Fiona Apple – Fetch The Boltcutters
This could very well be one of the best of the year. Only her fifth LP in almost a quarter of a century, and eight years since her last, the title takes a line from The Fall TV cop series. Fiona Apple is one of those artists who lies low for years and then brings out a work of startling originality. And she’s done it again. Her voice is ever more surprising, emotional, husky, raw and animated, but it's the musical sound she produces here that makes it so different, a work recorded almost entirely in her home. On the title track there's the sound kitchen implements, dog bark and cat meow, and apparently she used the bones of her dearly missed, diseased dog Janet within the percussion – so "no half measures" as she’s said in a recent interview. The rhythms are complex and wild, with a call-and-response primal feel to it on Kick Me Under the Table, with double Dutch skipping rope rhythm on For Her. It’s all very visceral and non-digital. And on I Want You to Love Me there's a heart-stopping piano and vocal performance that becomes like a twisted ecstasy of climax in her vocal delivery, throbbing and swallowing in and out of time. This is a combination of Tom Waits at his most clanking oddness and Joni Mitchell in The Jungle Line. There's simply no one like Fiona Apple out there – uncompromising, passionate, intense and always innovative. Out on Epic.
Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters
EOB (Ed O’Brien) – Earth
Radiohead's other guitarist and affable all round very nice chap releases his first solo album under the EOB moniker. It's a mixture of delicate folk (Brasil, Cloak of the Night) and euphoric house (Olympik). There's some beautiful moments here, with touching lyrics, but while it's not a Radiohead album, it feels like a basement version of one, not different enough maybe, particularly on Shangri-La where there's a ghostly echo of the real thing. While his bandmates also make their solo LPs, O'Brien was never planning this, yet it somehow happened, shored up by a stellar cast of collaborative support acts: Omar Hakim, Colin Greenwood, David Okumu, Laura Marling, Adrian Utley, Nathan East and Glenn Kotche. Out on Capitol.
EOB – Shangri-La
Rina Sawayama – Sawayama
Debut from the Japanese pop artist is a fascinating mixture of powerful pop in all sorts of guises. A feel of Britney Spears’ Toxic on the song XS, heavy, baby metal on STFU, breathy pop on Comme Des Garçons, Lady Gaga sounds on Akasaka Said, R&B on Bad Friend, stadium rock on Who's Gonna Save You Now?, romantic chimes on Tokyo Love Hotel. She even has hair that's a bit like that of Billie Eilish. At the beginning of Chosen Family she says: "Where Do I belong?" That's a good question, but she certainly has a great voice and a huge musical range. This is a career that could go anywhere, including up and up. Out on Dirty Hit.
Rina Sawayama – XS
Gerry Cinnamon – The Bonny
The Scottish singer-songwriter, who has a huge live following, especially north of the border, but a low profile in the media, releases his second album. His first, Erratic Cinematic, went gold, and this is testimony to word of mouth and a grassroots following, all done under his own independent label Little Runaway. On Sun Queen he sings “Fakes in bands only wanna get wasted / They wear nice clothes but they’ll never even taste it.” His acoustic guitar is beautifully clean sounding, and his double-overdubbed vocal delivery is direct, witty and honest, and keeps it all simple. These songs are slightly reminiscent of a younger Billy Bragg, but with an entirely different accent, of course. This a proper down-to-earth, straight-talking singalong material, mostly acoustic, but Where We’re Going, with a full band, has a dash of New Order, with on the title track, laced with mouth organ, there's a melancholy. Not massively original, thumpingly decent. Out on Little Runaway.
Gerry Cinnamon - Canter
Sonikku – Joyful Death
Debut LP for Tony Donson aka Sonikku, the London-based electronica dance music artist, is a fuent, fertile and full-colour hybrid of vibrant Italo-house, camp, liquid synth-pop and disco, melancholy and upbeat. Remember To Forget Me (with Chester Lockhart) is reminiscent of early Depeche Mode, while WKND, featuring guest vocalist Liz, has echoes of early "Holiday"-era Madonna laced with a deep late 80s deep rave beat. Just get up and dance, even on Don’t Wanna Dance with You, with singer Aisha Zoe. Out on Bella Union.
Sonikku - WKND (feat. LIZ)
Plone – Puzzlewood
Third album, finally, from vintage synth maestros Billy Bainbridge and Mike Johnston, is full of lovely gurgles, plops, tinkerings and even some gentle reggae sound system plodding. The pair come the Birmingham 90s scene of Pram and Broadcast. It is as if you've entered a gentle world of retro TV themes, particularly the title track and Watson's Telescope and the boing-y head-nod sound of Just A Shadow. There are plenty of changes of pace, from the more upbeat Build a Small Fire, to the stillness of nature on Red Kite, or the more ambient Day Trip, that then morphs into a wobbly dance track. Old-school electro that's lots of fun. Out on Ghost Box.
Plone - Day Trip
Holly Penfield – Tree Woman
Wit, charm, timing and turn of phrase are part of the armoury of Holly Penfield, a classy San Francisco singer who has been based in London for 25 years, performing particularly in jazz cabaret settings, including previously a show of Judy Garland songs. But here she finally unleashes an album of self-penned originals, with a running theme to grab life by the horns, and like many artists, brush off past depression. In style much of this is a blues-rock-country-pop mix with her passionate, powerful voice, at times somewhere between Shirley Bassey and Shania Twain (yes this is a compliment). The lead single is more a Latin-style number inspired by a Buenos Aires graveyard – La Recoleta, embracing both life and death. Penfield is not afraid to get raunchy, such on the title track, an extended sexual metaphor, or, on the love song, In Your Arms. With that microphone at a dinner party confident style, she playfully lists a series of music greats but, putting them aside, she focuses on her love of one particular artist – the gravelly great Tom Waits. You can feel the joy and relief in her as someone who has been wanting to do this for years and now, finally it's out there. A darling of an alternative scene that includes the alternative cabaret Salon Creme Anglaise, she says: "If you think you might be a misfit, don't be sad, be proud of it." Out independently.
Holly Penfield - La Recoleta
Shabazz Palaces – The Don of Diamond Dreams
Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler is formerly of that once lauded innovative hip hop band Digable Planets that dissolved in 1995. This is now his fifth album with Shabazz Palace alongside multi-instrumentalist Tendai Maraire, and another venture that began with so much critical acclaim with the debut Black Up. This is eclectic, eccentric hip hop, full of experimentalism and oddball sounds, abstract, twisted vocoder and distortion, slow build, echoes, a sort of space jazz, particular on Chocolate Soufflé, It's cool like that, but with strange, slow noodling bass lines and plodding rhythms and pronouncements, such as on Thanking The Girls. Out on Sub Pop.
Shabazz Palaces - Fast Learner
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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