Singer-keyboardist Shawndell Marks has most often recorded music in a band context, both for her solo albums and as a member of Gin, Chocolate and Bottle Rockets, Gold Dust Women, and various other groups. A notable exception to that is her 2020 Madison Area Music Award winning album Keys to Unlock Your Dreams, a collection of original instrumental solo piano pieces. She revisits the solo approach in a much different way for the new EP Punk Ballads, a collection of covers of songs by 1960s-1980s-era rock groups. The original records — by Black Flag, The Buzzcocks, The Cure, The Equals, Love and Rockets, and Ramones — are generally up-tempo, brash, guitar-based songs, so Marks' spare and smoky recastings give each tune an arresting new personality. The EP was recorded live to cassette at various public locations around Sauk County that would normally be busy, but during the pandemic are deserted. This is memorably captured in videos of the recording sessions by Jayson Moyer. You can find both the audio and video versions of the EP at Marks' website.
Blair Clark, one of the co-lead singers in The Sills and rosewater (along with Leah Brooke), released a new EP of solo recordings in November. Guessing from the song titles, it's easy to infer Isolation is a pandemic-era creation, which Clark confirmed via email. Songs like "Isolation, "Drink" and "Good Memory for Bad Memories" are certainly appropriate for 2020, as tales of being unmoored from our usual routines and social time. For those familiar with Clark's other recent projects, Isolation falls closer to the dark, atmospheric folk sound of The Sills than the direct garage rock of rosewater (which also released an EP during the pandemic, May's So Long SoCal). Everything on Isolation is played by Clark, and for the most part the instrumentation is sparse and the tempos restrained. It gives the EP as a whole the feel of waking from a bad dream, twisted in the sheets and unable to get loose. If you like Isolation, keep your ears peeled for more; Clark reports another EP, Noah's Ark, will be coming this month.
At the end of the oughts and into the mid-2010s, Madison native Gabe Karter made a lot of noise as emcee Ug Orwell in Brooklyn-based hip-hop duo Bi-Polar Bear. Karter took a break from music in 2015 to pursue a doctoral degree, but returned in September as Uggish with a new solo album, …And Now to Learn to Fish. Bi-Polar Bear fans will find the lo-fi/experimental hip-hop sound familiar, and the opening track "Comfy" sets the tone for the collection: a warm soul vibe that still manages to be a bit disorienting at times. More than half of the songs are under two minutes, and they flow together to create a patchwork that wraps the listener up like grandma's quilt. The overall effect is of hip-hop crossed with the quiet storm genre.
Photo: Nathaniel Davauer
For the past quarter century, the Mike Schneider Band has maintained a busy performance schedule all over the Midwest, including regular visits to Madison. That has been curtailed by COVID-19, but never fear, polka fans: The Milwaukee area ensemble released an early Christmas present for you in November. As one may expect, Christmas Kielbasa includes seasonal classics such as "Jingle Bells," "We Three Kings" and others, converted into a soundtrack for Wisconsin's favorite old-time dance style. But the real bonus here for fans of holiday music will be Schneider's original contributions to the canon, including "Polka Down the Chimney" and "Klaus the Yodeling Reindeer," which gives him a chance to show off his yodeling skills. There's even a music video for the title track. Schneider's fleet-fingered accordion playing will keep you dancing around the Christmas tree. It's not every day one comes across a new polka album, and Christmas Kielbasa is catchy enough to make some new fans for the genre, one of the Badger State's cultural institutions.
In news on other new releases I haven't had a chance to hear but are worth noting: The Token Creek Chamber Music Festival completed its limited CD incarnations of the fest's Jazz Club performances, with the issuance of sets from the 2004 and 2019 concert seasons. Those discs and other Token Creek releases can be found here. And the music from playwright/songwriter Jackie Bradley's Comet Boy, the Musical is now available in soundtrack form. The recording features the all-star band from the filmed version of the play, which debuted in September: Jenna Joanis, Dan Kennedy, Beth Kille, Shawndell Marks, Jim Smith and 7ucky Vita. It can be found on Bandcamp and other streaming services.
