Tag: record reviews

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Four new Memphis-related albums you need to know

With so many Memphis-related releases coming out each month, it’s tough to keep track of every new mixtape, EP, album, or boxed set that comes out, but we do our best. This week our reviews cover everything from gospel rap to alternative country, with some rare soul and a covers album thrown in for good measure.

Ironing Board Sam Super Spirit (Big Legal Mess)

It’s safe to say that Sammie Moore, aka Ironing Board Sam, is back. After being named the Comeback Artist of the Year by Living Blues Magazine in 2012, the 73-year-old spent the last two years touring Australia and France before hunkering down at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi to record Super Spirit with Bruce Watson, Jimbo Mathus, and others. Super Spirit features 10 cover tracks from the catalog of everyone from Ann Peebles to local hero Jack Oblivian, all re-worked to feature Sam’s soulful signature sound. Ironing Board Sam was a regular on the 1960s TV show Night Train, and his 45s from that era are still highly sought-after today. As for his nickname, it was earned after continually mounting his keyboard on an ironing board with a strap that allowed him to walk on-stage while playing, a practice he continues to this day. Super Spirit is in stores on October 2nd.

Favorite Track: “Loose Diamonds”

Lucero – All a Man Should Do (ATO)

“I was 15 years old in 1989. This record sounds like the record I wanted to make when I was 15. It just took 25 years of mistakes to get it done.” That’s how Ben Nichols describes the latest Lucero album, a record the band is calling a “love letter to Memphis.” Recorded at Ardent Studios with longtime Lucero producer Ted Hutt, All a Man Should Do (named after a Big Star lyric) finds Lucero at perhaps their most vulnerable, trying on new sounds and even throwing in a cover of the Big Star song “I’m in Love with a Girl” on their first studio album since 2012’s Women & Work. Big Star’s Jody Stephens sings backup vocals on the cover track, making for a memorable moment between past and present Memphis music stars.

Even if Lucero is trying out new things in the studio, Nichols’ voice is still as familiar as ever. The 10 songs on All a Man Should Do might see Memphis’ most recognizable band moving in a slightly different direction, but, more importantly, they show a band at the pinnacle of their potential. All a Man Should Do is out September 18th.

Favorite Track: “I’m in Love with a Girl”

Groove & Grind: Rare Soul ’63-’73 (RockBeat)

Boxed sets can be a little bit intimidating. As someone who blows most of my money on records, I’ve often asked myself if I really need four-plus albums’ worth of material in one package. In the case of Groove & Grind: Rare Soul ’63-’73, the answer to that question is: absolutely. Released by RockBeat Records, Groove & Grind features over 100 rare soul songs, with each of the four discs covering a different area of the genre.

Disc One: Urban Soul covers some of the rarest soul releases from R&B capitals such as New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Disc Two: Group Soul features vocal groups who hoped to follow in the footsteps of the Temptations while Disc Three: Southern Soul covers over 28 Southern singers, including Carla Thomas and Sam Hutchins. Disc Four: Funky Soul is pretty self-explanatory, but remember, these aren’t songs you know the words to — that would defeat the whole purpose of this extensive compilation.

In addition to being jam-packed with unreleased material, Groove & Grind is housed in a 127-page hardcover book, featuring rare photographs, 45-r.p.m. record art, and encyclopedic liner notes by Bill Dahl on every track. Groove & Grind allows the modern listener to go back in time and dig through some truly great overlooked 45s, without depleting his or her life’s savings to do so. The boxed set is available now.

Favorite Track: “You Stood Me Up” By the Specials

Terrence TB Boyce – Sinner 2A Saint (Fire Proof)

Terrence “TB” Boyce got his start in the streets, selling his mixtapes to whomever would buy them in parking lots across the country. After hocking CDs for a couple of years, Terrence found his niche in the gospel rap community, performing at local churches with Three 6 Mafia affiliate-turned-gospel-rapper Mr. Del. Released on Fire Proof Records, Sinner 2A Saint is a religious testimony presented as a modern mixtape. With track titles like “Been Saved” and “Keep God First,” Boyce is certainly wearing his religious beliefs on his sleeve, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the mixtape is watered down. Boyce compared himself to 50 Cent or Master P in a recent interview with Memphis Magazine, and there are hints of classic Memphis rap production throughout Sinner 2A Saint, even if Boyce’s message is more “walk with Christ” than “tear da club up.” As for how Boyce’s positive message is affecting the city, he says: “It’s growing pretty big. When I first started rapping, churches didn’t want to incorporate rap; they were more about the singing. But every church wants a gospel rapper now.” Sinner 2A Saint is out now.

