Week of Oct. 30: This week, A Cuban/Jamaican collaboration, The Go! Team, Rhye, and a weird wish from Morrissey. Cuba And Jamaica Meet… In Australia The Australian pianist and reggae producer Mista Savona is about to release an album called Havana Meets Kingston – a collaboration between Cuban musicians (including members of the famed Buena Vista Social Club) and some of Jamaica’s leading reggae and dancehall artists, including the legendary rhythm team of Sly & Robbie as well as more contemporary, rap-inflected singers like Turbulence. Although Jamaica and Cuba are geographically close, collaborations between the two are rare, possibly because both Jamaican reggae and Cuban son or rumba are built on such distinctive and possibly contradictory rhythms. But the first single from the new album, a version of “El Cuarto De Tula” (recorded on the original Buena Vista Social Club LP in 1997), cleverly makes the connection by clearing out some of the rhythmic and sonic layers of what starts as a typically Cuban song; this allows Turbulence to have his own reggae-based feature in the middle of the song. Rap provides a connecting thread too: the “Cubaton” artist El Medico’s verse is spat out in a rapid-fire Spanish that neatly fits in with Turbulence’s break, which comes at you in a high-speed burst of Jamaica patois. The video also contrasts the two dance styles – the Cuban, effortless and sexy, and the Jamaican, intense and athletic.  The album, Havana Meets Kingston, comes out on Friday, November 3. The Go! Team Meets The Detroit Youth Choir In another unlikely meeting of musical minds, the UK producer Ian Parton, who is the main, and sometimes only, member of The Go! Team, decided for the next album that he wanted the sound of a marching band “going rogue.” So he went to America to begin assembling the audio samples that he would fashion into new songs, and found himself using the videotape of some of those performances as well in the kaleidoscopic video for “Semicircle Song,” released today. The song and video are both built around samples of a marching band in Jacksonville, Florida; the voices come from members of the Detroit Youth Choir, who will apparently guest on other tracks on the album as well. Parton then layered various horns and percussion, all recorded to sound like they were played in a high school gym. The resulting track is catchy as hell, and has me looking forward to the release of the full Go! Team album, called Semicircle, on January 18.  The Go! Team will play in NY at Le Poisson Rouge on April 9.  A Strange Wish For You From Morrissey Since his days fronting the British band The Smiths in the 80s, the singer Morrissey has been the king of mopey rock – mostly because his songs rock even harder than they mope.  (His caustic wit doesn’t hurt either.) That is the case with the stirring new single “I Wish You Lonely,” from his forthcoming album Low In High School.  Morrissey rages against a society that turns people into cannon fodder while the guitars slash and burn.  And the title?  Remember, this is the guy who in his memoir addressed the question of his sexuality by stating that he was neither heterosexual nor homosexual but was “humasexual. I am attracted to humans. But, of course, not many.”  So for him to wish you loneliness might just be his way of saying “have a nice day.” Low In High School comes out on November 17. Rhye Releases New Single and US Tour Dates The Canadian-Danish duo known as Rhye makes music at the intersection of R&B and minimalist electronica. That might sound like a pretty obscure corner of Music Town, but Rhye’s first single and subsequent LP were rapturously received; their video for “Open” has been viewed almost 40 million times on YouTube, for example, and they are popular enough to be playing large venues like Brooklyn Steel here in New York. All this despite continued confusion from listeners who are convinced they are listening to a woman sing.  They are not.  (The band clearly has fun with this – that debut LP was called Woman.) Michael Milosh’s voice has drawn comparisons to Sade, and like that British-Nigerian singer, Rhye have a knack for using unexpected instrumental touches. The new single, “Taste,” is a slinky, midtempo number built on a steady electronic pulse, but it’s got an interesting arrangement that uses multiple clarinets – not an instrument you hear a ton of in either R&B or electronic music. Strings and piano are subtly deployed as well. It’ll be interesting to see how they present this music live; New Yorkers will have a chance to find out when the band plays Brooklyn Steel on March 2, 2018.  The War On Drugs’ New Video Is A New Take On “Going Green” The War On Drugs released their fourth album, A Deeper Understanding, in late August and it debuted in the Billboard Top Ten. The band’s classic rock sound might make them the sonic heirs to the recently deceased Tom Petty, although singer/multi-instrumentalist Adam Granduciel writes much more elusive and metaphorical songs than Petty’s straightforward anthems. The band has just released a video for the song “Nothing To Find,” which features 15-year old Sophia Lillis, one of the stars of the recent horror film It. There’s no evil clown-monster here, but there is an almost comically leafy car and companion on what is essentially a weird take on a road trip, with an ambiguous ending.  Cat Power Releases A Bunch Of Old Videos What is Chan Marshall, the singer/songwriter who performs as Cat Power, up to?  Her website hasn’t been updated since 2012; her record label’s page for her has no recent entries; and now, suddenly, a bunch of her old videos have appeared on YouTube. Cat Power suggested via Instagram this summer that a long-awaited new album is coming, but she provided no details. Perhaps the YouTube salvo is a way of priming the pump? They seem to have been released with no fanfare. I’ve seen three: “He War,” from 2003; “Nude As The News” from 1996; and, here, “Cross Bones Style,” from 1998. They all seem to have been redone in HD, though the “Cross Bones Style” video – a kind of good-natured takeoff on the Madonna “Lucky Star” dancing video – still screams “1990s.”  The song, though, has always had a timeless quality – take away the instrumental backing and the melody could be a centuries-old folk tune.