You know, I do feel some spite lately…toward our government. And in spite of that, music goes on and thank goodness it does. Hence the title. This playlist is mostly 2017 releases, with a few tunes I missed last year, and a few that are re-releases or I just heard for the first time. Don’t worry, the music isn’t spiteful.

So far this year there are 3 albums that really jump out at me as complete works: Ryan Adams’ Prisoner is getting crappy reviews but it appeals to me and I keep appreciating new songs. It’s really no fun at all; it’s a break-up record in full despair, yet not self-pitying. Valerie June put out The Order of Time, and her mix of blues, country, soul, folk, gospel, African rhythms, and lord knows what else is fresh and vibrant. The album flows and holds together as a piece from the first song to the last. Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Navigator is another album that deserves a full listen. The record’s concept is to follow Alynda Segarra’s character Navita, a Puerto Rican street kid experiencing life in the city and looking for a way out. The music has elements from everywhere, and I’m really enjoying repeated listens.

And now the playlist; I think it’s a good one! Listen to it right here on Spotify: In Spite

Nina Simone – “Liza Jane.” Kicking it off with this amazing performance at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, a featured scene from What Happened, Miss Simone? This was her first of six appearances there, and I wish I’d been in the audience to discover this incredible artist. There are a few shows in this movie that are just electric, and the story of her life is fascinating.

Valerie June – “Shakedown.” One of my favorite newer artists, Valerie June blends Appalachian bluegrass, soul, folk, blues, and some African rhythms into some of the most compelling and rocket-powered songs I’ve heard. The album is varied and a real stand-out.

Rihanna – “Desperado.” From 2016’s Anti, this song closed out the “American Bitch” episode of Girls, and I found both the episode and this song to be revelatory. Watch the show, but it closes with an author’s daughter playing “Desperado” on flute for dad and Hannah and morphs into the Rihanna song.

Tinariwen – “Sastanaqqam.” Tinariwen is a Malian desert blues band that keeps producing deep and volatile rebellious political music that tells stories of displacement and the struggle for autonomy for the Azawad region of Northern Mali.

Otis Taylor – “Ten Million Slaves.” Otis Taylor tells the story of sitting in his fallout shelter as “rain and fire crossed that ocean” and thinking about slave ships carrying their cargo across that same ocean. Built on a relentless and dissonant banjo strum and electric guitar blues riff, it gets stuck in my head for days at a time. This song was from 2002’s Respect the Dead but just resurfaced with the Oxford American music issue.

Rhiannon Giddens – “At the Purchaser’s Option.” Freedom Highway is not my favorite album; in general I like Rhiannon Giddens’ amazing voice better either doing other people’s songs or being more rootsy – but I really admire how she takes on issues like police shootings, church bombings, and sexual violence on this record. And I do really like everything about this story of a mother dreading the fate of her child born into slavery.

Benjamin Booker and Mavis Staples – “Witness.” The virtuoso guitar takes a backseat in this gospel-style song about violence done to black people. Mavis sings the chorus “Am I going to be a witness…just going to be a witness?” A great question, as we all witness insanity and injustice – what would it mean to bear witness?

Sandy Bull – “Little Maggie.” I read about Sandy Bull recently, and how his 1960’s recordings were decades ahead of his time (which isn’t easy for a guy who played so many traditional songs!) He was a string virtuoso, playing electric and acoustic guitar, banjo, oud, bass and creating new arrangements for old tunes and new fusions like Bach on the banjo or bossa nova on the oud. This is a traditional tune and I love how he starts it off with what I assume is clawhammer style playing and jumps into bluegrass.

Jake Xerxes Fussell – “Have You Ever Seen Peaches Growing on a Sweet Potato Vine?” This guy’s a hoot. Last year’s “Ragged Levy” remains one of my most frequently played songs and has the same sort of whimsical lyrics and loping, buoyant guitar groove. He creates a kind of call and response with his guitar picking, and he can pick!

Tift Merritt – “My Boat.” This is a Raymond Carver poem set to music. It’s a tune about having a boat built that will take the writer and his friends away from the troubles of the world, which sounds like a nice idea. I keep thinking of “My Town” by Iris Dement in the chorus, and that’s okay, too.

Dead Man Winter – “Danger.” Dead Man Winter is Dave Simonett’s other band (he’s better known as the principle in Trampled By Turtles.) The band is a little less twangy than Trampled, and the album it comes from is a serious break-up, and not a good break-up, record. This song, for example, contains the lyric “You’re a danger to my health.”

Hurray For the Riff Raff – “Settle.” Alynda Segarra’s new album The Navigator narrates a personal and political journey that is incredibly engaging. Riff Raff has gone from a kind of New Orleans folk vibe to something unclassifiable – it’s just good music. Lush melodies, great stories, world rhythms, this record has so much going for it that I’ll be playing it start to finish many times.

