Paul McCartney – McCartney III
Even Paul's doing home DIY out on Friday 18th December. A natural follow-on to his first self-produced solo record in 1970, where post-Beatles he recorded one of the highest profile lo-fi solo self-produced albums, McCartney I, than the poppier, synth-based McCartney II after Wings in 1980. So this third in the trilogy is all about spontaneity, noodling and experimentation that was never really intended as release. The material is mostly new, but also draws on unfinished older numbers. Seize the Day is clearly Covid-inspired, and like the rest of the album is built from live takes of vocals and guitar or piano, then overdubbing his bass, drumming and more. With photographs taken by his daughter Mary, with whom he was staying at the time, there's a continuity with Linda's family feel work in 1970. Overall, a charming curiosity, naturally catchy of course, such as the oddball Lavatory Lil, the eight-minute intertwining melodies and falsetto on the rather wonderful Deep Deep Feeling, the rippling guitar of Find My Way, or his intimate, aging voice on Pretty Boys, to lovely instrumental opener Long Tailed Winter Bird. The old boy has still got some tricks, releasing something weirdly apposite for these strange times. Out on Capitol.
Paul McCartney – FInd My Way
Taylor Swift – Evermore
The pop/country mainstream artist has excelled herself in this strange year with not one, but two atypical and rather good albums that strips back her skills with this ninth LP, following Folklore in July. This time the style is more semi-acoustic unplugged alt-rock with gently plucked and hammered on guitar and piano, melancholy ballads full of narratives and character studies, the ghost of commercial pop somehow brought into a more authentic light. Standouts include Willow, Champagne Problems, Tolerate It, Happiness, a cutting twist the the Christmas theme on ’Tis the Damn Season, Coney Island with National’s Matt Berninger on duet vocals, Dorothea, all about a country and western star wanting reverse the fame process, and closing title track featuring Bon Iver. Full marks for getting it done in 2020. Out on Universal.
Taylor Swift – Ivy
The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You
Melbourne's Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi return with their third album, speeding up a little with only a four-year gap since Wildflower compared the previous 16 year hiatus after Since I Left You. Sampling is still their calling card, but like Wildflower this one continues their path to greater calm and serenity, ambience and interweaving slower sounds. But the voracious appetite for collecting this time comes in a vast array of guest vocalists and a mass collaboration project. From soul to hip hop and psychedelia, the lists includes Jamie xx, Perry Farrell, Blood Orange, MGMT, Johnny Marr, Mick Jones, Cornelius, Leon Bridges, Tricky, Denzel Curry, and Sampa The Great. Standout tracks include Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O on the minimal piano-backed Dial D for Devotion, employing a lyric written by the late David Berman of Silver Jews, who died earlier this year, and in a nice homage link because he guested on Wildflower. Running Red Lights (with Rivers Cuomo from Weezer & Pink Siifu) is also includes Berman's lyrics from the Purple Mountains song "Darkness and Cold. Gold Sky includes Kurt Vile’s drawling alongside a gospel backing with Wayne Coyne coda, and disco-funk number Music Makes Me High. Overall, with 25 tracks and 71 minutes, once again it's a kitchen sink avalanche of styles and sounds. Out on Virgin.
The Avalanches - The Divine Chord ft. MGMT & Johnny Marr
Nas – King's Disease
After a two-year gap, a commanding, confident, slick steady return for the New York rapper with a string of guests (who isn't mass guesting these days?) that includes Charlie Wilson, Hit-Boy, Big Sean, Don Toliver, Lil Durk, Anderson .Paak, Brucie B, Nas's supergroup The Firm, Fivio Foreign, and ASAP Ferg. The album is produced by Hit-Boy who has worked with Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Travis Scott. The overall concept is to riff on, alongside perennial subjects such as money, crime, race and relationships, the battles of life on a pedestal. So with Covid in mind, the central theme is in an ideal world there could be a righteous king, but at the lowest of lows, we find that even the perceived elite can fall prey to disease. Generally backed by low-key piano, samples and rhythm, standouts include Ultra Black, All Bad (with Anderson .Paak), The Definition" (with Brucie B) and The Cure. Out on Mass Appeal Records.
