BC Camplight – Shortly After Takeoff
The third instalment in his so-called Manchester Trilogy, and fifth overall, following Deportation Blues, the American singer-songwriter and honorary Mancunian Brian Christinzio's latest is something of a masterpiece of piano-pop originality, packed with strange sounds, synths mixed with old-school rock'n'roll, catchy tunes and hilariously dark, self-deprecatory lyrics full of killer one-liners and quick-sand suction, ironically painful jokes, centred around various phobias and passing age of 40 and other forms of personal turmoil from mental illness to alcoholism. Classic songs here line up one after the other like bar bottles, from Back to Work, I Only Drink When I'm Drunk, I Want To Be In The Mafia, Cemetery Lifestyle to Ghosthunting. Out on Bella Union.
BC Camplight – Back To Work
Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes – What Kinda Music
A slick, shiny, supercool and inventive collaboration between English musician and producer Misch and outstanding drummer Dayes, decorating this album with clever, cross-rhythm drum rolls and hollow wooden taps, is a fusion of jazz, hip hop, electronica and avant-garde from the more soul-based Tidal Wave and The Real, to the frenetic, distorted sounds of Sensational, and the trip hop style title track and lounge jazz of Lift Off and guitar riff on I Did It For You. Cool stuff. Out on Beyond The Groove.
Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes – What Kinda Music
Ezra Furman – Sex Education OST
After last year's more punk-style release Twelve Nudes, Furman's new LP is a 19-track selection of songs from season 1 and 2 of the hit Netflix TV show. Needless to say it's full of tales of love, loss, sex, and heartbreak, awkwardness, alienation. The songs focus around Otis Milburn, a socially awkward high school student who lives with his sex therapist mother. Milburn and his friend in turn set up a sex-therapy clinic at school. What could possibly go wrong? Potent music accompanies it all, with Furman adding a few choice tracks from his other albums Perpetual Motion People and Transangelic Exodus. Out on Bella Union
Ezra Furman – Love You So Bad
Hazel English – Wake UP!
Echoing the hazy, reverb pop styles of the 1960s on songs such as on opener Born Like or Milk and Honey, to 90s indie on Shaking, 80s pop on the title track or Like A Drug, the singer has moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles to explore a collaborative relationship with producer Justin Raisen, who has worked with Angel Olsen. A dreamy voice with wistful, walking pace tunes and an emotive delivery, this is very fine, consistent album that has something of the Cranberries about it. Out on Marathon Artists.
Hazel English – Off My Mind
Lucinda Williams – Good Souls Better Angels
The veteran American rock, folk, blues and country music singer with the gritty, gravelly voice returns with modern allegories of heartbreak the human struggle, touching on domestic abuse, distortions of social media and news through the prism of her classic style. There is even a rockier postpunk sound on the track Wakin' Up, as well the softer, more country style of Shadows and Doubts and When The Way Gets Dark, to the jazzier funk of Bone of Contention. Tough, timeless and wise. Out on Highway 20 Records.
Lucinda Williams – You Can't Rule Me
Santrofi – Alewa
Part of the Nigerian Afrobeat resurgence and the enduring influence of Fela Kuti, this young Accra-based band carry the baton with aplomb on their debut album, bringing a mixture of jazz horns, beautifully crisp and clean guitar riffs and call-and-response vocals. Don't even think of not dancing to any of it. Best heard live. Out on Outhere.
Santrofi – Alewa
Lennon Stella – Three. Two. One.
The former teen star in US TV series Nashville and one half of the sister duo Lennon & Maisy, now releases a solo album. It's a real contrast to the previous singles, with a more experimental element. The melancholy, slow ballad piano song Than I Am Now is more conventional but featherlight R&B and agile pop with tight overdubbed and backing vocals with JP Saxe on Golf on TV, or Games, or indeed Fear Of Being Alone is typical of her overall clean sound with a woozy twist. Out on Insanity Records.
Lennon Stella – Golf On TV
Kirsty Merryn – Our Bright Night
This second self-released album, and follow-up to 2017's She & I by the British folk singer-songwriter is beautifully pared back work, mainly on piano, with a simple time-based theme, beginning at Twilight going through to Dawn, passing various places with a series of storylines. Her voice echoes that of Sandy Denny. The perils of womanhood are a running theme, such as on Outlandish Knight, where a woman outsmarts the knight in question, or the loss of sanctuary in times past with the loss of monasteries. Maidens fair, sailors, rogues, thieves more, this is packed with dubious encounters wrapped in a wonderful musical landscape, typified by The Banks of the Sweet Primroses.
Kirsty Merryn – Outlandish Knight
Sneakbo: 9 Lives
The Nigerian-British south-London rapper has a particular line in Afrobeat to underpin his streetwise delivery The nine lives are like a diary of survival in a crime-ridden environment, but there's some clever, self-derogatory dark humour here and unusual rhymes, such as turning chili con carne into a verb. Out on Island.
Sneakbo - I Used To (ft. Stickz)
Lorenzo Sennim – Scacco Matto
The Italian arthouse trance producer returns with his fascinating formula of mixing rave music to areas that are experimental yet still euphoric, and can still, albeit slowly and surely, bring the drop. His trademark is to use synths to the max, and never actually bring any climax via vocals or drums in any moment in his music. It's like a disciplined form of musical tantric sex. Out on Warp.
Lorenzo Senni – Canone Infinito
Compilation of the week:
Joe Hisaishi – Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaish
Compilations, with so many regularly released, are generally not on the menu here, but this is an exquisite collection by the Japanese composer that also accompanies the re-release of his 30 albums. The new compilation spans his his nearly 40-year career, including his work with acclaimed film-makers Hayao Miyazaki and ‘Beat' Takeshi Kitano as well as selections from Studio Ghibli classics Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle and more. Minimal, intricately piano-based, poetic, subtly humorous, emotive and utterly gorgeous, just like the films they evoke. A true master at his peak to savour and enjoy. Out on Decca Gold and UMG Japan.
Joe Hisaishi – One Summer's Day
Pole – 123
An unusual reissue by the German musician Stefan Betke, with remasters of his three albums originally in the colours blue, red and yellow, from the 1990s with a 12inch thrown in. The distinctive sound of hisses and pops comes from a dropped and damaged Waldorf 4-Pole analogue filter that turned into a new sound that has influenced many electronica albums over the past 20 years with its crackle, whirs, pops and clicks. Out on Mute.
Pole - Silberfisch
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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