“Sincerely,” the new album by Kali Uchis, is one long, languorous sigh of relief at finding true love, then basking in it. The production luxuriates in relaxed tempos and reverbed guitars in songs like “Lose My Cool,” a two-part song — slow and slower — that shows off her jazzy side with melodic leaps and airborne crooning. She revels in clinginess: “Whenever I’m without you babe, it don’t feel right,” she coos.
Hxppier, ‘Aller’
Hxppier — the 20-year-old Nigerian songwriter Ukpabi Favor Oru — lets smoldering irritation boil over in “Aller,” singing, “I can’t right now with your wishes / You try but you lie.” The bass-loving production, by ValNtino, is grounded in an earthy low drumbeat and keeps expanding — with call-and-response voices, ululations, shouts, horns, strings, organ, even a crying baby — as if Hxppier is mustering allies from all sides.
Little Feat has every right to celebrate its own longevity, as it does on its new album, “Strike Up the Band.” Formed in 1969, barely grazing the Top 40 albums through the decades, breaking up and reconvening, the band has persisted through the death of its central singer and guitarist, Lowell George, and many changes since, maintaining its unique fusion of blues, country, funk, New Orleans R&B, gospel, zydeco, jazz and beyond: roots-rock that embraces brilliant tangents. There’s a Bo Diddley beat behind the mandolin, accordion and horns of “Dance a Little,” a rolling, kicking song about traveling, homecoming and seizing the moment. “Tomorrow is forever, so tonight let’s dance together,” it urges, wresting pleasure from mortality.
Regrouping after seven years between albums, the string-band supergroup I’m With Her — Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins — allowed itself some new studio leeway and guest musicians on its new LP, “Wild and Clear and Blue.” But the group’s essence is still in its close harmonies and delicate picking. The album’s title track pays homage to Nanci Griffiths and John Prine and touches on the inevitability of change and loss, listening to a car radio as “the static is slowly replacing the sounds of my childhood days.”
DJ Haram, ‘Voyeur’
The Brooklyn-based DJ Haram, who collaborates with hip-hop avant-gardists like Moor Mother and Billy Woods and has a regular Monday slot on the Lot Radio, pushes Middle Eastern sounds well into the red with “Voyeur.” Violin lines wail and slide over programmed beats, hand drums and untraceable distorted sounds. It’s relentless in the best way.
