Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features hip-hop from Athletic Mic League, chamber rock by Kingfisher, emo-punk via Normal Park, art-pop by Michael Abbey, and an Ypsi jam from Chirp.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features fishing-themed hip-hop from Old Trout, Balint Karosi playing the new organ in Ann Arbor's St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, gothy indie-pop by Sinbad, a new video by synth-poppers Same Eyes, and MEMCO mixes by MIMIMIMI and Sunjam.
 

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features an ambient-autumn theme with Night Office, Shells, Dr. Pete Larson, Benoît Pioulard, and Kai West soundtracking fireside chats and haunted nights. Immerse yourself.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features contemporary classical/ambient by Alex Blanpied, hip-hop folk by Nadim Azzam, hyperpop via GVMMY, early '90s-esque electronica channeled by Fantishow, and flannel-flying emo-punk from Normal Park.

Alex Blanpied, Will the Sun Still Shine Without Our Eyes to See It?
Baltimore composer Alex Blanpied, who studied at the University of Michigan, wrestles with the state of the world on his new album and more specifically where his generation fits into it as climate change, war, and demagoguery dominate the headlines. It's not an unfamiliar mindset for any young person to have—I know I had it and that was a hundred years ago. But most people in their early 20s don't have Blanpied's ability to turn those worries into compelling art that sounds simultaneously contemporary—samples and electronic elements abound—and classic(al).

Blues and swing are at the core of every piece Wynton Marsalis composes, every note he plays on his trumpet.

He also tirelessly talks to audiences of all kinds—from concert halls to classrooms—to explain why the blues and swing center his music.

Marsalis, along with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), will show and tell all about the blues and swing during his October 10-16 residency in Ann Arbor courtesy of the University Musical Society (UMS), which will include concerts, talks, and educational outreach. 

While Marsalis and Co. are yearly visitors to Ann Arbor, their appearance is happening a bit earlier in the calendar year than usual, so the JLCO big-band performance on October 16 at Hill Auditorium likely won't include the holiday repertoire that has helped define their previous concerts here.

But that closing concert won't necessarily even be the musical highlight of Marsalis' residency.

This story was originally published on September 16, 2021. We've updated it with even more Iggy Pop collaborations.
 

Iggy Pop is known for his outrageous stage antics, groundbreaking music, and massive influence on punk rock.

The Ypsi-Arbor native who was born James Newell Osterberg Jr. should also be known as a man who doesn't say no.

Ever.

Need someone to croon on your single? Tell Iggy the time and place and if he needs to wear a shirt.

Need a deep voice to sing-speak words over your music? Mr. Pop will suddenly appear in the studio, tap you on the shoulder, and say, "May I?"

Iggy even performed "Silent Night" with William Shatner—the. man never. says. nah.

I started thinking about Pop's predilection for partnerships after his latest collaboration hit my inbox.

Hammond B3 player Dr. Lonnie Smith is a master of soul jazz, which is not the first genre you would associate with Pop. Probably not even the last genre. But "Move Your Hand" is a single from Smith's latest Blue Note album, Breathe, and it features Pop riding the funky groove by sing-talking through a simple set of lyrics. 

This song follows two other 2021 Pop collaborations: He provided vocals on an alternate version of "I Wanna Be Your Slave" by Italian rock band Måneskin and repeats one word on the garage-rock single "I, Moron" by English duo The Lovely Eggs. (Iggy: "You need me to say 'moron' in 16 different ways? I got you.")

And as I was writing the above paragraphs, I discovered yet another new collaborative Pop effort came out: "European Son" with Matt Sweeney as featured on the new album I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico.

No is not a word Ig knows.

Aside from his work with fellow Ann Arborites the Ashton brothers in The Stooges, Pop's most famous collaboration was with David Bowie, who produced his 1977 albums The Idiot and Lust for Life. Pop also had a big hit in 1990 with "Candy" featuring The B-52s' Kate Pierson from his album Brick by Brick. 

In 1989, he joined the charity-single bandwagon many years after that was a thing by singing on "Spirit of the Forest," with the likes of Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr, Joni Mitchell, and ... Olivia Newton-John, among many others ... to benefit the Earth Love Fund foundation. Then followed that up by participating in a truly awful, Lenny Kravitz-produced, superstar-soaked cover of "Give Peace a Chance" in 1991. (Somehow never single achieved the same cultural saturation as "We Are the World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?")

But there are numerous other collaborations in Pop's career that feature him working with lesser-known or more esoteric artists, some of whom just sample his voice from interviews. I'm sure Iggy doesn't mind. He says yes to everything.

Below you'll find a selection of those recordings—oui, there are a lot of tunes in French—starting with the most recent.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features hip-hop from Mista Midwest, contemporary composition by Latitude 49, electro-pop by A Good Sign, indie-R&B by Dani Darling, and the latest MEMCO Exposure mix by Dimitra.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features hip-hop from Formula 734, Kiyoshi, and Digital Ether, country by Luna Pier, and bedroom hip-hop-pop by Cashmere + Casia.

When the Ann Arbor District Library's 2022 Summer Game came to a close on August 28, one name was top of the leaderboard among the record-breaking 10,114 participants:

Jib Kidder.

That name might be unfamiliar to you if you're not into underground electronic music—or missed the 2013 episode of So You Think You Can Dance that featured a guy getting down to "Windowdipper," Kidder's booty-bass track built from samples culled from the Windows operating system.

But for the past 15 years, the man born Sean Schuster-Craig has explored the more esoteric and experimental side of electronic music with relentless vigor while never losing track of the beat. When listening to his music, I kept thinking of the out-there sounds of Aphex Twin and Autechre if they kept their love of hip-hop in the foreground, but Jib Kidder cuts a singular figure as a creative individual.

Whether as a musician, visual artist, video creator, or in the case of our email conversation below, a writer, Kidder approaches his creative endeavors with a slice-and-dice intellectualism that mixes collage, social theory, and humor. (A recent post on his sometimes inscrutable Instagram account features an image with the words "philosophy is just electronic music but words," which seems an indicator of his approach to the arts.)

Kidder cites Weird Al as an early influence, but I have to think avant-garde art and political movements like the anti-capitalist Dadaists and Situationists are right up there, too, alongside his professed love of 1990s Southern hip-hop and, as he told me in one email, "Lindsey Buckingham and Roy Orbison - huge influences." (Kidder is also a classically trained guitarist in addition to being a sampling savant.)

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features punk-ish rock by Human Skull, avant-garde sound sculpting by Molly Jones & Hunter Brown, and various takes on electronica subgenres by Dillan Pribak, Broomway, and Future Holograms.