Emily Barker – A Dark Murmuration of Words
A beautiful title for an exquisite album by the Australian singer-songwriter, referencing not only the movement of starlings, but also poet Emily Dickinson’s assertion that “if you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves”. On these attractively nuanced folk songs, very much in the Joni Mitchell mode, Barker draws connections between the familial, the local, and the global: a mother sings to her unborn child, asking for its forgiveness on Strange Weather, while Where Have The Sparrows Gone? looks outside an apartment window and imagines a post-apocalyptic birdless London, and a monument to a Confederate general comes alive for a “how-I-got-away-with-it” confession on Machine. Quietly she tackles issues of racial and gender inequality, poverty and slavery, environmental exploitation and the climate crisis, finding them all connected by the dark shadow of patriarchy, pursuits of power, and the suppression of history. Out on Everyone Sang.
Emily Barker – The Woman Who Planted Trees
Throwing Muses - Sun Racket
Boston trio of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges return finally with a follow-up to 2013’s Purgatory / Paradise in an outpouring of modal guitars, reverb, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Hersh’s notebook of storylines. It's a 10-song opus of tales set against a wall of sound that’s at once calm and ethereal before building into cacophonous crescendos, but is a much more straightforward, basic song-structure album than their previous, from the throbbing opener Dark Blue is even heavier, built as it is on a grinding guitar riff through to the loud and swirling Bo Diddley Bridge. It's also worth checking out Milk at McDonald’s and the sneering, powerful Frosting. Smoky voiced and riff-tastic Out on Fire Records.
Throwing Muses - Dark Blue
Declan McKenna – Zeros
With this follow-up the 21-year-old from Enfield is cast as 70s glam rock throwback in the 1974 Bolan and Bowie mould. But on this second album after 2017’s lauded What Do You Think About the Car?, his panache and clear talent is very much on show, but musically, at least in voice is more indie than glam, sounding more like young Gaz Coombes from Supergrass, or Alex Turner, and with oodles of piano rock as his base, even dash of 70s Elton John. Apocalypse, space and identity are key themes, with Be an Astronaut perhaps the best, and fullest song, as well as the bold opener You Better Be Believe!!!, and The Key To Life On Earth, titles that reveal the scope of his ambition, while Beautiful Faces sounds very much like a big festival singalong. Certainly a star continuing to rise. Out on Columbia.
Declan McKenna – The Key To Life On Earth
Hannah Georgas – All That Emotion
A fourth album, and another Canadian, the 37-year-old singer-songwriter has a beautifully clear and langorous delivery on these 11 very consistent, thoughtful but emotionally punchy songs produced by The National's Aaron Dessner, who has been busy this year, with Taylor Swift's Folklore also under his belt. There's lots of bittersweet double-edgedness to Georgas's work, Pray It Away, for example, addressing her conservative family’s struggle in accepting same-sex unions. There's also a subtle but clever variety to her sound, from lovely vocal harmonies on That Emotion, strummed guitar about a relationship falling apart on Someone I Don’t Know, dance-pop on Dreams, gentle synths and beats mix with guitar on Just a Phase, and a bewilderingly clever set of style changes on Change. Overall it's work that sits cleverly between niche and originally, as well as potentially mainstream. Out on Brassland/Arts & Crafts.
Hannah Georgas – Just A Phase
Tricky – Fall To Pieces
Like on many of his releases, the guest singer's role is key, ever since the important Maxinquaye in 1995 saw Martina Topley-Bird take centre spotlight, even though Alison Goldfrapp, Ragga and Mark Stewart also featured on that album. So history repeats itself with on this 14th album by the British hip-hop pioneer, and a prominent role is taken by little known Polish vocalist Marta Złakowska, whose cool delivery perfectly complements Tricky's characteristically gruff rumblings. These short pop songs are refreshingly punchy and pithy, especially Fall Please, as well as Like a Stone and Vietnam, and an almost grungey sound on Take Me Shopping. Another one to try is the oddly arryhthmic I'm In The Doorway featuring Oh Land. Always absorbing, pushing the envelope and never complacent. Out on False Idols.
Tricky – Fall Please ft Marta Złakowska
Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith – Peradam
If you're looking for a sense of elsewhere, here it is. The sound of Himalayan winds, sacred mantras and water rippling in the holy river Ganges, invite us to Peradam, the transcendent new album by Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith, featuring Anoushka Shankar, Tenzin Choegyal, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. As well as Smith's profound, half-whispered narrative words, there's bird song, singing bowls and water rippling inspired by René Daumal’s early 1930s novel Mount Analogue: a Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing, in which the French writer, critic and poet mapped a metaphysical journey to “the ultimate symbolic mountain” in search of meaning. In it, Daumal introduced the idea of the “peradam”, a rare, crystalline stone – harbouring profound truths – that is only visible to seekers on a true spiritual path. Peradam arrives as “the final stone”, says Soundwalk Collective’s Stephan Crasneanscki, in The Perfect Vision, a triptych of albums that evoke and explore the sainted spaces of thought and creativity opened by three French writers. After albums devoted to Antonin Artaud (The Peyote Dance) and Arthur Rimbaud (Mummer Love), Peradam expands on “the living space”, says Smith, that Daumal left for future seekers to enter and create out of. Need escapism and answers? This is certainly worth a try. Out on Bella Union.
Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith – Peradam
Sarah Davachi – Cantus, Descant
Davachi is a Canadian composer who specialises in drone-based pieces that explore timbre and harmonics particularly in synthesisers, but here she has taken on a fascinating special project, playing and sampling five church organs in Amsterdam, Chicago, Vancouver, Copenhagen and Los Angeles, created a wonderfully rich and historic depth of sound that captures a reverberation through history. The tracks are slow changing but mesmerising, and challenging in an enjoyable way, such as Stations II, use ghostly tape echo effects also come into play On Still Lives and Hanging Gardens, on Gold Upon White we here integrated piccolo an Mellotron and Davichi also adds some low-key vocalisations on a couple of tracks. Out on Warp Records imprint Late Music.
Sarah Davichi – Play The Ghost
Allison Neale – Quietly There
The title says it all. Serene and sophisticated, understated and delicate with just an occasional hint of vibrato, the American-born alto saxophonist releases a classy album with a current quartet, joined by Dave Green on bass Steve Brown on drums and the celebrated New York guitarist Peter Bernstein. Channelling the West Coast sound, these 11 tracks, including Horace Silver’s Split Kick with an ingenious close-harmony theme, make up for a lovey late-night experience. Out on Ubuntu.
Allison Neale – I'm Glad There Is You
Richard Norris – Elements
Very much somewhere in the Tangerine Dream and Philip Glass school of long-form instrumentals, British electronic artist RIchard Norris's latest LP is deceptively simple and subtle, but utterly mesmeric, comprising five tracks that fulfill its title - Earth, Water, Fire and Air, with the fifth element being Space. Repeating patterns come with clever chord changes and a kaleidoscope of sounds mainly through analogue synths, although less is more is the central characteristic, marking slight changes to maximum effect. There are rich vocal harmonies on Water, a track that includes the multi-instrumentalist Bishi Bhattacharya who has a Bulgarian choir influence that clearly colours the track, but perhaps the simpler Fire, with its subtle shifts, is the most absorbing of all. Another late-night album to lose yourself in, medicate and enjoy. Out on Group Mind.
RIchard Norris – Water (with Bishi Bhattacharya)
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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