Nas - Ultra Black
Sigur Rós – Odin's Raven Magic
A live album with a very big difference. Composed in the 14th or 15th century, Odin’s Raven Magic is an Icelandic poem in the ancient Edda tradition. The album is an orchestral collaboration between Sigur Rós, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Steindór Andersen and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir which premiered 18 years ago at the Barbican Centre in London and is now finally being released. The performance honours the poem, dramatic and beautiful, classical with modern streaks of electronica. As well the mix of Jónsi's voice alongside a more classical chorus, a stone marimba was built especially for the performance by Páll Guðmundsson. Soaring, ethereal and epic, in the poetic sense. Out on Krunk.
Sigur Rós - Stendur æva w/ Steindór Andersen, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson & María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir
Caro – Burrows
In a project that took years to come to fruition, the Leeds trio led by Adam Pardey release an wonderfully absorbing, very grow-on-you full LP debut that mixes of the downbeat and uplifting, otherworldly pop songs about isolation, introversion, mental instability, paranoia, confusion, suicide and self-loathing, but somehow making them sound like bright future-pop with echoes of Alt-J, Everything Everything, Sufjan Stevens, Villagers and St Vincent. It's the high, quirkily arrhythmic vocals that make the most obvious comparison with the first two, and the album is richly inventive throughout, keyboards intertwining playfully with bass and guitar, the latter often quietly acoustic, from opener Closet Lunatic to Cold Comfort, Burrows, Smorgasbord, all the way to final, 11th track Figure Me Out. "This whole life malarkey is a bit of a farce" we hear on Cat's Pajamas, but it's the joyously dark-humoured struggle that gives this album such an appeal. Out no Yala! Records.
Caro - Closet Lunatic
Alex Maas – Luca
A solo debut for the Black Angel's singer journey takes a hypnotic detour along the wild trails of his indigenous Texan homestead. Driven by the force of nature, each phase of life is celebrated through songs of love, hope, human connection whilst navigating perils of modern society and tentatively facing the darkness. There are flowers dancing the breeze, but there are also rattlesnakes lurking. With a camp fireside as well a mystical feel, there are echoes of Beth Gibbons, Sam Cooke, Lee Hazlewood, Vashti Bunyan, Mississippi John Hurt, and Huun-Huur-Tu here with tracks such as Slip Into, The Light That Will End Us, 500 Dreams, Been Struggling, What Would I Tell Your Mother, and American Conquest. Mesmerisingly different . Out on Basin Rock.
Alex Maas – American Conquest
M. Ward – Think of Spring
An optimistic title and with, ironically more than inspiration from one of music's great, but tragic figures, American artist Matthew Ward's 11th studio album takes all but one track from Billie Holiday’s 1958 album Lady in Satin, classic release filled with the American songbook with a 40-piece orchestra. This album's title actually comes from a poem written in 1924 by Jane Brown-Thompson that eventually became I Get Along Without You Very Well in 1938, naturally the first song here. Proceeds from this record will benefit Inner-City Arts & Donors Choose via Plus1 for Black Lives Fund. Ward, who only records in analogue and in other guises plays guitar for Norah Jones and is half of duo, interprets these numbers differently and far minimally with his gentle vocals and deftly picked acoustic guitar. It's a late-night style, fragile sound, not the swelling of a divine voice, but an intriguing, absorbing, and moving release, tinged with melancholy of course, improvising on the established melodies with a campside atmosphere. And worthy contribution to all the ways to respond to 2020, being his second LP this year after Migration Stories. Self-released.
M. Ward – I Get Along Without You Very Well
Flohio – No Panic No Pain
The rapper from Bermondsey in South London Funmi Ohiosumah's full debut album/mixtape is stark and abrasive at times, but has a clever mix of electronica combined with undoubtedly slick, staccato-spitting mic skills. It is full of seething attitude with a sinister undercurrent to the instrumental element, even with screaming echoes of 70s horror films as well as skit phone dialogues beginning with the opener FLOFLO! Unveiled is a standout track with its strange instrumental underbelly and others worth exploring Boobytraps, With Ease and Sweet Flaws. Tough, innovative and experimental. Out on Alphatone.
Flohio – Unveiled
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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