Sarah SELECTS

Best local albums 2022

2022 proceeded to birth musical fruits of the pandemic’s labors. Musicians leaned heavily into self-reflection, releasing truths, buried feelings, unhinged thoughts and outlandish dreams. Nothing was off limits, rule books were thrown out, re-written and torn apart.

Observations of the political and social climate were at the forefront. While technology continues to make its mark on the way we create and digest music (AI has entered the chat), purists refuse to give up their vinyl. However you choose to discover music, we hope you’ll give these local gems a try.

Niineta - Joe Rainey

Joe Rainey is a pow wow singer and member of the Red Lake Nation of Ojibwe. On Niineta (meaning ‘just me’ in Ojibwe) he combines samples from years of analog recordings with his own vocals and production assistance from Andrew Broder. It’s loud, urgent, blooming into big emotional moments. There are no lyrics in the traditional sense, only vocables. Rainey’s voice is transitory as it hums, screams, drums, lunges and stomps. It’s meditative, pulsating, the beats pounding right through your veins. Rainey calls it modern Indignous music, a way for all to connect with the deep richness of a shared past. It’s impossible to listen to Niieta without feeling its power and being moved by it.

Spanish Villager No. 3 - Ondara

Upon discovering that he shares a name with a village in Spain, it seemed only natural that Ondara’s alter ego should be known as the “Spanish Villager” or “SV”. And it’s through this alter ego that he’s able to channel thoughts and feelings that would have otherwise laid dormant. The Spanish Villager comes from a place of vulnerability that Ondara’s more masculine self could not, would not reveal. In these revelations, Ondara chronicles the tales of a wanderer, falling in and out of love, yearning, longing and leaving. He has set these personal moments of growth, and confessions of frustration against various spaces and times, each track named “A…”. His warm tenor accentuates his innate gift for storytelling, the irresistible folk melodies, familiar as old friends.

Madness - Polica

Channy Leaneagh has said she doesn’t need or want to be the front and center of the band, even though that is often how it has played out, and she is the author of the majority of the band’s lyrics. That said, she insists the band is not a vehicle to serve her words, but rather a cohesive entity creating together. In that spirit, on Madness they employed a new production tool of Ryan Olson’s creation, called AllOvers. Its original purpose - an art installation for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Olson with assistance from sound artist Seth Rossetter, AllOvers was designed to record sounds, i.e conversations and/ background noise, and turn them into something melodic. Used on virtually every track on Madness, you can hear the bigger role given to the various whirs, swoops and thumps. However, the record is not devoid of feeling, quite the opposite. The heartbreaking violin solo on the title track, a glaring example. Polica is a group unafraid of stepping outside the norm. They’re not just creating electro-synth pop or whatever you want to call it, they’re inventing it as they go along. They create for the sake of creating, not trying to be any one thing, no rules, no leaders, just camaraderie. We are lucky to stand by and witness it.

Sing To The Walls - Chastity Brown

It’s impossible not to be enchanted by the deep suede of Chastity Brown’s voice, weathered, soulful, but simultaneously soft and comforting, it envelops you like a blanket. Sing To The Walls, her sixth album, and her first since 2017’s Silhouette Of Sirens, finds her reflecting inward and outward, as she closely examines herself and the state of the world. She confronts the racial reckoning, the pivotal moments of which were so close to her South Minneapolis home. On “Golden” she sings, ”does this Black woman voice have too much power? Would it go down sweetly if I sang softer? So why have I got to be angry…up in here?” From Golden the album moves into the title track, a love song where Chastity promises to “sing to these walls, I hope it gets through, I will sing to those scars, hope I heal it too.” It’s a beautiful, hopeful ode to the simple act of showing up for someone, for vowing to stay put despite the past traumas or any other obstacles standing in the way. Another beauty is “Like The Sun” a piano driven earworm that will cement itself in your ears and heart. For Chastity, pronunciation is a fluid suggestion, something to be bent and stretched where she sees fit, giving regular words new life and feeling. The album closes with “Gertrude”, a sparsely arranged tune that is bookended by gorgeous melancholy strings, a perfect ending.

Floating Gardens - The Nunnery

Sarah Elstran, who performs as The Nunnery uses the popular technique of recording layer after layer of sound and then playing them together as a cohesive work. Like many who came before her, part of the draw is how she creates these sounds live, for a genius spontaneity you can’t attain on a simple recording. On Floating Gardens she uses her skills to craft the feeling of being in her floating gardens. The album opens with “Jasmine”, Sarah sings “hey hey hey” a welcome to this new world. Her ethereal vocals, delicate whispering beats, loops, sway and glide, giving way to fullness. She balances playfulness with up front seriousness, buoying between the two. The overall sound is a little bit Regina Spektor, a little bit Meiko, pastel emo-pop where darker messaging comes dressed in clouds and sugar.

Mama Was A Bandit - The Foxgloves

Raucous and fun, the six piece all women group The Foxgloves bring a healthy dose of spunk and soul on Mama Was A Bandit. Four of the six handle the lift on vocals, each of their voices offering a distinct texture and sound on lead, and together create lively harmonies. Their tunes weave tales of various trials and tribulations, serving up big female main character energy. The band at any one time may feature a mandolin, violin, autoharp, banjo, washboard, ukulele, guitar et al, making their performances especially vibrant.

In It To Win It - Becky Kapell

Easy going Americana, from the same bookshelf as Lucinda Williams, Tift Merrit and Iris Dement, Becky Kapell has cemented herself as one of the names to know in the genre. Finding music later in life, Becky is not trying to impress anyone. Her simplistic lyrics and uncomplicated playing capture a laid back, no-nonsensetells-it like-it-is spirit. For In It To Win It, she recorded the songs live with her veteran band improvising their parts as they went. The result is a sound that embodies the moment.

Alpenglow - Trampled By Turtles

In many respects, this humble group with Duluth roots may have outgrown mentions in the local newsprint. But we would be remiss not to include their newest work, Alpenglow, on the list. Nearly 20 years after the band first formed, they’re still finding ways to innovate their sound and stay hungry. Dave Simonett, who will surely be remembered as one of the best songwriters to come out of the Midwest, continues to weave magic with his words. The unassuming melody of “Starting Over”, a beautiful telling of the messiness of the beginning of a new relationship, while grappling with the ending of another, could see a person undone. The gift of communicating big complicated things in small easy sets of words, a la Prince or Alicia Keys exists in so many Trampled tunes. When paired with a high speed banjo, a rolling mandolin, a sweeping cello and fiddle, it’s what bluegrass dreams of.

Lavabangers II - Lazerbeak

It’s clear when you listen to Lazerbeak’s solo work, that he loves two things, nostalgia, and classic R&B. You can see plainly how Doomtree’s more lyric forward members would find inspiration from Beak’s high voltage beats. With nods to more than one Jock Jam, In Living Color and moments that recall the likes of Rick Astley and early Boyz II Men, there is a distinct stamp of older Millennial flare. While every track is a fun listen, and would easily fill space for the background of a yacht party, some are begging to be made whole by lyrics. Regardless, we dare you to try standing still to these infectious grooves.

“Do You Think You Protect Me?” - Emily Haavik

It’s not typical of this list to include singles, but Emily’s important criticism of the lens through which we view violence against women had to be mentioned. Her powerful chorus “I do not need you to walk me home, I need accountability, for you to face the dark within,” calls on the wouldbe purveyors of violence to find it within themselves not to commit such acts. The time for victim blaming and preparing needs to end. The time for accountability, and humility is here.