Josh Haner/The New York Times Laura Mvula performing at the South by Southwest festival in Austin last month.This week, Jon Pareles, the chief pop critic for The Times, discusses albums he’s written about in this Sunday’s Playlist column, including new recordings by these artists:
-The English singer and composer Laura Mvula, whose ambitious first album “Sing to the Moon†suggests, among other things, gospel, a cappella pop, Gil Evans, Nina Simone and Björk.
-The Malian ngoni (West African lute) player Bassekou Kouyate, whose driving new album “Jama ko,†recorded in Bamako during last year’s military coup in Mali, includes his four-ngoni band, Ngoni ba; his wife, the singer Amy Sacko; songs of tolerance and unity; and much display of string-bending, tone-distorting, fast-fingered technique.
-Savages, the all-female London band whose vigorous first album “Silence Yourself†descends from noisy, spindly, trebly late-70s post-punk, filling those forms with energy and provocation.
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Jon Pareles’s Playlist column.
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
Tracks by artists discussed this week. (Spotify users can also find it here.)
