Showrocka.
It’s fitting that “peace, peace,” are the first words on the album Dear Aires, the latest release from the New Haven-based Showrocka and Ansolu. They set the tone for an album about getting older that is jubilant and nostalgic, energetic and laid-back, and always guided by two MCs who are old enough to know who they are, be at home in their style, and at the same time, ready to see where it takes them. Dear Aires is one of a few new releases from New Haven-based artists that shows the music scene as vibrant and diverse as ever, in genre and feeling.
On Dear Aires, “G‑day Cake” finds the rappers trading verses over an energetic set of samples, talking about passing the age of 40 but sounding as young as ever. But on “Like Mike,” the MCs get nostalgic, talking about the Michaels (Tyson, Jordan, and Jackson) that framed their childhoods and gave them role models to aspire to. Then the next cut, built on a lilting beat of guitars and sparse percussion, lets both rappers relax into the calmer parts of their voices.
That kind of variation pervades all of Dear Aires, a thrilling ride through what Showrocka and Ansolu are capable of as rappers and a New Haven testament to the way hip hop — now comfortably five decades old — is no longer simply a young person’s game. It’s a genre, like jazz, that one can grow old in, and Showrocka and Ansolu show how to do it with grace and flair.
Jealous Mind.
Meanwhile, the recent eponymous EP from Jealous Mind — a New Haven-based punk outfit that has been making the rounds of area clubs — shows a band ready to make its mark. In proper punk style, the four unnamed musicians, on guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, are already a tight unit, with driving drums, churning bass, and guitar that moves from choppy, propulsive rhythms to bursts of distortion. But it’s the vocals that make the sound complete.
“Dopamine,” which functions as the band’s lead single, encapsulates the style. The band charges out of the gate at 100 miles an hour as soon as the needle drops, while the vocalist peels one of the more ironic lines around out of her throat: “I’m running out of things to say.” That is, of course, not true, as she then rages across verses and choruses, her voice rising from a chant to an exhilirating scream. “Can’t get enough of this,” she screams in desperation. Listeners may feel similarly when the album is over, and play it again from the beginning.
Sutfin.
As Ron Sutfin’s bio relates, he “is Chief Engineer at his Wildwood Ranch Recording Studio. He also works at Yale University Preservation & Conservation digitizing rare collections of audio video and film for the Yale Gilmore Music Library, Yale Historic Sound Recording Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Fortunoff Holocaust Testimonial, and Yale’s Film Archive.”
In his younger days in the 1980s, he was a stalwart of New Haven’s new wave scene, notably playing bass in the band Valley of Kings along with Kerry Miller on drums and backing vocals and Gabriel Cohen on guitar and lead vocals. The band earned press notice and airplay and went on two national tours. The band also recorded two records, 1983’s Happy Hour and 1985’s Victory Garden, which Sutfin has now made available digitally.
Happy Hour has the restless energy of a punk band moving into wider territory. As “The Distance,” the first song from Victory Garden, shows, two years later, it arrived. The song has enough musical ideas for four songs, as the brooding verse opens up with a searching bridge and an anthemic chorus that leads, on a dime, back to the angular song it started with.
The rest of the album is a pure slice of 1980s alternative rock, whether the band is plunging ahead on “Come Out Julie” and “I Still Believe,” getting angular on “Love Turns to Love,” or laying down the kind of rhythm made for people to jump around to in a club (many of the cuts). It’s easy to understand why Valley of Kings had a good run, and from the quality of the recordings, why Sutfin has a successful career as an engineer today. Victory Garden is a product of its time, but in its urgency, also reminds us that dancing is timeless.
Dear Aires, Jealous Mind, and the Valley of Kings records are all available on Bandcamp.