Mothers of reinvention. “It’s never too late to be what you might have been,” according to writer George Eliot, who spoke from experience. Born in the UK in 1819, Mary Ann Evans found her audience using the masculine pen name in order to avoid the scrutiny of the patriarchal literati.
Reinvention, of style if not self, is in the air this autumn. Adrian Younge reimagines Afrobeat, samba, tropicália, Blaxploitation soundtrack and more on Linear Labs: São Paulo (CD, LP, vinyl out Nov. 15). Younge is founder of the Linear Labs label and co-founder of the label Jazz is Dead. He’s released more than 50 albums under his own name and many more as a producer. One of the most notable in that tall stack is Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics (Wax Poetics Records, 2013), in which he teamed up with Philly Soul singer William Hart—notably the only Delfonic on the session—to reimagine the singing group in a brilliant psychedelic fantasy. A similar strategy is at play on São Paulo. With masterful pop arranging and a convincing period mix (although the fidelity is very this century). The album is actually a compilation of selections from upcoming Linear Lab/Younge productions, and it’s testament to his ear and his command of the mixing board how well it all hangs together. Vocalists include the soulful crooner Bilal, rapper Snoop Dogg, and Stereolab’s Lætitia Sadier. Younge’s taste for exotica is supplanted by Liraz Charhi (Iran/Israel) and Samantha Schmütz (Brazil). The 2025 Linear Lab calendar is, it appears, filled with retro-modern riches.
Loads of artists have reinvented their hits. Blondie, David Bowie, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell and Taylor Swift are just some of the many who have updated and rerecorded their best-loved songs. But back in the first decade of the century, Brooklyn darlings The Fiery Furnaces seemed to reinvent themselves every time they stepped on stage. It was always a moment of intrigue to look at the stage before a show and see which Fiery Furnaces they were going to be: were they a guitar band this time, or a keyboard band, or something in between (cf. the live album Remember, which collages different performances of the same songs into mad medlies). After achieving almost inexplicable popularity for such an oddball outfit (an album built around recordings of the grandmother of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger— the band’s sibling core—telling stories is just one example), they took a long pause in 2011, each releasing solo albums, starting families and indulging in other artistic pursuits. A decade later, they reconstituted for shows at Brooklyn Steel and in Chicago and Los Angeles, and then went into the studio to lay down their latest realizations. That session came out last month (self-released streaming and download) and it’s a fantasy best-of. Twenty faves with a keyboard/bass/drum band, Eleanor handling all of the vocals and a perfect title: Stuck in My Head. Their arcane songs, with too many words and long, twisting melodies, managed somehow to be ear candy. The sibling act never really broke up, so there’s always a chance we’ll hear more—maybe a new album by 2034.
Lin Manuel-Mirana, the powerhouse behind Hamilton, and playwright/songwriter Eisa Davis have reinvented the 1979 NYC gangland movie The Warriors into a concept album (CD, LP and download from Atlantic Records last month) which led me to go back and rewatch the movie for the first time in years. It’s not great but is better than I expected, theatrical in that it seems about as staged as an old Star Trek episode. The album is kind of a fan delight. Like most concept albums, the storyline is far from clear on its own, but it bustles with life. As would be expected, it’s a contemporary and multicultural New York City in their audio staging, with better gender parity, some old school rap, more modern hip-hop, swooning ballads and even some leanings toward heavy metal. The nearly chimeric Ms. Lauryn Hill takes the messiah-like role of Cyrus in one of the highlights of the 80-minute show, and Busta Rhymes, Cam’ron, Ghostface Killa, Nas and RZA are among the album’s many voices.
There’s also some wonderful reworking in the soundtrack to Joker: Folie à Deux (CD, LP, download from WaterTower/Interscope last month), a movie I quite enjoyed — don’t let the Rotten Tomatoes fool you. Arrangements of such chestnuts as “That’s Life,” “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” and “When You’re Smiling”—customed after-the-fact to Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga‘s in-character performances—are subtly haunting. Arnold (The Joker) and Lee (Harley Quinn, aka Harlequin) imagine themselves as show people but their brains are dark places and the orchestrations come with an undertow. Gaga in particular does a stellar job maneuvering between timid voice and brassy, imagined voice. It’s worth seeing if only to hear the soundtrack (and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score) on a cinema sound system, but also for scoffing rights next time someone tells you it wasn’t the movie they wanted it to be.
And speaking or wretched clown, The Residents released a set of a half-dozen songs on Nov. 1 (10” EP and download via Cherry Red Records, MVD Audio and New Ralph Too) asking the perennial question, “where do clowns go when they die?” It’s a maddening 24 minutes of psycho-ditties, distorted voices, violence and an incessant laugh track. In other words, classic Residents. And speaking of classic Residents… The mysterious, anonymous troupe has never been bashful about reinventing and rereleasing selections from their 50+ years of making records. It’s a lot to keep track of, with limited returns for all but the diehard, but The Residents Presents Buy or Die! Ralph Records 1972-1982 (triple CD and download out Nov. 4 from Cryptic Corporation) is an essential chunk of history from the fringes of rock. Unable to get record company interest in their early days, the Residents started their own label and forged distribution channels (primarily through mail order) at a time when such DIY efforts were rare. The weird thing was, they turned out to be pretty good at it, gaining attention, signing other bands and putting out promotional samplers under the banner “BUY OR DIE.” The new set includes those promo tracks and other singles, select album tracks and unreleased material from not just the Residents but Art Bears, Chrome, Fred Frith, MX-80 Sound, Renaldo and the Loaf, Schwump, Snakefinger, Tuxedomoon and Yello, as well as a handful of tracks by comic and graphic artist Gary Panter. It’s a surprisingly diverse chunk of independently produced music long, 63 tracks from before “indie rock” was a genre, and a glimpse into the a world before the Internet made musical outskirts accessible—back when you had to earn your weird.
