Further explorations of the best music of 2012.

Cody ChesnuTT’s The Headphone Masterpiece is one of my all-time favorite albums and I’ve been patiently waiting (10 years) for his follow-up. Well, this past Tuesday Cody delivered a new record, Landing On A Hundred, and while it’s a departure from the innovative lo-fi eccentricities of Masterpiece it is no less wonderful. The new album is more easily categorizable - solid soul and funk - and therefore may end up reaching a larger audience. I hope so. ChesnuTT is keeping alive the flame set by cats like Gil Sott-Heron, Al Green and Oscar Brown Jr. He’s the real fucking deal.

Lyrically, it sounds like ChesnuTT has exorcised some of the demons that haunted his past. Perhaps that’s why the new stuff is less whacked-out than the old - and I miss some of that wackiness - but whatever is keeping ChestnuTT alive and well is more important than what was fueling his wilder proclivities.