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HOEGKESHA’S WILD & CRAZY SANITY
The singer splits the difference between getting
deep and rocking out By ROB SHEFFIELDTAME I MPAL A
The Slow Rush is Tame Impala’s first album
since their 2015 breakout, Currents. Parker
still sings like a Bee Gee with the soul of
Bowie’s Major Tom, floating above his thick
disco, funk, and trip-hop beats, beautifully
manicured synth textures and easeful yacht-
soul melodies. Even when songs wander off
into diffuse eddies, or when he crams several
distinct micro-movements into the same tune,
everything seems obsessively considered, as
if he spends more time perfecting the hi-hat
clicks than most artists take making their
whole record. If someone told you an army of
musicians had contributed to The Slow Rush,
you wouldn’t be surprised, but the credits
read simply, “All music written, performed,
and mixed by Kevin Parker.”
He does his Brian Wilson thing in a dozen
different directions. Album opener “One More
Year” comes on expansive and polished, like a
space cruiser that just rolled off the assembly
line; glitchy Daft Punk-gone-doo-wop vocoder
crooning fades into swirling disco drums, a
subtle bass rumble, and splashes of Chic-y
guitar as Parker sings about a perfect future
just over the horizon. “Tomorrow’s Dust” is a
hazy shade of hippie-folk splendor, all spindly
acoustic filigree, forlorn fuzzbox jive, sensitive
bongo taps, laser-beam synths, and gently
sung lyrics that evoke pillowy alienation.
Parker isn’t afraid to wear his musical
passions on his sleeve; “Glimmer” highlights
his deep devotion to the Balearic blurt of clas-
sic Chicago house music and Detroit techno.
On “On Track,” Parker’s a soft-rock poet, and
the keyboards at the opening of “Might Be
Time” send a clear signal that he’s the kind
of cat who keeps one copy of Supertramp’s
Breakfast in America for the house, and anoth-
er for the beach house.
What does all this gilded majesty add up to?
Probably not a ton. A whole album of Parker’s
distracted, reverb-laden falsetto can get a little
too drifty, no matter how dazzling the musical
experience. Focus too deeply, and it feels less
like a collection of songs and more like a
showplace for his sonic finery. As mood
music, though, it’s a sweet trip. “Let’s drink
this magic potion of love and emotion,” he
offers on the radiantly sunny “Instant
Destiny.” So sit back, relax, and have a swig —
it’ll take the edge off.
Ten years ago, she was
Ke$ha, the new party-mon-
ster queen on the block,
brushing her teeth with a
bottle of Jack. But then she
began a long fight to start
over, going silent for five
years while accusing her pro-
ducer Dr. Luke of emotional
and sexual abuse. She sangI
F ANY ARTIST has encap-
sulated the past decade
of pop, it’s Kesha. Her
journey through the 2010s
was a long, hard road, but
she always reflects the times,
from “TiK ToK” to TikTok.
On the excellent High Road,
she fuses all of her passions
together — the road she’straveling in the title is a
spiritual path, but it’s also
“high” in the earthier sense.
She sets the tone for the
whole album in “My Own
Dance,” when she boasts,
“Woke up this morning feel-
ing myself/Hung over as hell,
like 2012.” This woman has
earned her hangover.out her struggles on her 2017
comeback, Rainbow; she had
a whole lot of serious to get
out of her system.
On her fourth album,
High Road, Kesha wants to
have it both ways — she sings
about her therapist and her
aura, but she’s also back to
clubbing with a vengeance.
“Tonight” begins as an
earnest hymn, but then she
starts to rap: “I don’t give a
fuck ’cause I am so high/Me
and all my girls are looking so
fly.” Damn, it’s good to have
this Kesha back.
“My Own Dance” sums
up where Kesha’s head is at
right now, when she looks in
the mirror and gives herself
a pep talk: “I get it that you
been through a lot of shit/
But life’s a bitch, so come
and shake your tits.” She
gets serious in the candid
family confessions of “Father
Daughter Dance,” where she
mourns growing up without a
dad, and “Chasing Thunder,”
a blessing to the kid she isn’t
sure whether she wants to
have. But she’s also down
for a chance to dance out
of the darkness, whether
that means boning in a car
(“Kinky”) or tripping in the
desert (“Shadow”).
For a longtime Kesha
fan, the sentimental fave has
to be “Cowboy Blues,” a
fantastic acoustic singalong
that fuses the Lady Gaga of
Joanne with the Taylor Swift
of Speak Now, yet sounds
exactly like Kesha. She asks
the spiritual question of
whether it’s possible to
encounter the meaning of life
while doing whiskey shots at
a dive bar with a hot stranger
in a Nudie suit. (Spoiler: This
is a Kesha song, so yes.) She
fits the biggest question into
one gulp of breath: “Do you
ever lie in bed with your
three cats and get obsessed
with some boy you met one
time three years ago in
Nashville, and you can’t
remember his last name?” On
High Road, Kesha has never
sounded saner — or crazier.Kesha
High Road
RCA
#Beach Bunny’s Power-Pop Pity Party
THE THRILLING DEBUT album by this Chicago power-pop band is driven by singer-
guitarist Lili Trifilio, a young songwriter who is already an ace at turning her turgid
anxiety into extremely catchy guitar pop. Beach Bunny started building buzz a couple of
years ago, eventually racking up 35 million Spotify streams for their great self-doubting
anthem “Prom Queen.” Honeymoon will be an immediate hit with fans of Charly Bliss and
Soccer Mommy, from the brash aloneness of “Cuffing Season,” to the jealous charge of “Ms.
California,” to “Dream Boy,” where romantic tension explodes into Weezer-size glory. JON DOLANBREAKING