Favorite Track: “JC Walkin”

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Music Music Features

Sweet Soul, Bloody Rippers, and Earth Signs: Local Record Reviews

Cities Aviv – Your Discretion Is Trust (Collect Records)

Sure this is the Record Reviews column and Gavin Mays (aka Cities Aviv) moved to Brooklyn a few years ago, but during his time here Mays constantly put Memphis underground rap on the national map. His latest album Your Discretion Is Trust was released digitally this week and is available for download on iTunes as well as Spotify. The 14 tracks on Your Discretion Is Trust see Mays staying within the confines of his earlier work (specifically 2014’s Come to Life), and longtime producer RPLD GHSTS appears on multiple tracks, including “Is this Alright” and “Earth Signs.” On the opening track “Anticipation,” Mays raps about mobbing through the city with his crew “who take no lives” one minute, and then shifts to contemplating his existence the next. Such vast changes in lyrical content are par for the course in a Cities Aviv track, and Your Discretion Is Trust is yet another example of the many different ideas Mays is capable of executing in the studio. The samples get pretty psychedelic as the fourth album from Cities Aviv unfolds, especially by the mid-album track “Earth Signs.” Even if this is a surprise record, the songwriting on Your Discretion Is Trust is fully realized, and Mays sounds like an artist at the top of his game throughout most of the album.

Favorite Track: “Isolation Quarters”

Caleb Sweazy – Lucky or Strong
(Blue Barrel Records)

Caleb Sweazy’s fourth studio album was recorded at Music+Arts Studio in Memphis by producer Kevin Houston (Sid Selvidge, North Mississippi Allstars). Sweazy enlisted some notable Memphis players for his Blue Barrel Records debut, including Jessie Dakota (Memphis Dawls) on drums, Logan Hanna (Grace Askew) on guitar, and John C. Stubblefield (Lucero) on keys and upright bass. Lucky or Strong was recorded completely live and finds Sweazy recalling bittersweet tales that cover everything from an old Model A Ford to WWI. Sweazy claims to like songs that make the listener feel happy and sad at the same time, and this collection of guitar-driven, bluesy folk rock is sure to do just that. With this lineup of prominent Memphis musicians and producer Houston at the helm, Lucky or Strong is a good indication that Sweazy is a local songwriter worth paying attention to.

Favorite Track: “Soldier’s Heart”

Useless Eaters – Singles 2011-2014 (Slovenly Records)

Seth Sutton has been cranking out garage rock longer than some Memphis bands stay together, and he’s got the back catalog to prove it. His first single as Useless Eaters came out six years ago, and he’s released more than a dozen more since then, not to mention a handful of full-length albums, split singles, and a smattering of cassettes. The 13 tracks on the Singles 2011-2014 cover a pivotal moment for Useless Eaters, a time when Sutton was experimenting with new songs, new ideas, and perhaps most importantly, new bandmates. Different cities shaped the songs on this collection (recording sessions took place in Nashville, Oakland, and Melbourne, Australia), and the songs range from straightforward garage punk tunes like “I Hate the Kids” to downer psych rock jams like “Addicted to the Blade.” For anyone just getting familiar with Useless Eaters (this is the first time we’ve ever written about them), this collection on Slovenly is a great place to start, especially because most of these singles have been sold out for quite some time.

Favorite Track: “Bloody Ripper”

Mary Owens – Sweet Soul
(Blue Tom Records)

Mary Owens’ debut album is on Blue Tom records, the in-house label at the University of Memphis and also the home of Mason Jar Fireflies and Drew Erwin. Recorded by Boo Mitchell, Sweet Soul is a collection of Owens’ first songs as a solo artist, although she sure sounds like a singer who’s been honing her craft for years. Owens’ vocal approach sits somewhere in between country music and R&B, mixing elements of both genres to create a unique, soulful sound that is distinctly Memphis. Pre-orders for Owens’ first album included the option for a recorded personalized cover of the buyer’s choosing, proving that while Owens’ might be young, she’s already got complete confidence in her voice. Sweet Soul is available for the first time this week.
Favorite Track: “Talkin’ to You”

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Music Music Features

Lost & Found

With so many local bands constantly releasing new music, it’s easy to lose track of everything that’s going on. We dug up six records (one pretty new, four old, and one super old) that you should seek out. Ranging from female gangster rap to transcendental sitar recordings, there’s something for most everyone on this list.



