The Chronicle’s guide to notable new music.
NEW ALBUMS
Kendrick Lamar, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” (Top Dawg Entertainment)
The most anticipated album of the year has finally arrived.
The best rapper in the business,Kendrick Lamarbuilt up hype for his fifth studio album by dropping the incredibly verbose single, “The Heart Part 5,” with an eye-popping music video earlier this month. The track samples Marvin Gaye’s seminal “I Want You” as the backbone for conga drums, guitar and Lamar rapping, “Face your fears, always knew that I would make it here/ Where the energy is magnified and persevered/ Consciousness is synchronized and crystal-clear.”
While, surprisingly, that first diatribe doesn’t appear on “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” it proved to be a prescient taste of an album filled with dizzying lyricism on everything from family values, toxic relationship dynamics, trans acceptance and savior syndrome, among other topics. The Pulitzer Prize-winning artist is willing to address issues that most other rappers won’t touch, and it’s why there is nobody like him in hip-hop.
The album also features appearances from his cousin Baby Keem, Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah and more.
This is an album that runs extremely deep, and it will surely be analyzed by critics and fans alike for years to come. Put it on repeat while you wait for Lamar to bring his tour to Northern California. He plans to perform at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on Aug. 30, before two nights at Oakland Arena on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1.
警告:以下视频contains explicit language
Cool Maritime, “Big Earth Energy” (Western Vinyl)
In 2018, Santa Cruz native and former San Francisco resident Sean Hellfritsch released one of the most fantastic ambient albums of the year in Cool Maritime’s episodic “Sharing Waves.” On his first album since then, Hellfritsch, who now lives on Washington’s Orcas Island, taps into the spirit within the canyons of the redwood-lined Santa Cruz Mountains where he grew up.
“Being in lush ecosystems gives me simultaneous feelings of deep reverence and playful excitement,” he said in a statement. “I think they form the foundational tone of a lot of the music I write.”
“Big Earth Energy” lies where organic and digital worlds collide. It’s meant to sound like a hypothetical soundtrack to an ecologically minded video game — a la ’90s PC classic “Myst” — but it is also inspired by the music of Japanese artist Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films, explained Hellfritsch. Tracks like “Secret of the Megafauna” and “Soft Fascination” feel like portals into a supernatural habitat.
年代habaka, “Afrikan Culture” (Impulse Records)
The latest project of Sons of Kemet bandleader Shabaka Hutchings, “Afrikan Culture” sees the saxophonist and clarinetist taking on an exercise in sonic meditations.
An Afrofuturist musician of the highest order, the British-born, Barbados-raised Shabaka’s eight-track debut for the storied Impulse label is a healing experience akin to a sound bath. Throughout the release, he introduces a slate of ancient shakuhachi flutes and uses them in, “a new technique of creating that I’ve been experimenting with in layering many flutes together to create a forest of sound where melodies and rhythms float in space and emerge in glimpses,” he said in a statement.
年代habaka was at the helm for one ofThe Chronicle’s standout albums of 2021in Sons of Kemet’s “Black to the Future,” and his ingenious musical mind continues to expand with this new offering.
年代ONG OF THE MOMENT
Bad Bunny featuring Bomba Estéreo, “Ojitos Lindos” (Rimas Entertainment)
It’s difficult to pluck just one song to highlight from Bad Bunny’s latest album, “Un Verano Sin Ti.” Released on May 6, the latest effort from the Puerto Rican singer and rapper has less of a focus on the massive thump of global reggaeton, and instead explores the full scope of diverse Caribbean cultures and sounds.
The album is filled with gorgeous melodies, calculated rhythms and welcomes collaborators from all ends of the Latin music spectrum. So while chart-topping artists like Jhay Cortez and Rauw Alejandro are featured, it also includes collaborations with indie artists like Buscabulla, Bomba Estéreo and the Marías.
On “Ojitos Lindos,” Colombia’s Bomba Estéreo join Bad Bunny for a mindful, vibey and transportive tune. Singer Li Saumet is a masterful complement to Bad Bunny, with layered vocal production by Tainy, a scintillating guitar by Bomba’s年代imón Mejíaand harmonies from the vocalists.
“I think it’s important that the alternative Latin music scene joins with the mainstream to make music and deliver our message and art together,” Saumet said in a statement.
It speaks to the ethos Bad Bunny brings across the 23 tracks of what’s arguably one of the best albums of the year.
LOCALLY MINDED
The Family Crest, “The War: Act II” (self-released)
Forged and rooted in San Francisco since 2008, the Family Crest have long been one of the most exciting live bands in the city. Led by composer and singer Liam McCormick, the group finds itself in the company of similar orchestral bands like the Decemberists and San Fermin. Now on the imaginative and ambitious “The War: Act II,” the core band members and more than 100 collaborators have created more triumphant music, in what McCormick calls “a statement about how humans can sometimes be guided through life by both unchecked influences and their traumas — either consciously or subconsciously.” Narratively driven, songs like “In Your Arms Tonight” and “Pride” showcase a confluence of elated strings and keys, a thundering saxophone and drums in an expansive arrangement that elevate McCormick’s splendid delivery.
Their next local live show has yet to be announced, but when it is, it’ll surely be one not to miss.