Bill Callahan – Gold Record
Brilliantly dry, wry, humorous and emotionally poignant, the man of Smog returns with a suitably ironic, if hopeful, title and songs that are as good as any his career, featuring mostly just his golden voice and guitar, and this one marked by a theme of climbing into the first-person narration of characters in different situations. In Pigeons (see also our New Songs section) a reticent limo chauffeur is asked marriage advice by newlyweds, and their are humorous references to Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen. In The Mackenzies, a man fixing his car who has his own family is welcomed in by elderly neighbours who decide he is their dead son, and he tenderly plays along with the situation in a painfully touching dilemma of politeness. And there is also a tribute to another musician within the song titled Ry Cooder – "so laid-back and exact in his attack". You could say the same of Bill too. Out on Drag City.
Bill Callahan – The Mackenzies
Disclosure – Energy
Unsinkably positive in a year when clubs and music venues are shut, the English Lawrence brothers return with songs that celebrate dance culture with clever, catchy beats and a series of guest voices whose talents are given a bright, and sometimes new light. The title track, previously featured on our New Songs section, includes the stirring pronouncements motivational speaker Eric Thomas, and an amusing video inspired by a scene from Woody Allen's Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex .... For a harder edge, My High jumps interesting between rappers Aminé and Slowthai, and Kelis takes no prisoners on the disco house tune Watch Your Step. Not every track is a banger, and some more filler, but perhaps the best is Fatoumata Diawara's guest role on Douha (Mali Mali), an effervescent take on French house. Overall injection of dance adrenalin to help escape darker times. Out Island Records.
Disclosure - Energy
Angel Olsen – Whole New Mess
Not so much a new album of songs per se, but a skeletal reworking of Olsen's acclaimed 2019 album All Mirrors, including Lark, Summer, and Chance. But here she has eschewed the lavish orchestrations and gone back to the original songs, baring the emotions and wounds again with just a few guitars and some microphones, isolated in a century-old church in the Pacific Northwest and amended titles. It's a raw, tense, powerful, mood-shifting, if slightly shrill and echoey alternative take on a great album across 11 solitary songs that capture the flavour now of 2020. Out on Jagjaguwar.
Angel Olsen - Chance (Forever Love)
My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall II
The Kentucky rock band fronted by Jim James return with what is essentially all the songs they couldn't fit onto the well-received 2015 album The Waterfall. This is a mellower second half as it turns out, but there is a variety of styles from lilting sunshine-pop to ramshackle rock and roll, but the lyrics are thoughtful, wistful and sensitive and much of the music is quieter and more reflective. Feel You is a psychedelic epic track, Run It is a song about “the desire to disappear and turn back into water,” while Magic Bullet is a reaction to gun violence. Generally more about healing than conflict, it's one of those albums that where got the material from an inspired time, then it can still be relevant. Out on ATO Records.
My Morning Jacket – Feel You
Washington – Batflowers
Dark, broody pop with a bright, fresh sound on this third album by Megan Washington, a decade on from the former Brisbane guest TV presenter's debut, I Believe You Liar, less anguished than 2011’s Insomnia, less grand than 2014's There There, but the title track offers a fuller sound, and through the downbeat introspection there is even a sense of optimism in these rather glistening sounds. Check out Dark Parts, Lazarus Drug, Catherine Wheel, Switches, and Kiss Me Like We're Gonna Die and of course Batflowers itself. Out on Island Records.
Washington – Dark Parts
Babe, Terror – Horizogon
Strange, disturbing but absolutely fascinating, and of course absolutely on point during pandemic and lockdown, this is presented as "a soundtrack from an apocalyptic São Paulo,” according Claudio Szynkier, AKA Brazilian electronic producer Babe, Terror. There couldn't be a more appropriate moniker for someone living in a country with a spiralling Covid-19 run by a bonkers right-wing president. Szynkier also shot a full-length film of isolated São Paulo to accompany this record, and its many strange sounds evoke a disturbing world struggling but still full of hidden life around the clattering noises, discordant drones, delicate piano melodies, and constant, restless disruption of ghostly vocal harmonies. Very much another record for our times. Out on Glue Moon.
Babe, Terror - Salina Lúmen
Kelly Lee Owens – Inner Song
The 32-year-old Welsh electronic musician and producer releases only her second album after 2017's well-received self-titled, but she's already had a very varied and interesting career, from working as a cancer nurse in Manchester to collaborating variously with Daniel Avery, Jon Hopkins, St Vincent, and here, on Corner of My Sky, the great John Cale. There is a mixture of the offbeat, the downbeat and upbeat here all with a quirky twist. Tracks to try: Arpeggi, Melt! L.I.N.E., Corner Of My Sky, On. Out on Smalltown Supersound.
Kelly Lee Owens – Melt!
Afel Bocoum – Lindé
The Malian singer and guitarist is both an early and late bloomer. He was heralded by Ali Farka Touré as a teenager, but didn't release his own album until almost 40 years later, and was part of Damon Albarn’s Africa Express shows and the 2002 album Mali Music. Albarn is involved again as exective producer on this fine album with a clever sprinkling of guests, such as Jamaican veteran trombonist Vin Gordon on the reggae-style Bombolo Liilo, and Joan As Policewoman playing violin on Fari Njungu. Perhaps most pleasing is the song Avion, with that Bamako, female backing vocals, guitars and kora. A refreshing, invigorating record that faces life's tough problems head on. Out on World Circuit.
Afel Bocoum – Avion
Floodlights – From A View
Straight-up, sincere, sensitive guitar, bass and drums indie songs from the Melbourne band of Louis Parsons, Ashlee Kehoe, Joe Draffen and Archie Shannon in their debut album. Classic wistful themes are here – personal crossroads and life choices, regrets, identity, misuse of power and more, and their style echoes Rolling Blackouts FC, The Chills, Goon Sax and Jonathan Richman. Standout tracks include Water's Edge, Walk Away, Matter of Time, Glory of Control and Tropical Fun. Out on Woo Me!
Floodlights – Matter of TIme
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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