In rotation: Lydia Loveless' 'Indestructible Machine'

She’s only been drinking age for a few months, but rural Ohio’s Lydia Loveless has plenty of big opinions on life, love and this here world we live in. Forgive her, however, if they’re cynical and contradictory. “I grew up on whiskey and God, so I’m a little bit confused,” she sings on “Do Right,” one of a handful of incendiary, shoot-first and worry-later takes on the midpoint between country and punk. 

“Indestructible Machine,” her second album and first for indie Bloodshot Records, is a rush of roots-rock abrasiveness, existential nerves and knee-jerk anger, all of it delivered in nine songs packed with wayward fiddles and an outpouring of words. Guitars rev, a bass growls and rhythms cause a fuss while Loveless questions anyone with an answer on “Jesus Was a Wino,” and when she offers a ballad such as “How Many Women,” her take on heartache is more exhausted than burned. 

In rotation: El Rego's 'El Rego Et Ses Commandos'

In the early 1970s, El Rego had to write a song. His country, Benin (then known as the Republic of Dahomey), had just been claimed in a military insurrection, and the army needed anthems. The coup leaders suggested (more like demanded) that the singer and bandleader write them a tribute. “Vive le Renouveau” is one of the better slights of hands in political music — ostensibly an ode to the “revolutionaries,” El Rego plays it as a worn-down blues lament that proves a bleary guitar figure speaks truth louder than any gunpoint sloganeering.

In rotation: Jeffrey Lewis' 'A Turn in the Dream-Songs'

East Village native Jeffrey Lewis is one of underground folk's success stories — and with the unlikely weapon of a wobbly, underdog voice that could almost belong to Peanuts' Charlie Brown. The singer and illustrator, who recently released his sixth major work, “A Turn in the Dream-Songs,” has cobbled together a decent living from his rambling poetry and rustic guitar picking, augmented by raggedy strings, flute and hushed percussion. And though there's worn charm to be found with his backing band, the Junkyard, his lyrics steal the scene every time.

In rotation: 'Mark Twain Words & Music'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

In this year that Mark Twain, the quintessential American novelist, humorist and rabble-rouser, has undergone a spike in popularity thanks to the publication of the first volume of his autobiography, the timing couldn’t be better for this musical and spoken-word evocation of his life and times.

This two-CD set, with sales benefiting the Mark Twain Boyhood Home in Hannibal, Mo., is the modern-day equivalent of a radio play, combining Twain’s own words with songs delivered by some of the most respected country and Americana artists, including Emmylou Harris, Brad Paisley, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Rhonda Vincent and Doyle Lawson. Garrison Keillor handles the narration with his signature unhurried Midwestern drawl, Jimmy Buffett voices Twain’s alter ego, Huck Finn, and no less than Clint Eastwood brings Twain himself to life, reciting passages from his autobiography as well as first-person passages from “Life on the Mississippi,” “Roughing It,” “The Innocents Abroad” and other books.

In rotation: Roxy Music's 'Avalon'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

Last month, Bryan Ferry played his first L.A. show in a decade at the Greek Theatre. His set was covers-heavy, with takes on Dylan, Lennon, Neil Young and Sam & Dave; not to mention plenty of projections showing the cover of his new solo album “Olympia,” starring Kate Moss. So it’s worth digging back in his long catalog for a refresher on what made his band Roxy Music so inimitable. “Avalon,” the band’s 1982 swan song, is their least purposefully freaky, but maybe the best entry point.

In rotation: The Front Bottoms

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

The Front Bottoms, who understand coming-of-age dread, are the kind of people, to summarize Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity,” who fear being alone forever in their mid-20s. When the protagonist of “Father” leaves his girlfriend’s house in the morning, singer/guitarist Brian Sella asks, “Can I stay inside your head?” The galloping acoustic guitars and high-school-band bullhorns thankfully get Sella out there of before anyone has time to cringe.

The punk rock of New Jersey’s the Front Bottoms is young-at-heart but it doesn’t really want to be. Fitting into a long line of emotional over-shares amongst the punk community (see Jets to Brazil, the Weakerthans), each Front Bottoms song is packed with words and spiked with humor.

In rotation: Veronica Falls

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

London-based Veronica Falls don’t dilly-dally. The music is lean, and the lyrics curt. “The Box,” for instance, sounds as if it was written for sharing a malt at the soda-fountain. Yet singer Roxanne Clifford will make her company think twice. “I know you’re old,” she sings, “but you’re a hand to hold,” and then she gets back to the song’s two-minute burst of shimmying grooves and effervescent guitars.

This isn’t an album of young love gone bust so much as it is one of young love gone tragic. On the opening verse of “Found Love in a Graveyard,” the hazy-voiced sweetness of Clifford sounds as if it’s locked in a dead-eyed stare. Patrick Doyle doesn’t harmonize as much as hover, and every brush of the guitar is spotless-clean, even as the minimal ol’-fashioned pop jangle builds to a trot.

In rotation: Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile, 'The Goat Rodeo Sessions'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

A “goat rodeo,” for anyone who may have skipped school that day, is an aviation term referring to “a scenario that requires about 100 things to go right at once if you intend to walk away from it,” according to UrbanDictionary.com.

These four high-flying instrumentalists couldn’t have picked a term more befitting the haunting, invigorating, often breathtaking clash of classical, bluegrass, folk, jazz and free-form music traditions they’ve pulled off together.

Bassist Meyer, fiddler Duncan and mandolinist Thile cut their teeth on bluegrass and country music, but long ago transcended any limitations of genre on their quest for new modes of expression on their respective instruments, while Ma has often applied his extraordinary classical chops to content beyond the standard repertoire.

In rotation: MGMT's 'Late Night Tales'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

When the duo MGMT broke into the mainstream with its great 2008 hits “Time to Pretend,” “Kids” and “Electric Feel,” the general sense was that it had hit on a particular sound at a particular moment, and when that moment passed it'd vanish until we got nostalgic for those songs at 2020 class reunions. Then MGMT released its 2010 follow-up, “Congratulations,” a strange, beguiling psychedelic guitar record that had very little in common with the earlier hits. “Late Night Tales” is a mix tape that connects the dots by way of illustrating the breadth of the duo's influences, and confirms that it has a very clear idea of what it's doing. 

In rotation: Fabian Almazan Trio's 'Personalities'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

 
Opening with Shostakovich's "String Quartet No. 10, Op. 118," 27-year-old pianist Fabian Almazan dispels any idea that he’s pursuing a conventional path with his debut album pretty quickly. Though taking a run at classical music isn’t too surprising in jazz’s musically omnivorous universe, Almazan’s approach is as his piano gives way to delicate strings, which are slowly squelched and melted down into a wash of effects and percussion until the song resembles something from Radiohead’s wheelhouse before the melody returns with an unruffled grace.

Such are the unexpected twists in "Personalities," a fittingly titled record showcasing the many gears at work inside of Almazan’s imagination, which has been heard as part of Terence Blanchard’s nimble quintet as well as Chris Dingman’s recent album “Waking Dreams.” Though the first song’s lush deconstructions are a head-turner, it’s a bit of a red herring as Almazan’s trio stays mostly acoustic apart from his sparkling turn on Fender Rhodes for “H.U.Gs (Historically Underrepresented Groups),” which features a punchy drive from bassist Linda Oh and drummer Henry Cole.