Jack O and the Sheiks — Live! From the Burgundy Ballroom (Secret Identity Records, Red Lounge Records)
Think of it as the Memphis version of the Kiss album Alive!. Even though it’s not an actual live recording (the band added plenty of overdubs later), Live! represents a time in Memphis where a house on Harbert Avenue was one of the best places in town to see local music. Known to everyone but the landlord as the Burgundy Ballroom, the makeshift venue was the headquarters of the Sheiks, serving as a recording studio, sanctuary, and speakeasy. Sometimes they slept there too. Recorded and mixed by Toby Vest and Pete Matthews, Live! bounces around through Jack Oblivian’s solo career, blazing through 13 tracks that fans new and old will recognize.

While it’s technically an import (released on German labels Red Lounge Records and Secret Identity Records), this record is all Memphis, and the first testament of the power of Jack O with the Sheiks backing him.

Best Track: “Black Boots.”

Aquarian Blood — Aquarian Blood Demo (Zap Records)
While local music fans were sad when Moving Finger called it quits after just one single on Goner Records, they didn’t have to wait long to hear more creepy garage punk from JB Horrell and his wife Laurel. Months after Moving Finger stopped playing shows, the Aquarian Blood Demo surfaced. The new band began appearing around town at places like Amurica and Black Lodge Video, blazing through live versions of songs Horrell had been recording at home mostly by himself. Heavily influenced by Father Yod and the Source Family, Aquarian Blood sound like a punk project of the Ya Ho Wa 13 tribe but with less Sky Saxon and more Charles Manson. If that sounds weird, it’s because it is. Aquarian Blood’s demo tape is nearly sold out, but a debut single is rumored to be released soon.

Best Track: “Down my Spine.”

Tori WhoDat — Krewe Dentials Mixtape (self-released)
When I said these are reviews of records we might have missed, I meant it. The Krewe Dentials Mixtape was released a year ago last week, yet this is the first time we’ve written anything about it. Krewe Dentials has almost as many different producers as it does tracks, making for a pretty diverse mixtape even though it stays within the confines of modern Southern rap. Memphis rapper Lil Wyte makes appearances on the Krewe Dentials tracks “Smoke Sum” and “Bad Bitches,” and it’s no surprise that those are the mixtape’s two strongest songs. Local MC Lucha Luciano also makes an appearance on the murder-obsessed track “Hitchcock,” but “We Do This” proves Tori WhoDat can definitely handle a beat without relying on established guest artists. At 17 tracks, Krewe Dentials is a great introduction to WhoDat, DJ Crumbs, and the rest of this local hip-hop sect.

Best Track: “We Do This.”

Reserving Dirtnaps — Reserving Dirtnaps EP (Self Released)
When you name your band Reserving Dirtnaps, chances are you aren’t interested in showering the world with a positive message. Reserving Dirtnaps features members of Clenched Fist and Dead City, two groups who proudly waved the banner of Memphis-style hardcore. While Clenched Fist hold the throne of the heaviest hardcore band in Memphis, Reserving Dirtnaps are becoming one of the premier hardcore bands in town, routinely getting the opening slot when similar touring bands come through. The Reserving Dirtnaps EP features five tracks of heavy modern hardcore, and while vocals and riffs are what normally stand out on hardcore albums, the drumming on Reserving Dirtnaps is also pretty incredible. Physical copies of Reserving Dirtnaps are sold out, but the EP is still available for download online.

Best Track: “No Consent.”

Manateees — Sit and Spin (Pelican Pow Wow)
Even if the local music press missed out on this release, media outlets like Pitchfork and Terminal Boredom had no problem calling Sit and Spin one of the most gruesome and grisly punk albums released last year. While their earlier singles might have dipped into the dark side of garage rock (and black metal), Sit and Spin is for the most part a melodic punk album, with front man Abe White singing instead of howling and screaming over harsh stabs of noise. Sit and Spin wound up on plenty of year-end lists in 2014, and Manateees toured all the way to the West Coast last summer on their signature brand of “1-2-F-U” punk rock. After a handful of well-received singles, Sit and Spin is the victory lap for Manateees and proof that White has plenty more up his sleeve.

