singles, appears here with a full album, probably because co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova (and possibly others) escaped to Iceland. A fairly wide range of sounds and styles, where the punk/hardcore may be the most compelling because there the message comes through even without words, but the rap and electropop and something that sounds like a Kate Bush hit ("Pain") also impress, suggesting a worldview that goes beyond rage, but doesn't flinch from it when needed. A−

Rolling Stones: Foreign Tongues (2026, Rolling Stones/Polydor): Major group, rivaled the Beatles in the 1960s, has lasted much longer, survived the death of Brian Jones, the retirement of Bill Wyman, and more recently (and more importantly) the death of Charlie Watts. But the two singer-songwriters, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, are still active, however improbably, as is Jones replacement Ron Wood. But their ontogeny basically ended with 1972's Exile on Main Street. Since then, they've mostly engaged in buckraking, with regular tours, concert films, live albums, and the occasional studio effort — most lukewarm, but some significant enough to be hailed as return-to-form comebacks. Those too have trailed off and thinned out, but this is the best in quite a while (probably since 2004's A Bigger Bang, or 1986's Dirty Work, or maybe 1981's Tattoo You). The key word is "return," as they virtually defined "classic rock," and can tap into any time they want — at least half of this overly long album. Key wisdom for the aged: "Life's too short for just making money." The irony is palpable, but the line is credible nonetheless. A−

WDR Big Band: Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto (2024 [2026], Summit): Inserto (b. 1976) studied at New England Conservatory, was a protégé of Bob Brookmeyer, teaches at Berklee, has two albums as Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra, a couple more where her compositions are performed by others (she also conducts here). I tend to dismiss European big bands, but this group, featuring Sean Jones (trumpet), is pretty sharp, possibly because that's what the compositions demand (or inspire?). B+(***)