The new from Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen, Niño de Elche (with Rosalía) and other songs from November

Rihanna – 'Lift Me Up'

soundtrack

.

With a hackneyed and predictable melody, first-time piano lesson arrangements, strings straight out of a Commodore 64 program, and a little guitar arpeggio that even Sting would have dismissed as obvious, 'Lift Me Up' is a complete disaster.

We didn't see this kind of metaphysical emptiness, of music for background music in the shopping center, of a romantic dinner at La Tagiatella, we didn't see it coming.

If we lose Rihanna, what do we have left with her?

Bruce Springsteen – 'What Becomes of the Brokenhearted'

This Jimmy Ruffin composition is one of the most beautiful songs in the great Motown songbook.

For this reason, and because Bruce Springsteen has a great ear and is an outstanding fan of classic soul, it is included in

the latest album from the New Jersey musician.

The problem is not that Springsteen covers it badly, rather it is that he does it without ambition or grace.

He doesn't even tickle her.

Springsteen tries to blend in with the version.

He doesn't have a bad song left, no, but nothing remarkable either.

It's a kind of carbon copy in which what changes is the high-pitched voice of the afflicted and extraordinary Ruffin for Springsteen's, which ends up being too prominent to show off, somewhat faked.

This song, like the entire album, will be liked more by those who don't usually delve into the soul of that time than by those who are passionate about it.

First Aid Kit – 'Palomino'

The Söderberg sisters come from Sweden, although they show such overwhelming ways to compose road folk and American air that they seem to come from some state in the American Midwest.

is her sixth album and the perfect example of purist-proof maturity.

This song that gives the album its title reflects her hallmarks: fine melodies, precise folk instrumentation, a set of country voices and remarkable courage.

Those vocal harmonies stand out from this set, driving the stories of search and redemption of a duo full of quality.

In Sweden it can be very cold, but with these sisters singing there is good wood for the fireplace.

Norwegian singer Jenny Hval, in a promotional portrait.

Jenny Hval – 'Buffy'

Time goes by and not only writers of all kinds point to Joss Whedon, the creator of

, as one of his literary references on a par with any self-respecting classic.

The Norwegian Jenny Hval condenses everything suggested to her by the character played by Sarah Michelle Gellar and, Whedon wrote, a ferocious feminism, in reality, beyond, a nonconformity before the unstoppable establishment, in this ambient and darkly luminous cut, the first to escape from his last album or, better, born as a continuation, or lucky discard of it.

And so, it contains part of the dark

that populates the exquisitely melancholic

(4AD, 2022), but delves into the political message, while the sound, a

ghostly, it opens, hopefully and subtly, as in a ceremonial arc similar to the one that closes each chapter of the series.

More than a curiosity, a little

Above all, but not only, for fans.

Cigarettes After Sex – 'Pistol'

'Pistol', the first single from what should be the third album by the Texas band, could fit into any of their two previous albums, and the difference would barely be noticeable.

Or if.

What happens in

Pistol' is that the sound of Greg González's band, that

that is both delicate and deeply sad, capable of surrounding you like cigarette smoke, gives strength to its minimalism, and comes up with a

hypnotic

, at the same time that accompanies the usual content vocal display—all that

so androgynously fascinating—that here it acts as brushstrokes in a sound painting under construction.

There is helplessness, anger, and despair in the images she suggests—someone has broken up with someone else, and one of them misses the other so much that they find it unbearable, and they are in the middle of the desert, shooting into the sky—but what surrounds them It is its powerful and welcoming sound universe, which, despite digging into the dark, continues to tell you that, whatever happens, you are safe.

Or you will be, someday.

And that's good, great news.

Bizarrap and Duki – 'BZRP Music Sessions 50′

Bizarrap 's

has arrived in time to encourage Messi, a fan of the musician, ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.

In fact, the union of these two Argentines (Duki and Bizarrap) arises after a soccer bet: if Argentina wins the Copa de América we do a

.

The albiceleste beat Brazil in July of last year and here is the topic.

It is also about the return of the

four months after the hit that the Argentine producer signed with the Canarian Quevedo (the famous

Duki's is pure hip hop, hard, but with those

already so characteristic of Bizarrap.

Here, however, the one who stands out is Duki, a renowned artist who tells his life in the song, from rappers' fights in the street to stardom.

Honor, family, neighborhood, honesty, the vertigo of success, failure.

Duki talks about all this in a song that he wins when the video is viewed.

What a find: the videos of the

simple in appearance and pure addiction.

Another genius from Bizarrap.

Floating Points - 'Someone Close'

Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points, had released three songs this year:

and

All of them delicious little gems geared towards the track, sweat and dance.

The three are far removed from his most jazzy and avant-garde facet, the one he developed on his latest album,

(2021), half-signed with the late cosmic jazz legend Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra.

But to round off the year, the London producer presents S

eight minutes and 12 seconds of astral travel, much more spiritual than physical, with those synths that look like trumpets played by the specter of Miles Davis and those endless loops, so recognizable in their sound, of keys that intersect like DNA sound chains.

When he is like this, Shepherd seems to be drawing sounds in a way that only he is capable of and the result is spectacular.

He has announced that the four songs, already available on

platforms , will be published in an ep on December 16.

