Tracyanne & Danny - Tracyanne & Danny
A very pleasing new collaboration by Glasgow singer-songwriter Tracyanne Campbell (Camera Obscura) and London/Bristol’s Danny Coughlan (Crybaby), with some co-production assistance from the great Edwyn Collins, who also sings on the song Alabama. Classy, vintage-style folk pop. Out on Merge Records.
Tracyanne & Danny – Alabama
Chvches – Love Is Dead
The third album from the Scottish synth-pop trio seems to have whittled away their quirkier electronica side and streamlined it for a wider audience - aiming for a big venue sound and sales to match. But while they are clearly aiming for greater commercial success, especially in America, singer Lauren Mayberry has separately made full-on criticism of the misogyny of the Donald Trump era, but how you square that with selling records across half of America will be difficult. Lyrically the album is full of generalisations of protest rather than specifics. Is this a compromise that will work, or backfire? Out on Glassnote/Virgin.
Chvrches – MIracle
Lindi Ortega – Liberty
Seventh album from the country singer has the feel of a western soundtrack influenced by Quentin Tarantino, from a film he hasn’t made yet. It’s got that feeling of impending death, shootouts and pacts with the devil. In other words, pretty good in a twangy guitar, tragic way. Out on Shadowbox Music.
Lindi Ortega - Liberty
Wooden Shjips: V
More rock psychedelia from the San Francisco experiental band on their fifth album. It unfolds slowly but with great fascination, like some trippy, multi-coloured flower from 1967, with plenty of space, echoey, jangly guitars by Ripley Johnson, and low-key vocals, and more than a hint of krautrock drumming. It’s a album to soak in throughout rather than just one track at a time. Out on Thrill Jockey.
Wooden Shjips – Eclipse
A$AP Rocky – Testing
Unashamedly over-to-the-top braggadocio gangster hip hop, but something that’s also not mainstream, from Rakim Mayers on his third album, mixing old and new school, and some odd moments, with a heavy sample of the Moby’s dreamlike song Porcelain, and featuring also Skepta Stormzy, Frank Ocean and Snoop Dogg. That’s quite a party, if something of a messy one.
A$AP Rocky – A$AP Rocky Forever (feat. Moby)
Agnes Obel – Late Night Tales
A fascinating and very fine new one from the long-running compilation series, picked out by the Danish singer-songwriter, including new from her, a reading of Danish song Glemmer Du, Inger Christensen’s Poem About Death set to original music, and an Agnes original, Bee Dance. On top of that there’s oodles of simmering, slow, haunting material including Ennio Morricone’s Evil Theme, CAN, Yello, Ray Davies, Lee Hazlewood, The Roger Webb Sound, the Bulgarian Women's Choir and Nora Dean. Very well chosen indeed.
Agnes Obel - Late Night Tales (Various
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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