Best Track: “Cold and Rhythmic.”

Naan Violence — Naan Violence (Zap Records)
File under most likely to be played in Ebbo’s Spiritual Supply House. Naan Violence is the project of Arjun Kuhlharya, a sitar player from Atlanta who spends his time in Memphis when he’s not on tour. Kuhlharya calls Naan Violence “Transcendental Free-Sitar,” and that’s a pretty accurate description, with the three songs on the album going well over the 10-minute mark. Recorded by Andrew McCalla, Naan Violence features tablas, synthesizer, flute, and a whole lot of spaced-out sitar. Kuhlharya’s willingness to take his show on the road and play in places that you wouldn’t normally hear the sitar (dive bars) has sent him all over the country, and he’s currently gearing up for another summer tour. It’s limited to 400 copies, so act fast.

Best Track: “High Noon Tea at the Connected Gates.”

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Music Music Blog

Random Review: Lucha and the Flatspots

Lucha and the Flatspots
Lucha and the Flatspots
Self Released

Lucha and the Flatspots hail from Midtown Memphis, but they might as well claim the DIY skate park Altown as their actual home. The band has heavy ties to the local skateboarding scene, and drummer Zach Beerman has been a key factor in turning the DIY skate park on Evelyn into what is today, one bag of concrete at a time. On their self-titled CD,  The Flatspots play traditional skate-core, meaning they’re a punk band obsessed with pushing wood. While they would have fit perfectly among Memphis bands of old like Deathreat or Rednecks in Pain, Lucha and the Flatspots represent an exciting up and coming scene of young delinquents, even if some of the members are pushing thirty. The lyrics on “Swamp Stomp” sum up the band’s message perfectly: “welcome to Altown, where we all understand, we’re all gonna die.” 

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Music Record Reviews

New Records

Leo Welch’s Sabougla Voices is the latest from Big Legal Mess records. It’s gospel blues, a virulent strain of Hill Country religious fervor. Welch is a pastor and the host of Black Gospel Express, a Sunday program in Bruce, Mississippi. He’s 81. There’s a spirit alive in this music all right: the spirit of R.L. and Junior drinking and fishing with the Apostles. Welch’s evangelizing has the two-four jump and growl of the best electric country blues.

After 30 years in the church and working on a logging crew, Welch called the label after learning that Junior Kimbrough had recorded for Big Legal Mess. An intern told him they no longer produced blues. A higher-up overheard the conversation and intervened. The result is an album of 10 tracks that could have come from any of the big names in Hill Country blues aside from the exhortations of praise and the ecclesiastical reflections in the lyrics. It’s some of the dancingest church music you’ll hear outside of a praise break. It would make a fine contribution to any heathen’s Sunday morning Bloody Mary and bacon grease situation.

Leo Welch

Sabougla Voices, available January 7th

(Big Legal Mess)

Another take on the blues and biblical influence comes from longtime Memphis songwriter Ron Jungklas. The Spirit and the Spine has a more twisted take on religiosity and redemption. The opening track, “Black Snake Moan,” paints a picture of a post-religious apocalypse, a tooth-and-claw consideration of human nature. Thundering drums and guitars that sound like dust storms get whipped up into “Automatic,” a Dust Bowl tinged lament for rain as a metaphor for meaningful faith.

Jungklas made a run at the big time in the radio days of the 1980s. He’s taught science at local schools since the 1990s. But he stayed close enough to the fires to heed the call of music. The Spirit and the Spine finds Jungklas mining despair, alienation, and suffering. “Spit” explores the nature of false prophecy and hypocrisy: “I just gathered up some dust, and I spit into my hand … I am the crowing cock, sweet honey in the rock/The poison in the bitter pill.” All of this happens over the unsettling whirring of a filtered drone menacingly throbbing beneath everything.

The sounds on this record signal thematic changes. Mud and smoke clear for “Say Damn,” a bent, electric homecoming: “The loyal opposition in the angel choir.” It’s a gritty, erotic Prodigal Son thing.

Maybe I’m lost in the twister of imagery and this album is not intended to be a pilgrim’s progress through the sex-soaked, anger-spewing, materialistic — yet somehow Christian — culture of the contemporary Bible Belt. But it sure works as one. The Spirit and the Spine is fascinating to listen to, even if it makes you want to put a parental advisory sticker on the Bible.

