Pablo Alboran, ‘Clickbait’
The Spanish pop songwriter Pablo Alboran usually deals in romance. But “Clickbait” confronts a different class of relationships: the parasocial ones online. “Many say they know me, but they have no idea who I am,” he complains in Spanish, with an Auto-Tuned edge. In Spanglish, he continues, “Flash flash, mucho clickbait, mucho fake.” It’s a choppy track that jump-cuts between a minor-chorded ballad and pounding drums, then unites them. Alboran sings about people with “poison in their hearts,” and he’s willing to break character to fight back.
Since its formation in 1990, the Chicago instrumental band Tortoise has been blending jazz, rock, Minimalism, electronics and improvisation. Its first new track since 2016 is “Oganesson,” named for a synthetic, very short-lived element with atomic number 118. It’s an off-kilter, 7/4 funk tune with a spy-movie ambience: laconic guitar chords, plinks of distorted vibraphone and a hopscotching bass line. Perhaps the stretch of noise at the end represents atomic decay.
The title track of Lucy Dacus’s new, love-besotted album, “Forever Is a Feeling,” exults in a romance that just might endure. “My wrists are in your zip tie / 25 to life, why not?” Dacus sings, marveling at the possibility of permanence. The verses surround her with nervous, pointillistic patterns in stereo — piano notes, percussion — as she sings about what were tentative beginnings; the chorus reassures her with rapturous vocal harmonies.
Allison Russell featuring Annie Lennox, ‘Superlover’
Here’s an unexpected but sensible alliance: the Canada-to-Nashville songwriter Allison Russell joined by Annie Lennox of Eurythmics. “Superlover” is a plea and a prayer for the world’s children, especially in combat zones. It’s accompanied mostly by Russell’s banjo picking, but adds churchy overtones. “There’s no God of fire and blood / If there’s a God, God is love,” Lennox sings. Is that enough to save lives?
A thoroughly retro torch song — with cocktail piano, a studio orchestra and a relaxed swing beat — gets combustibly overwrought as Mon Laferte’s jealousy builds and explodes in “Otra Noche de Llorar” (“Another Night to Cry”). With her usual mastery of dynamics, Laferte starts out sweetly caressing each phrase. But that sweetness rises to a raspy near-scream before she lets her boyfriend know, “I have to hang up on you now / she’s surely by your side.” The timing of this release is odd; Laferte sings that it’s almost Christmas. But the fury of being betrayed knows no season.
