Taylor Swift – Folklore
Released with little fanfare and announced only a day in advance, this 16-track album, with a 17th on the physical release, is less the full-on pop of previous, nor a return to the Nashville of her roots. The surprise comes then, as a replacement for her planned headline slot at Glastonbury, and this is an interesting, introspective, low-key affair, produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner, and reminiscent of some of this band's work, with gentle guitar, gliding piano, soft electronica. This is more like work made by Sufjan Stevens or even Bon Iver than a pop mainstreamer, and no coincidence as Justin Vernon appears on the track Exile. There's strange, otherworldly sounds here, such as on the cavernous-sounding Cardigan, or the woozy pedal steel on Mirrorball, where she sings "I can change everything about me to fit in." Presented on YouTube with a series of picturesque landscapes and lyrics, this is an oddly absorbing album of direct lyrics, heartbreak and introspection, such as on Illicit Affairs, where she yearns for someone who "showed me colours you know I can’t see with anyone else”. Out on Republic.
Taylor Swift – Cardigan
Jessy Lanza – All the Time
Third album from the Canadian songwriter, producer, and vocalist is a mix of of electronica and R&B. Not your average, breathy, squeaky voiced lovesong popstar, although she audibly possesses those qualities, her strength is less in the vocals, more in the odd eccentricity of the music that backs it. Dubstep bass, crashing sounds, loops and beeps and squeaks and whoops on tracks such as Lick In Heaven or Over and Over, Anyone Around or Like Fire, Anyone Around or Face, mixing more commercial pop with quirky, nervy, fast-paced playful fun. Out on Hyperdub.
Jessy Lanza – Face
Shirley Collins – Heart's Ease
A second comeback for the English folk legend, who after the first, 2016's Lodestar, has truly returned with a superior album to embellish her reputation after three decades away with a set of songs to match her 1960s and 70s output at the tender age of 85. The bright Sweet Greens and Blues is perhaps a highlight, a reprise of a song written for her husband when their child was born, and closer Crowlink, a tribute to Collins’s beloved South Downs. Her voice is considerably deeper now, but the delivery has surety, dignity and presence, especially on Whitsun Dance. There is also a morris dance instrumental, Orange in Bloom, and the rather lovely and gentle Tell Me True. Collins seems to be the Johnny Cash of English folk, blossoming in her late autumn, with lovely colours. Out on Domino.
Shirley Collins – Sweet Greens and Blues
Seasick Steve – Love & Peace
Great tales, that charismatic of dirty blues, boogie, blues, rock, Americana and folk, the veteran is back with like a purring old motor, partly recorded in his barn, but mainly in Los Angeles at Studio 606 and at East West Studio 3. Standout ballads and stories include Carni Days, a great topic in itself with lovely video footage, the rockier Clock Is Running, the lively title track which does what it says on the tin, and kicks in after a psychedelic voice intro, and the more thoughtful Church Of Me. Always delivers the good stuff. Out on Contagious.
Seasick Steve – Carni Days
Kamaal Williams – Wu Hen
Quirky, invention second solo LP release by the south London keyboard player and producer, who has also released as one half of jazz duo Yussef Kamaal, mixing celestial jazz, funk, rap, jungle, house and garage, a combination that Williams calls wu-funk. He's joined by Miguel-Atwood Ferguson on strings, and saxophone from Quinn Mason, Greg Paul of Kalayst Collective on drums, Rick Leon James on bass and Lauren Faith as guest vocalist on Hold On. Lively rhythm and style changes abound, from the slower build of tracks Toulouse and Pigalle, to the sheer pace of Mr Wu, or the old-school electro sound of One More Time. Out on Black Focus Records.
Kamaal Williams – Mr Wu
Jon Hassell – Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two)
The American trumpet player and composer continues his long, now six-decade career with a companion piece to 2018’s Listening To Pictures, Pentimento is defined as the “reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over” and this is evident in the innovative production style that ‘paints with sound’ using overlapping nuances to create an undefinable and intoxicating new palette. Two eight-minute tracks buffer the album. Standout tracks include Fearless, with a metronomic, almost Can-like rhythm, and blurry, noir-ish texture of sound emerging like car headlights from the fog; it's mirrored at the end of the record by the beautiful sci-fi lullaby of Timeless, which has a gaseous, billowing quality as electronic clicks and bubbles float over a landscape of shimmering, glacially paced complexity. Bluesy, jazzy, alternative, dark, strange, like a a sort of out-of-space Bernard Herrmann or alternative, early 70s-era Miles Davis at times, indefinable, and rather wonderful. Out on Ndeya.
Jon Hassell – Fearless
Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers
Fifth album by the singer-songwriter from Phoenix Arizona is a melancholy breakup affair, a beautiful work of gentle mixture of piano and guitar accompaniment with a country twang. Love gained, love lost, all at a walking pace, charting slow motion tragedy and heartbreak. Her vibrato voice is perfectly balanced, her words weighted and nuanced, sounding like a female Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Standout tracks include Burlap String, If I Told, Old Flowers, Break The Spell, How You Get Hurt and Ships In The Night. Out on Loose Music.
Courtney Marie Andrews – If I Told
Dan Michaelson – Colourfield
Better known for his solo albums of dark, Americana tinged, gravelly voiced reflection with the Coastguards moniker, the British musician releases his first instrumental album mysterious orchestral with shimmering violins, and gently hooting woodwind, swelling horns and soaring strings among many other sounds. Inspired variously by John Adams, Steve Reich, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Caroline Shaw John Luther Adams, Spiritualized, Etta James and Gavin Bryars, the album comprises six long tracks simply numbered. Altogether mysterious and cinematic, stirring and inspired. Out on Village Green.
Dan Michaelson – Colourfield II
Mohit – Preface
The east London band release their debut of alternative, experimental jazz-rock-indie, highly experimental and explorative, with playful rhythm changes, wobbly guitar sounds, abstract melodies and sounds, this is avant-rock that is hard to pin down and uniquely different across all tracks. Just dip into their alternative world and see if it takes, from Racek to Ffion, (I Would Never Wash My Hair in That) Water to Yoghurt, Infinite Decay to Hiccups, it's out there, on DVTT Records.
Mohit – Ffion
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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