Get the latest gossip
Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Past Is Still Alive review – a time-shifting personal journey
The US singer-songwriter reminisces about their runaway past and loved ones lost on their folk-inflected ninth album
There’s a sense of time looping in Alynda Segarra ’s ninth album, in which the New Orleans-based singer-songwriter revisits their saturated backstory to remember loved ones, honour fellow travellers and “watch the world burn” with a tear in their eye. Another time shift: after a couple of recent more electric and pop-oriented outings, Segarra’s latest boomerangs them back into folk-adjacent territory with a classy band in tow, subtly accessorised by strings, brass and keys. Songs such as the excellent Hawkmoon or Colossus of Roads remember “drinking a fifth before three”; the latter namechecks poet Eileen Myles and the title nods to the late oil pen boxcar artist Buz Blurr.
Or read this on The Guardian