Kimmie Rhodes — Hypnotized
It’s a long way from Knopfler’s classic Britain to Rhodes’ mythic Texas, but music has a way of bridging such distances. In 2006, Knopfler duetted with Emmylou Harris on “Love and Happiness,” a song Rhodes co-wrote. Rhodes is probably better known for her collaborations with Willie Nelson — they made an album of duets together, and Rhodes wrote the title track of Nelson’s 1995 record Just One Love — but she’s also made more than a dozen records of her own. Hypnotized, produced by Rhodes’ son, Gabriel Rhodes, might well be her best album, solely on the strength of the songs. “No Tom Petty” is the instant hook, a folk-rock tune spiked by Bill Carter’s harmonica that wonders aloud exactly how we’ll get by without the music of legends such as David Bowie and Tom Petty (“the world was bad enough already”). On the other hand, we’ve still got Alejandro Escovedo, who turns up as Rhodes’ duet partner on “If You Closed Your Eyes.” The record’s most intriguing track is “Invisible Mary,” a minor-key fever-dream that pushes Rhodes out of her country-rock comfort zone. On the album’s closing track, “Automatic Music Inc,” Rhodes grapples with a world of Auto-Tune and AI with observations such as “I feel like an old jukebox” and “I got flipped to the B-side of life” — but the song’s beautiful melody and exquisitely minimal arrangement underscore her point about the old-school methods of making music. — PETER BLACKSTOCK