Rob Jungklas


The Spirit and the Spine

(Madjack Records)

It may be time to work the martini shaker and stare at the moon. If that’s the case, Jeremy Shrader and Ed Finney have got you covered. The Moon Is in Love is a collection of originals and jazz standards from the 1930s. Shrader sings and plays trumpet over Finney’s jazz guitar. The pairing is spare, but it gives them room to play. And do they ever.

The duo’s compositions stand up to some heavy comparisons too. They cover the Gershwins, Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart. The standards give the instruments an opportunity to interplay in a way that’s engaging. The original songs carry the load based on a couple of virtues:

Shrader’s voice bounces along fine on the standards and also keeps up with Finney’s compositional workout in “Lovers in Love.” “Daytime, Nighttime” is a Shrader original that divines the mood and harmonic textures of the age into a masterfully written song. It’s a case study of a golden age in American songcraft.

Shrader’s tune “True” veers off the program a bit with a nod to the 1960s. The song incorporates the virtues of ’30s songwriting but puts an R&B energy behind it. What Finney does on this great set of chord changes is phenomenal. His guitar tone is so full and powerful and his phrasing so precise and lyrical that it’s like watching a rodeo bull dance ballet. You almost can’t believe it.

There is a CD release party at the Cove on Thursday, November 21st.

Jeremy Shrader and Ed Finney

The Moon Is in Love

(Electric Room)

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Music Record Reviews

Local Music Reviews

(ECR Music Group)

Tribute albums. It’s hard to gin up enthusiasm for most of these affairs. They typically involve taking a great artist who made great recordings and handing the songs out to not-as-great artists who make not-as-great recordings. Terry Manning’s second solo album in some 40 years is not the typical tribute album.

West Texas Skyline is Manning’s tribute to his friend Bobby Fuller, who is known mostly for the single “I Fought the Law.” Fuller was an acolyte of Buddy Holly and further developed Holly’s synthesis of high-lonesome mountain singing, wild rhythms, and California guitars.

Manning hails from West Texas and knew Fuller in the early 1960s. These were the days when Fender guitars and amplification were in all of their rickety, not exactly standardized glory. The Stratocaster sounds of that time and place endure, and Manning does a fantastic job bringing them into focus.

If anyone other than Terry Manning had made this album, you could round-file the thing. But Manning has a few tricks up his sleeve. He may be the most accomplished Memphis-based producer ever: Ike and Tina, Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, James Taylor, ZZ Top, Joe Walsh, Molly Hatchet, Jimmy Buffet, and Shania Twain. He recorded Wattstax. What Manning does with these guitars and arrangements is notable.

The album opens with a bold take on “Love’s Made a Fool of You,” a song recorded by Holly’s Crickets and the Bobby Fuller Four. Manning takes liberties: The guitar has its Californianess turned up with a wavelike tremolo that suggests early-onset psychedelia. This cover highlights the West Texan take on frying-pan-hot clean guitars played in precise phrases. The album is a master class on classic sounds and approaches. It’s also a labor of love for a place and the people who made great music there. That’s something every Memphian can identify with. — Joe Boone

(Archer Records)

Memphis favors its winners: Blues and barbecue dominate our headspace. But there’s a lot more to Memphis than the usual suspects. On musical terms, that drives Lily Afshar nuts. The world-renowned classical guitarist and University of Memphis professor is a passionate advocate of not only the wider musical community of Memphis but also that of the world at large. Her latest recording is another example of her drive to expand the repertoire of both her instrument and our love of music.

Musica da Camera finds Afshar breaking new ground. The album begins with the first-ever recording of Musical Sketches on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, a work by an obscure Russian composer, Vladislav Uspensky, for an eight-piece ensemble. The piece is programmatic: It tells a story. In this case, it’s Pushkin’s novel in verse Eugene Onegin, a story of pride, love, jealousy, and regret set in 1830s St. Petersburg. Uspensky divines eight scenes from the story of a world-weary old goat whose cynicism gets the better of him when he dismisses the writings and affections of a young woman named Tatyana.

The opening piece, “The Ball,” sets the mood, creating the atmosphere of a dance but with a tinge of melancholy rather than excitement. It renders the mind of the over-it-all Onegin being hauled through another social affair. The tight orchestration and muted dynamics paint the picture and establish the mood. The following piece renders Tatyana’s romantic earnestness with rising and falling dynamics and expectant harmonies, all laced in a sweetness that does not become bothersome. It’s remarkably redolent of the emotional roller coaster that is expressing love — or anything sincere, for that matter.

