White People

People often say to me:
"Tom..." (if they knew me between the ages of 0 and 14)
"T-Wolf" (if they knew me between 14 and 18)
"T-Dub," or "T" (18 - 22)
"T-Dash..." (22 - 23)
"T.M...." (present day)

... They say... "We know you like hip-hop. We know you like soul. But what else are you digging right now?" Here's what I tell them:

Sizzla, Black Woman and Child (VP Records, 2002)

Sizzla might be reggae's most prolific artist, flipping easily between roots-y chant and grimy dancehall. His insane level of productivity keeps his name out there, but it also works against his legacy: there are tons of Sizzla albums currently out on the market that should never have seen the light of the day. Black Woman and Child, however, is not one of them: from front to back, probably the strongest disc of this ilk since Buju Banton's Til Shiloh. Where Buju is gruff, Sizzla is smooth, skipping over his riddims with a truly unique vocal style. Check out the title cut, "Hard Ground," and for some straight wildin', "Mi Lord."


Ali Farka Toure, The Source (Hannibal, 1993)

An excellent recommendation from my good friend, ChinaDialogue writer Ross Perlin, Toure's The Source hooked me with a single song: the haunting "Inchana Massina." Based out of Mali, Toure has built a career off mixing elements of American blues with equally strong components of the African musical traditions. Metacritic recently ID'd his latest, Savane, as the most highly rated album of 2006 -- but The Source, with its slightly echoing vocals and haunting rhythms that seem to spiderweb out of the speakers, is as good a place as any to start for those curious in modern genius at work.


Charles Mingus, Oh Yeah (Atlantic, 1961)


Long a favorite of mine -- recommended by current NYTimes ad hustler and Nabokov scholar Dave Cohen -- Mingus' Oh Yeah catches the notoriously... um... fickle?... bassist at his most fickle. Some songs, like "Eat that Chicken" and "Oh, Lord, Don't Let them Drop that Atomic Bomb on Me," are zany enough at face value. Some of the more sedate, however, seem zanier once the backstory gets filled in. "Devil Woman"? Written while sitting butt-naked at the grand piano of a Hollywood madam, after a night spent passed out in her marble foyer from his first coke binge. I highly recommend listening to Oh Yeah, then reading his "autobiography" (a total postmodern spree of self-fictionalization), Beneath the Underdog, then taking another listen.


"But Tom/T-Wolf/T-Dub/T/T-Dash/T.M.," they say, their eyes widening a little, "We meant something other than, you know..."
"Oh, what you meant was, music by people who aren't black! Why didn't you just say so?!"


The Decemberists, Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars, 2005)

For a paragon of urban cool, the Decemberists, with their fanciful tales and slightly effete self-presentation, are about as un-street as you can get (this side of Sufjan Stevens). Their most recent album, The Crane Wife, has been receiving considerable buzz -- and rightly so, as it's sprawling compositions are both evocative and versatile. Honestly, as good as Crane Wife is, I prefer Picaresque, if only because Crane's polished sound seems so, well, un-Decemberists. Picaresque sounds like the soundtrack to treasure island, full of corsairs and sea chanties. Colin Melloy, with his fake British accent, cuts an awkwardly loveable leading man, while the album's closing tracks, like "The Engine Driver" (which almost brings a tear to my lupine eye) and "Angels and Angles," clearly pointed out what was coming down the pike, more than a year prior.


Jens Lekman, Oh You're So Silent Jens (Secretly Canadian, 2005)

Another Perlin pick that's wormed its way into my feral heart, Silent is one a string of recent releases from the vaguely mysterious, hugely awkward, and delightfully ironically detached Swedish vocalist Jens Lekman. Blessed with a deep voice, Lekman trips all over cliches, only to rebuild infinitely more touching songs around them: "I could say that you are pretty / But that would make me a liar / You turn my legs into spaghetti / And set my heart on fire"; "I had a friend, a girl, who looked sort of like a guy." Heartfelt, but distinctly un-singerly. My picks: "Pocketful of Money" and the strangely poignant "Black Cab."


Steve Reich, Music for 18 Musicians (choice version: ECM, 1994)

I had the pleasure of seeing Reich himself perform Pulses at London's Barbican Theater this past October -- there he was in all his baseball be-hatted glory, tinging away alongside his white-shirted ensemble. Pulses is good, but 18 Musicians is great: a cycle of minute variations on simple sounds, as expansive as it is simple. Also great writing music, the constant accompaniment to my own projects (big and small).