Weekly spins: Mavis Staples; Echo in the Canyon; Stray Cats; Ryan Hamilton; Empire Cats

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Further evidence of the chicanery of modern digital media release practices: What should have been last week’s lede was left out, partly because it wasn’t highlighted in Apple’s new music; and partly because we now trickle out a song at a time while letting listeners pre-add the album to their library. [Insert fist-shaking exhortation to exit my lawn here.]

So, without a doubt the album of last week, and maybe this month was Mavis Staples’ We Get By. And I’ve got some other holdovers herein.

Mavis’ late-career renaissance stands second only to Johnny Cash’s, but she seems to have some time to catch up. This time, her muse is Ben Harper, who produced, wrote all the songs, and appears on one track. Mavis means Gospel and hope; Harper means urgency and dark for the light to envelop.

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Lend me your ears, and I’ll share the tale of mine

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At the risk of navel- (or earhole-) gazing, my inability to find reliable first-person narrative on my specific hearing issues leads me to believe there’s value in sharing the odyssey that recently led me to becoming a “relatively young” person with hearing aids.

No, I’m not “going deaf.” To the contrary, my hearing is mostly normal and has been relatively unchanged over the years. The issue is that there is a very specific frequency group at which everything goes akimbo:

My recent hearing test, which looks like every other hearing test I’ve done.
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Friday spins: Lee Moses, The Lee Boys, Amyl, Not-Elton-John, Aretha Franklin

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As part of my resolution to write more, I’ve set up some specific intervals to write about particular passions. The first of these is a weekly look at new music based on Friday’s new releases.

As an initial aside, I really miss the weekly Tuesday release that was prominent in the days of physical media. There was something nice about the regular not-quite-midweek gift of new tunes (and video, and games, etc.).

The way I tend to listen to music, perhaps because of the old schedule, is to heavy up om my newer picks earlier in the week and favorite mixes on the weekend. So the Friday drops have tended to languish a few days in my queue.

For this first entry, I’ll also note that my tastes are fairly eclectic; and that I use several different tools to keep up with the latest releases. Increasingly, just the “For You” tab on Apple Music (my preferred service) is enough, catching 90% of what I’m seeking. (The algorithm has gotten significantly better just in the past month. I supplement with the app MusicHarbor, and a weekly newsletter from AllMusic.

So with that prelude, this week’s picks:

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