Sharon Van Etten – “The End of the World.” This is from Resistance Radio, The Man in the High Castle, which is a take-off on the Philip K Dick science fiction novel imagining that the US had lost WWII and that the country was occupied on the East Coast by Germany, and on the West Coast by Japan. What would music have been? Probably no Elvis, Beatles, Dylan…This record is made of songs that would have been recorded in the ‘neutral zone’ of the Rockies in the 60’s, and they’re remakes of some familiar and mostly somber tunes. Sharon Van Etten is the perfect voice and tone for this song originally done by country singer Skeeter Davis.

Pieta Brown – “Street Tracker.” A catchy tune with gentle vocals and a really lovely guitar backing by Mark Knopfler. The album was all collaborative; Pieta sent simple acoustic demos of songs to friends like Calexico, Bon Iver, Knopfler and others, and they would finish the tracks. This song in particular produced killer results.

Colter Wall – “Sleeping on the Blacktop.” I heard about this guy only recently. He’s a very young Canadian country singer with a rich, weathered voice and a patient approach. This song is a hand-clapping rhythmic collection of images, released in 2015 but I didn’t know!

Florist – “White Light Doorway.” One of those indie pop groups that I just like. Emily Sprague sounds appropriately bored while painting some pretty beautiful pictures and conjuring up memories like “please come quick I stuck my head in the bannister again.” Charming.

The Cave Singers – “That’s Why.” The Cave Singers were my favorite local band in Seattle. Sincere, regular guys who put on great shows and wrote some very good songs. Here they are off their 2016 album Banshee. It’s all about the bass line.

Joan Shelley – “Wild Indifference.” I’ve been loving this voice since it found me a few years ago. Her rhythms and textures are hypnotic and her lyrics are clear and sweet – like her voice. This song, the first release from the new album Joan Shelley, is her signature: simple, and as she says, “an exercise in understatement.” The gist of this tune: “In your wild indifference / It’s all centered around you / Ain’t it lonely?…“Well I’ve been the chaser too long.” Tweedy produced this record, and I’m looking forward to hearing the rest.

Birds of Chicago – “Dim Star of the Palisades.” A great song off their 2016 release Real Midnight. Allison Russell’s voice is restrained from its full power and is therefore more expressive, and the song is a sweet reminder to an ex (I’m guessing) to “Hold on, hold on / tomorrow’s on you / like a pack of wild hounds.”

Real Estate – “Darling.” It’s the beginning guitar hook – its crazy rhythm and syncopation – that makes me love this song. A little jangly and surfy, they may be waiting “impatiently for you” with the finches on their front porch, but they sound perfectly content to me and put me in that same frame.

Ryan Adams – “To Be Without You.” Coulda picked a few tunes off this excellent record, Prisoner, but this is my favorite. The same despair and weary voice as “Nothing” by Townes Van Zant, but without the ‘fuck you’ attitude. “Nothing left to say or really even wonder / We are like a book and every page is so torn / Nothing really matters anymore.” Nice interweaving acoustic guitars and he’s in great voice.

Tom Rush – “No Regrets.” This is from the 40^th anniversary re-release of the record The Circle Game. If you don’t know this song, I think it will creep into you on first listen.

Son Volt – “Sinking Down.” Loving this tough tune off the new album Notes of Blue. And yes it’s got this great Chicago blues electric guitar driving right through it. Jay Farrar’s voice lends itself to these blues.

Kefaya – “Indignados.” Listened to much Ethiopian pentatonic jazz with flamenco vocals? Me neither, till this. These guys are a UK collective that use all the ethnic influences of London in their music. The title refers to a group in Spain that was formed around an ‘anti-austerity’ platform and went from street protests to the country’s 3^rd largest political party – Podemos. A translated line from the song “Tell them that the rage of the people is well-oiled.”

Carrie Rodruiguez – “La Ultima Vez.“ The 2016 release Lola was Carrie Rodriguez’ first that highlighted the disparate influences on the ‘half gringa, half Chicana fiddler’ (her words). This song is a cumbia sung mostly in English that proclaims the final straw in a dead relationship.

Phoebe Bridgers – “Smoke Signals.” I am a sucker for a soft and beautiful woman’s voice, and Phoebe Bridgers is a new one for me. The song is a single with wonderful imagery and a guitar line out of ‘Peter Gunn’ or something. It is said that her friends who dressed as zombies for the video were paid in pizza.

Etta Baker and Cora Phillips – “Railroad Bill.” Susan plays banjo so I listen to a lot of banjo music. This one turned up on the Oxford American Southern Music record this year. I love the dialogue at the beginning – “She plays Steamboat Will, and this is Railroad Bill.” Those old tunes get around, and these sisters get into a groove as only those who’ve grown up together can do.