A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn.
A mortar and pestle I don’t make it to the practice space where I keep my drum kit often enough, but I do cook most weekends—and making a Thai curry paste from scratch in a granite mortar tickles similar parts of my brain. Sure, it’s like playing only one drum, and the tone is lousy, but it smells a lot better.
Abu Obaida Hassan & His Tambour: The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan by Abu Obaida Hassan
- Paolo Pandolfo performs the seventh movement of Bach’s sixth cello suite, adapted for viola da gamba.
Emma-Jean Thackray, Ley Lines (2018) I discovered Emma-Jean Thackray through her collaboration with Makaya McCraven. A producer and multi-instrumentalist based in London, she seems to be a true polymath: she performed all of 2018’s Ley Lines—drums, synths, singing, brass—by herself. She describes the process as stepping out of her usual role as bandleader and creating a community of characters (including outfit changes and fake names). I am entirely convinced by this groovy band of Emma-Jeans.
