Any list of the tightest bands in the world would be incomplete if it didn't include The Roots.
The endlessly versatile Philadelphia-based hip hop crew are equally at home going on extended jazz runs — as was heard to notable effect during "Mellow My Man" early on in the ACL set on Saturday evening — or in the day job serving as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, or backing seemingly everybody from Jay-Z to John Legend when they want some live-band cred for a record, or recording a nigh-endless string of essential albums of their own.
In any case, there weren't a lot of tubas on stage at ACL, but it's guaranteed that none were funkier than the one featured in The Roots' set. Which is the point: It takes a band whose tightness is unquestioned, and whose versatility can be taken for granted, to pull off what The Roots accomplished onstage on Saturday.
On record, The Roots have settled into a role as hip hop's conscience. They're elder statesmen releasing records like last year'sUndun, a concept album about a murdered teen from the Philly projects, and which was the latest in a string of socially-aware albums.
Live, though, it's a different story. This is a high-energy party band, and it makes them an explosive festival act. Drummer ?uestlove (who played Saturday with his iconic afro braided down into cornrows) barely so much as lowered his sticks; a horny song like the 2003 single "Break You Off" flows effortlessly into 1997's hymn of romantic devotion, "You Got Me," and that song's minor-key guitar line still somehow seems designed to get heads nodding and hands in the air.
It takes that sort of greatness to pull off some of the left-field moves the band went for. An extended tuba solo during a hip hop show is one thing; the band launching into a cover of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" is another, but what the hell? We're partying out here!
It's the rare hip hop show these days where the emcee doesn't need to so much as address the audience to get them to put their hands in the air and wave 'em like they don't care 45 minutes into the set.
But that's what The Roots have been able to deliver for almost two decades now, and they don't show any signs of slowing down.
Annabelle Chairlegs fell into a concept album this time...or did she wake up to it?
Austin-based singer-songwriter Lindsey Mackin, a.k.a. Annabelle Chairlegs, is coming to consciousness and greater prominence with her third LP, Waking Up, out January 30. The dreamy album is appropriately hard to pin down but easy to listen to, a continuation of what the local artist has become known for over her 12 years in Austin so far.
Waking Up contains four singles — "Heavy Sleeper," "Concrete Trees," "Ice Cream On The Beach," and "Patty Get Your Gun" — six more regular tracks, and two bonus tracks for 12 in total. This release is her first with Todo Records, which is based in Austin with photographer Pooneh Ghana as well as New York City with Simon and Meesh Halliday.
This album cover was collaged in real life and shot in floating layers, a video shared on social media revealed.Album cover of Annabelle Chairlegs
"This is the first time I've ever released anything with a label, and it's interesting to have perspective," says Mackin. "They all voted for ["Heavy Sleeper"] as a single. And I was like, 'No way!' ... That's one of the oldest songs I've written on the album. So I think I just had a lot of space from it, and I was kind of forgetting about her a little bit."
It seems fans partially have the label to thank for the stylistic diversity of this album, but it's also Mackin's calling card. Los Angeles guitar savant Ty Segall surely had something to do with it, too, as the album's producer. Experimental moments like a stiltedly panned vocal intro in "Waking Up," the opening track, and an electrical insectoid buzz in "Shoo Fly" are scattered throughout, making the sweeter side shown in tracks like "Above It All" and "Sally" all the more surprising.
"Ice Cream On The Beach," one of those gentler tracks, recalls late-aughts indie rock and dream pop, ushering in a nostalgic feeling early in the record. Mackin says it's "a very different track than I've ever released before," and she enjoyed the "hard turn" into "Concrete Trees," which memorializes friends and family who have passed away. For "Heavy Sleeper," the songwriter was picturing racing cars and Quentin Tarantino films.
Hardly any artist escapes replicating styles from earlier times, but Annabelle Chairlegs — on this album in particular — seems to consciously wink at decades of music history while fusing, but not fully blending them: a grimy hipster take on 60s pop, something sonically descended from The Go-Go's in the 80s.
Mackin attributes this sensibility to studying acting in college and developing a love for musical theater, in an explanation where she charmingly slides 10 years at a time from talking about Vaudeville to 90s grunge.
"I love, love, love girl groups — like, 50s, 60s girl groups, and things like that," she says.
With all these touchstones, the visual imagery, and the album's evocative title and cover art, it's hard not to call it a concept album. She also talks about wanting to "color or paint" her home state of New Jersey using sound.
"I had recorded a full album a few years ago ... and then as I wrote other songs, I was like, 'Oh, these are all starting to make sense in this world together,'" Mackin explains. "So I scrapped the other album and sort of ripped it in half. [I took] the same-world songs and put them together, and then the other half the album is some other [theme]."
The proto-album was called Heavy Sleeper, and in newer songwriting, more positive themes started emerging from the "more dreamy and dark" primordial abyss. Waking Up, then, was the natural evolution. "It kind of turned into more of a concept as time went on," Mackin says. "It's fun to think about that now."
Fans have a couple of weeks to soak up the album before the release show at Mohawk on February 13. Annabelle Chairlegs will also play a show in-store at Austin's Waterloo Records on February 4, and another at Austin Psych Fest on May 9. After that, she'll embark on a European tour.
Waking Up is available to purchase on vinyl or as a download via Todo Records at todomusic.net. It is streaming on major services, and music videos or a visualizer for all four singles are available on YouTube.
The RootsPhoto by Jessica Pages
Photo by Jessica Pages
Photo by Jessica Pages
Photo by Jessica Pages
This album cover was collaged in real life and shot in floating layers, a video shared on social media revealed.Album cover of Annabelle Chairlegs