Oh Me Oh My (Blue Vinyl) - By:Holley, Lonnie - Model Number: JAG437LP-C1

Description

Some years ago, there was a magazine piece wherein the writer meditated on the concept of the Cosmic Southerner: the late Pharoah Sanders, André 3000 and Col. Bruce Hampton (on whom the piece was ultimately focused) were all mentioned. Somehow, Alabama-born, Atlanta-based self-taught artist Lonnie Holley was left out of the piece. But Holley, 72, has improvised ” nay, conjured! ” ecstatic, baffling and heavy moments that can often only be described as cosmic. In a mere two lines of a song, Holley can zoom in on the pores of one™s skin and pull back to encompass the whole of the Milky Way.

˜Oh Me Oh My™ is both elegant and ferocious, sharpening the work contained on his 2018 Jagjaguwar debut ˜MITH™. It is stirring in one moment and a balm the next. It details histories both global and personal. Holley™s harrowing youth and young manhood in the Jim Crow South are well-told at this point ” his sale into a different home as a child for just a bottle of whiskey; his abuse at the infamous Mount Meigs correctional facility for boys; the destruction of his art environment by the Birmingham airport expansion. But, as mentioned, Holley™s music is less a performance of pain endured and more a display of perseverance, of relentless hope, of Thumbs Up For Mother Universe. Intricately and lovingly produced by LA™s Jacknife Lee (The Cure, REM, Modest Mouse), ˜Oh Me Oh My™ features both kinetic, shortwave funk that calls to mind Brian Eno™s ˜My Life in the Bush of Ghosts™ and the deep space satellite sounds of Eno™s ambient works. There are also elements of Laurie Anderson™s meditations, elements of Gil Scott-Heron™s profound longform soul, elements of John Lurie™s grabbag jazz, and yes, elements of Sun Ra™s bold afrofuturism. But ˜Oh Me Oh My™ is a triumphant sonic achievement of its own.

Acclaimed collaborators like Michael Stipe (Oh Me, Oh My), Sharon Van Etten (None of Us Will Have But a Little While), Moor Mother (I Am Part of the Wonder, Earth Will Be There), Justin Vernon of Bon Iver (Kindness Will Follow Your Tears) and Rokia Koné (If We Get Lost They Will Find Us) serve as choirs of angels and co-pilots, giving Lonnie™s message flight, and reaffirming him as a galvanizing, iconoclastic force across the music community.

Label
Jagjaguwar

Tracks & Genre

RHYTHM