The “Onegin” piece exemplifies the guitar technique that earned Afshar spots in master classes by Andrés Segovia, the Spanish master. Afshar is on a personal quest to expand the vernacular of the instrument beyond the body of work established by Spanish composers. Her earlier album Hemispheres incorporated modified guitars that could play intervals found in Persian music. Afshar has transcribed work by Persian, Turkish, and Azerbaijani musicians.

Musica da Camera marks another example of Afshar’s curiosity and technique coming together in a way that motivates both the artist and the listener to expand the scope of their musical understanding. — Joe Boone

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Music Record Reviews

Record Reviews: Miguel and Elle Varner

It’s been a good year for R&B, with major albums from major stars conventional (Usher), retro (R. Kelly), and groundbreaking (Frank Ocean). But the two best R&B albums of the year might come from a couple of newish artists — RCA labelmates — at least a little more under the radar.

Miguel’s second album, Kaleidoscope Dream, is familiar lover-man R&B fighting through an unfamiliar psychedelic haze. It climaxes, so to speak, at the very beginning, with the killer lead single “Adorn,” which updates the graceful erotic throb of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” for the electronic age. “Let my love adorn you,” Miguel sings, scatting, soaring, and pleading over a spongey bass line, clicking percussion, and hiccuping vocal loops.

Nothing that follows is as undeniable, but on this comfortably weird collection, plenty comes close. The single “Arch & Point” is an unusually elegant sex instructional, while the R-rated “P***y Is Mine” is not as presumptuous as that title would be in lesser hands. A rubbery, slow-motion interpolation of the Zombies’ ’60s hit “Time of the Season” on “Don’t Look Back” and a synthesis of “Do you like drugs?” and “Do you like love?” on the song “Do You …” cement the album’s mood.

Where Miguel, like all the other leading men of R&B this year, is essentially a formalist, the under-recognized Elle Varner is more song-oriented.

If Varner’s 2012 debut, Perfectly Imperfect, is my favorite album of 2012 — I’ve still got a few weeks to figure that out — it’s probably the album I’ve come back to most this year.

As a pure singer, Varner is high-generic — very high — which by R&B standards means not recognizable on impact but still pretty damn good. As a personality, her very ordinariness feels groundbreaking.

Varner’s no larger-than-life sex symbol like Beyoncé or Rihanna. She’s no coffee-house queen or alt-soul iconoclast like Jill Scott or Erykah Badu. She’s no streetwise, rap-bred tough chick like early Mary J. Blige. Her lyrical penchant for concrete detail and everyday situations is more reminiscent of country than R&B. Her Everygirl vibe and good humor suggest Brit alt-popper Lily Allen. And on this debut album, she nails one purposeful, personality-packed song after another — 11 in all, at least nine of which are distinct and memorable after only a few listens.

“Oh What a Night” might be the best club song in an era lousy with them — not to mention worthy of a title that’s been well-claimed already. Personifying her mistreated liver, getting a hazy, next-day play-by-play from her roomie, rhyming “natural disaster” with “I really gotta go and see my pastor,” her great night out is treacherous and awkward and comic. “Refill,” with the bravura opening line “I feel like the girl at the bar who’s been there too long,” is close behind. Here, a more subdued Varner is intoxicated in talk with a potential beau (“feel like a conversational lush”). The song works the latent eroticism of its title without getting too vulgar about it, and Varner swoops high and low around the song’s insistent fiddle loop and spare percussion. But “Not Tonight” (“I need a little audacity/But it’s not in my bones”) makes clear that such encounters are rare.

Like no other female R&B singer save maybe Scott, Varner owns her sexuality, which is expressed as an active, essential part of a well-rounded life. But despite telling one lucky object of affection that the pair may need a “sound-proof room,” Varner sounds less impressed with her own sexual skill or ability to verbalize it than Scott. Again, more relatable.

Varner knows constant nightlife is a youth rite of passage unless you do it wrong, and her daydream domesticity (“Welcome Home”) is utterly reasonable and everything she deserves — it includes a fridge full of good food, “someone to forgive me when I’m so wrong,” and “brown-eyed babies and all.”

Miguel and Elle Varner will both be in the area later this month, as co-openers for the more conventional Trey Songz, at a December 29th concert at the Landers Center in Southaven.

Grades: Miguel — A-; Elle Varner — A