And one's mouth is watering thinking about how loud that vinyl can sound.

The American group Yo La Tengo, in a promotional image.

I Have It - 'Fallout'

The veteran trio from Hoboken has announced an album and tour for 2023. And their fans, who are not legion but we are faithful and passionate, wonder what it will contain, knowing that it will most likely resemble

from 2018 , his last studio work before the pandemic, which was fine and had great moments, but was too long and irregular.

Actually, the hope is that it resembles the penultimate, the colossal

even knowing that ten years have passed since its publication.

What does

the advance single, of all this?

Well nothing too exciting, unfortunately.

It's a song so Yo La tengo, that it seems you've heard it before, on one of his records from the nineties.

And this is not what we expect from them.

Margo Price - 'Lydia'

If any of us got jet lag we would try to take a nap.

Margo Price was in Vancouver and wrote a hit song.

The result was this spectacular string-adorned ballad that will appear on her next album, Strays, due in January.

Price sings about a pregnant woman in a clinic, reflecting on a life of poverty and addiction, as she urges: "Make a choice."

It sounds autobiographical, because as has already been told, Price, the daughter of a farmer who lost his land, moved from Illinois to Nashville in 2003, at the age of 20, and spent more than a decade of sordid struggles, until 2016 when Jack White rescued her. for his label and began a career that led him in 2019, closer to 40 than 30, to being nominated for a Grammy for best new artist.

The Arcs - 'Heaven is a Place'

The Arcs is a quintet led by Dan Auerbach, from The Black Keys, who released their first album in 2015.

His is a slightly vintage and psychedelic pop.

The entertainment of some musicians who dedicate most of their time to other things.

The death of one of its members, Richard Swift, in 2018, seemed to have put an end to this parallel project, but, apparently, by then they had already recorded, or at least composed, a large part of what will be their new album that will be released. in January, as a posthumous tribute to Swift.

This advance is what is expected of them, light southern psychedelia with a Nashville aroma, played with the exquisite taste of five professionals hardened in a thousand battles.

A candy as sweet as inconsequential.

The American singer Yves Tumor, in a concert in San Francisco, in 2021.FilmMagic (FilmMagic for Outside Lands)

Yves Tumor - 'God is a Circle'

He was never a kind and easy-going guy.

For example, in his first two albums, you could barely guess the true tone of his voice among so much distortion and because of the dark and complex lyrics, we only knew that love, for him, was a dark and dangerous place. .

But when the restless Yves Tumor, real name Sean Bowie, has turned to grunge guitars and noise, we could say that he has become more annoying than ever, in the good sense of the word: the listener has to work to understand .

Along the same lines as in his latest installment,

(2021), the American returns with an experimental song with a punk attitude and dirty production (the mix is ​​the work of the British Alan Moulder, an old acquaintance of bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine), about how to look at oneself from outside and discover that "there are places in my mind that I cannot go" and that many times the loved one does not exist and is only an invention, or, rather, "a version of myself and of all the people I that I have loved”.

Gigi Masin - Marilene (Somewhere in Texas)'

Master of evocative and subtle electronics for more than two decades and an artist in making perfect pieces for the individual to lose themselves in a world of sound, the Italian Gigi Masin, who is already close to 70 years old, but continues to maintain his status As a benchmark in the world of

returns with a six-song album dedicated to his wife, who died last year.

Open the album this sound track

sophisticated and nostalgic

, almost eight minutes where everything develops in an organic and fluid way, with a melody that gains strength and weight as the seconds go by.

The piano chords stand out, true points of support, and the exotic metal arrangements, which are perceived as impulses pushed by the beats of the composer himself.

The Aurora - 'The flower of gold'

Two intertwined poems by Lorca, Chicuelo's guitar and Pere Martínez's voice make up “La flor del oro”, one of the nine songs from La balsa de la Medusa, the second work by Los Aurora, a group of four gifted musicians and two dancers , José Manuel Alvarez and Pol Jiménez, who are more than an accompaniment in the live performances.

“La flor de oro” is part of a record devised by the composer Enric Palomar, a cry from Lorca, because in addition to being lyrical, the poet from Granada was tragic, and it shows in the playing of a rocked Chicuelo;

in the soaring voice of Martínez (a gifted cantaor who with Los Aurora adopts a darker air than solo) and in the color that he gives to some verses full of impotence, like those that say “the night does not want to come/ to stop that you do not come / nor can I go”.

Child of Elche and Rosalía - 'Seguiriya mother'

A very flamenco and very seguiriya motif, the loss of a mother, serves to present the latest album by Niño de Elche: Flamenco.

Mausoleum of celebration, love and death.

Singing it almost entirely, another icon of jondo or non-jondo, depending on the day: Rosalía, since it was a matter of time before they formed an alliance.

Nor is it surprising that they do it with Refree as an intermediary, who also plays the guitar and is not the strong point of a song where the performers defend his interests better than the producer, singing as they know how, that is, very well.

They say that Niño de Elche still kills the flamenco that revives it, but it is not with this seguiriya that he will give it new life.

That role is best fulfilled by 'Soleá bailable', where he shows off his throat, the toque is in the hands of Yerai Cortés and the percussion on the feet of the true queen of all this: Rocío Molina.

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