Rap star Lil Boosie is back.
A ranked selection of notable new recordings we heard in November.
1. Horse Lords, “Hidden Cities”
The chaps in this young Baltimore rock quartet are big into the trance-minimalism of Terry Riley, guitar bands from the Western Sahara, the tick-tock of Kraftwerk and the bomp-alomp of Bo Diddley — but they barely have the chops to pull off their enthusiastic, panoramic, polyrhythmic vision, which makes this album a thrill and a joy.
2. Lil Boosie, “Life After Deathrow”
In March, one of the most indelible voices in rap came home after nearly five years in prison — older, wiser, still prone to bitterness, but ultimately more compassionate. You can hear it all on his stellar new mixtape, particularly on “I’m Wit Ya” and “I Feel Ya,” two very similar and strikingly empathetic songs on which Boosie proves that through all of his tough talk, he’s listening.
3. Migos, “Rich N—- Timeline”
There was an amusing “Migos vs. Beatles” meme floating around Twitter this month, but here’s what’s really happening with this hypnotic Atlanta rap trio right now: On their new mixtape, Quavo, Takeoff and Offset are rapping in their trademark triplets, refusing to stop, joining Andy Warhol and AC/DC in that magical zone where you can do the same thing over and over (and over) and make it feel totally fresh every time.
Liz Harris, a.ka. Grouper.
4. Grouper, “Ruins”
Brian Eno’s old maxim about ambient music still holds up: it should be “as ignorable as it is interesting.” But with her new album as Grouper, Liz Harris summons a wounded, vaporous sound that suggests that ambient music, despite its intangibility, should be memorable.
5. Mary J. Blige, “ The London Sessions”
“I don’t want to be around me,” is the first wowee lyric that jumps out from Blige’s latest songbook, an album she recorded — or maybe exorcised — in London with the help of some American soul-obsessed Brits, including Emeli Sande, Sam Smith, Disclosure and others. She sounds jet-lagged here and there. But at her best, Blige is still showing us how one of music’s biggest voices works through life’s biggest pains.
6. Andy Stott, “Faith in Strangers”
So much of today’s best electronic music conjures a strong sense of place; close your eyelids and let the rhythms ferry you off to some undiscovered terrain of your imagination. That’s what makes the latest from this British techno producer so intriguing. It’s stark and dry enough to evoke a kind of no-place, a vacuum, a desert in the dark. It’s desolate, but not inhospitable. Stay a while.
Memphis punk band Nots
7. Nots, “We Are Nots”
Since first hovering across the Atlantic three decades ago, British post-punk’s furious ghost has inhabited countless bands across these United States — and it’s recently set up shop in Memphis where these four shouty young women don’t sound haunted so much as totally possessed.
8. Wade Bowen, “Wade Bowen”
While the men of country music get louder, flashier and hunkier, this Texas singer burrows deeper into his own humility. “I’m just a stranger in a strange town/Where the stars are the same and the sun beats down,” Bowen sings on his handsome new album, “It was kind enough to give me all I need/And I just hope I stay long enough to be a memory.”
