Music Suitcase: Favorite Albums of March 2023
Sometimes I hate that I have to put these albums in a certain order. While the first of these is my Album of the Year so far, it feels like all of the first 9 should be at least in the Top 4, and nothing in the bottom half wind should wind up so low either! Yet reading is a linear process, and so, scroll on…
Along with the blog, here’s a playlist with favorite songs from March!
Lonnie Holley, Oh Me Oh My
This world famous 73-year-old visual artist turned outsider musician‘s 5th album is the deepest and most powerful new record I’ve heard in 2023. More focused than previous efforts, Holley largely reins in his more avant-garde inclinations, in favor of warm atmospherics that allow his text to take center stage. Jacknife Lee production and a host of top-notch collaborators help turn the trauma-born, often heartbreaking material the artist explores here into a riveting, revelatory experience. Highlights: “Oh Me Oh My,” “Mount Meigs,” “None Of Us Have But A Little While,” “Earth Will Be There”
The New Pornographers, Continue As A Guest
Forever taking the most sophisticated route to the catchiest songs, the power pop supergroup’s 9th album delights in the subtlety and complexity of the songwriting of bandleader Carl Newman, a master of layered melodies. This album uses more guitar than their last few, seamlessly adds a sax into the mix, and proudly showcases all three singers, as well as some of Newman’s most evocative lyrics. Highlights: “Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies,” “Last and Beautiful,” “Marie and the Undersea”
Boygenius, The Record
Three songwriters in their prime (Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker) form a whole even greater than the sum of its parts; Boygenius is an ideal supergroup. Their debut full-length offers many combinations of their voices — blending, harmonizing and trading off in various permutations — and you can feel strength of their creative union in every note. Highlights: “Emily I’m Sorry,” “True Blue,” “Leonard Cohen”
Slowthai, Ugly
Opening with two tracks of proudly unconscious rap set to techno beats, the Barbadian-British rapper then switches gears entirely, exploring his punk roots, getting self-reflective and earnest, and ultimately delivering what is easily the most affecting work of his career so far. Highlights: “Sooner,” “Never Again,” “Fuck It Puppet”
Nickel Creek, Celebrants
Re-emerging with an ambitious and thoroughly progressive vision of bluegrass that feels both free-wheeling and ornately structured, the 90s-birthed trio’s second reunion in as many decades — after several solo and duo projects in between — is largely about coming together after a time apart, and the music underscores the power of that as much as the lyrics. Highlights: “Celebrants,” “Where The Long Line Leads,” Goddamned Saint”
Fever Ray, Radical Romantics
Karin Dreijer of The Knife flies their freak flag high on their solo project’s 3rd album, a quirky and inventive, electronically driven art-pop album about romantic and erotic love at its boldest and most urgent. Colorful and hooky, the more accessible music reflects the direct, personal nature of the songs. Highlights: “What They Call Us,” “Even It Out,” “Carbon Dioxide”
Zulu, A New Tomorrow
A metalcore album centered on the experience of being Black in America, this LA band serves up hearty chunks of metal interspersed with spoken word pieces, ethereal segues, hip hop, and samples of soul and reggae classics. It’s refreshing to realize I can still fall in love with a metal album! Highlights: “Where I’m From,” “Fakin’ The Funk (You Get Did),” “Who Jah Bless, No One Curse”
Black Country New Road, Live At Bush Hall
A record of live performances rather than an album, this is still the band’s third LP of all-new material, written for re-scheduled shows after their frontman’s departure. Half of this band are woodwind players now and a clearer, less chaotic but still eccentric sound emerges. Three members share vocal duties, and the band comes off a model of adaptability. Highlights: “Dancers,” “The Boy,” “The Wrong Trousers”
100 gecs, 10,000 gecs
Frenetic hyperpop with enough pitch-shifting and glitchiness to ward off snobs and the over-30s, the duo’s second album will reward listeners keen enough to see through its deceptive flashiness with an inventive pastiche of sonic sorcery. As the chaotic genre-splicing continues, ska-punk is an unlikely key player on this one. Highlights: “Frog On The Floor,” “mememe,” “Dumbest Girl Alive”
The Veils, …and out of the Void Came Love
The New Zealand band’s 6th album is about as cinematic as an album can be without coming off melodramatic and, while the orchestral strings help, it’s mostly down to Finn Andrews’ reflective, poetic lyrics and earnest vocals, which maintain their intensity throughout this epic. Highlights: “Undertow,” “Bullfighter (Hand of God),” “The Day I Meet My Murderer”
Altin Gün, Aşk
Turning Turkish folk songs from the mid-late 20th century into psychedelic dance music, the mostly Amsterdam-based quintet’s 4th album is as slick as their last couple albums, but strips away some of the synths to return to the vital psych rock at the band’s core. Highlights: “Badi Sabah Olmadan,” “Kalik Gidelim,” “Leylim Ley”
Lana Del Rey, Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
The mystique around which Lana Del Rey wraps her music may be meticulously crafted, or it may ooze effortlessly from her, but either way it reveals its versatility as her discography grows. Every song is unmistakably her, even as she pushes her musical and narrative exploration in a dozen different directions. Highlights: “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd,” “A&W,” “Peppers”
Steve Mason, Brothers & Sisters
Bolstering and emboldening his emotive, feel-good tunes with extra political fervor post-Brexit, the former Beta Band frontman collaborates memorably with Bollywood playback singer Javed Bashir on a few of these tracks, and the serves up some well-crafted, lushly produced indie pop/rock. Highlights: “Brixton Fish Fry,” “I’m On My Way,” “No More”
Jpegmafia & Danny Brown, Scaring The Hoes
Brandishing their eccentricities throughout this collab, two high profile alt-rappers push the envelope both musically and lyrically. You can almost hear them goading each other into greater feats of frenzied weirdness and lean in into their most inaccessible inclinations, and the results are exhilarating. Highlights: “Steppa Pig,” “Scaring The Hoes,” “Burfict!”
Emiliana Torrini & The Colorist Orchestra, Racing The Storm
An Icelandic singer’s first new album in a decade enlists the talents of the Belgian orchestra that first re-worked some of her existing songs some years ago. Creating new material together, they make artful, lounge-friendly chamber pop that showcasing Torrini’s vocals. Moody, but still fun. Highlights: “You Left Me In Bloom,” “Hilton,” “The Illusion Curse”
Deerhoof, Miracle-Level
A Deerhoof album is always an adventure. Satomi Matsuzaki and her band’s first Japanese-language album whizzes just as playfully as ever from one smart surprise to another. It’s their first album made entirely in a recording studio, and that’s given them even more tricks to play with. Highlights: “My Lovely Cat!,” “Everybody, Marvel,” “Momentary Art of Soul!”
Yves Tumor, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
Look I’m gonna be frank, reader; I don’t connect with Tennessee-bred art rocker Yves Tumor as profoundly so many critics seem to and I‘m a little baffled by all the analysis of the meaning and significance of their musical choices. I do think this is still a pretty great, soulful rock album, with some memorable tunes! Highlights: “Meteora Blues,” “Parody,” “Operator”
Sleaford Mods, UK Grim
The British duo picks worthy targets for their scowling, rap-tinged post-punk on their 12th album. I still find a few of these songs rendered unlistenable by petty, judgmental lyrics — often the case with this band — but their political songs are especially sharp here and most of their anger is well-directed. Highlights: “So Trendy,” “Tilldipper,” “Right Wing Beast”
The Hold Steady, The Price of Progress
Craig Finn has mastered the art of writing short stories in musical form, and his band is ready to show that off. They’re still a 6-piece band but this time keyboards, horns, strings and so on are peeled back in favor of a leaner, punkier sound, allowing Finn’s lyrics — and characters — to shine through. Highlights: “Sideways Skull,” “Carlos is Crying,” “Sixers”
Ali Farka Touré, Voyageur
I focus on proper studio albums here, but c’mon; I’m not gonna omit a posthumous record of unreleased tracks from the guy who introduced the desert blues to the world, including several duets with fellow Mali music legend Oumou Sangaré. Touré’s heart’s even greater than his virtuosity and that rings loud and clear. Highlights:” “Safari,” “Bandolobourou,” “Sadjona”
If you’d like to hear just the best of the best, here’s a playlist with 60 of my favorite songs from March (my longest monthly playlist ever, because this month was just like that) which includes one or a few songs from each album above, and some great songs from albums that didn’t make onto my list too — Playlist: Music Suitcase March ‘23!
Wanna stay connected? Join the Music Suitcase Facebook group to be notified of future posts and link up with a community of some of my favorite music nerds in the world. You can also subscribe to here on Medium and get my blog delivered right to your e-mail inbox.
While we’re here…
Did you enjoy this article? Awesome! It was written by a white guy privileged enough to have time listen to like 40 albums every month and write a blog as a passion project, for free.
If you are white and you are also are privileged enough to have some time on your hands, or some money to donate, please check out some anti-racism resources and help fight the good fight.
Nerding out over music is fun, but let’s not forget that we live in a burning world that needs our help! Black Lives Matter.