The Comet Is Coming – The Afterlife
Just nine months after the trio’s acclaimed Trust in the Life Force of the Deep Mystery, this follow-up isn’t a companion piece or add-on, but a new evolution of space-themed work, exploring further the interplay between Shabaka Hutchings’s ferociously brilliant saxophone, and the complementary musicianship of Dan Leavers on synths and drummer Max Hallett. It’s jazz, but not as we know it. The apocalyptic theme continues on All That Matters Is the Moments with guest poet Joshua Idehen proclaiming “the earth has cracked, the mountains popped”, channelling climate change as well as urban decay before the music steps into a astral-reggae space. Lifeforce Part II carries the a similar momentum of sax and electronica, while The Softness of the Present is a slower, gentler number, reaching into the cosmos. The trio are now stars in their own right, but there’s also elements of Sun Ra and Can to be found in this original, pulsating band who are utterly electric live. Out on Impulse.
The Comet Is Coming – All That Matters Is The Moments
The Who – Who
Who indeed? And why? An album written by Pete Townshend, and created without actually meeting up with his constant sparring partner and angry pro-Brexit figure Roger Daltrey, this first Who release for 13 years certainly isn’t a comfortable, complacent bit of dad rock. The disquiet, uncertainty over what the band is for, and whether it is valid anymore has been around ever since punk arrived. But Townshend’s songwriting talent remains, with echoes of old Who classics, from Detour which has the momentum of Magic Bus to the Grenfell Fire-inspired Street Song, which has some Baba O’Riley about it, and if Won’t Get Fooled Again comes to mind, then there’s also a bit of Substitute on I Don’t Wanna Get Wise. That song in particular, a title double-edged of course, grinds its teeth rock stars getting old. It’s echoes ghosts from the past, but shows that there’s still that unease that gave the band life in the 60s. And currently the world appears to be regressing, so perhaps an angry Who release now seems about right. Out on Polydor.
The Who – I Don’t Wanna Get Wise
Carla dal Forno – Look Up Sharp
Superbly stark, hauntingly beautiful work by the London-based Australian artist bringing out her second full album coming out over the autumn on her own independent label. A multi-instrumentalist and singer, she uses the gorgeous thrum of 60s-style Hofner electric bass and electronica to create something between lo-fi and trip-hop and an echo of atmospheric Joy Division and Cocteau Twins. Pin-drop-in-pond stillness is bathed in a dark, sepia-tinged aura, with some tellingly strong, cutting lyrics. So immerse yourself fully in the rich blackness, from opener No Trace to the singles Took A Long Time, and So Much Better, all the way to the lovely closer, Push On. Out on Kallista Records.
Carla Dal Forno – Took A Long Time
Nolan Potter's Nightmare Band – Nightmare Forever
It’s out there – an enthralling and amusing debut from Austin, Texas, fronted by the Nolan, conjuring up a heady mixture of flute-filled dreamy psych-folk-prog, channeling the Mothers, Pink Floyd, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Moody Blues, the Stark Reality, from the land of 1972 brought directly to 2019. Delivered with no shortage of music skill, but also irony, this is totally Wizard. Out on Castle Face.
Nolan Potter's Nightmare Band - Caberfae Peaks
Ms Banks – The Coldest Winter Ever Pt 2
The south London rapper returns with a follow-up to last year’s part 1 with more of an afrobeat and pop style, and she’s following the independent path as several parallel artists by not signing to a label but going her own way with UK garage to almost rave, from Bad B Bop to Back Up In This, to her best track, Desire. Self-released.
Ms Banks – Bad B Bop
Stick In The Wheel – Against The Loathsome Beyond
After various mixtapes, and earlier this year English Folk Field Recordings Vol 2., the core duo and former rave artists Nicola Kearey and Ian Carter return with more explorations of medieval folk songs given a drone-rock or early synth-style reinvention from Down In Yon Forest to Drive the Cold Winter Away, to the instrumental Moskeener. Fascinating, hypnotic, slightly artificial in delivery, but well worth exploring as a winter warmer. Out on From Here.
Stick In the Wheel - Drive The Cold Winter Away
Tune-Yards – Sorry To Bother You - Original Soundtrack
A vinyl release of the sharp, clever, innovative work by Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner from the 2018 film Sorry To Bother You, starring Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson) and directed by Boots Riley. This is different to the Soundtrack album by The Coup, as Riley puts it: ““The characters can't hear [the score]; the soundtrack, the characters can [hear].” The score also includes dialogue samples from the film and four bonus tracks never before heard in the film. The bonus tracks feature up-and-coming Oakland artists including Chhoti Maa as well as Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker.
Tune-Yards – SIGNS (Detroit’s Theme)
Doon Kanda – Labyrinth
The graphic designer Jesse Kanda, who has worked visual wonders with FKA twigs and Björk brings out is own innovative, otherworldly electronica – strange, eerie, working in sounds even the most studied music head may not have heard. His secret seems to be mix trashy sounds - the kind you might hear on ringtones, and turn them into something newer, oozing, blobby, echoey, shiny and dripping. Tracks worth checkiing out include Dio, Polycephaly, Mino and Nastasya. Out on Hyperdub.
Doon Kanda – Nastasya
Jeremy Walmsley – A Year
A solo project from the London singer-songwriter and TV/film music writer and Summer Camp man, here releases the culmination of one song per month in 2019. Wistful, gentle, Arthur Russell-style material, charting the progress or otherwise of a relationship across the year through the twists and turns of emotions. Folk runs through each of the songs January to June, things get poppier and more party mode in July and August, a little more indie in September, and leaves fall back to folk in October then returning to lo-fi into the winter towards and a lightly ironic carol-heavy December. A rather lovely cavalcade calendar of songs. Self-released.
Jeremy Walmsley – October
Various – I Hear A New World: The Pioneers of Electronic Music
The Christmas period is awash with artists’ compilation releases, this week, among which Burial’s Tuns 2011-2019 might catch the eye, or companion pieces to already released albums, such as Lee Scratch Perry’s Heavy Rain, a dub reworking of Perry’s Rainford album with Upsetter and co-producer Adrian Sherwood radically adding a host of guest musicians including Brian Eno and Vin Gordon. But this week’s pick of compilations is a gem of a different sort, going for electronica to old-school in the full sense, right back the soldering and connecting wires days of 1959 with Joe Meek and that famous title track, then into the early sixties through the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the solo work of Daphne Oram, Hugh LeCaine, Tom Dissevelt, Edgard Varèse, Olivier Messiaen, Ligeti’s Artikulation and Pousseur’s Scambi. Feel the throb, the buzz, the wobble, imagine flying saucers, and space travel, and the sheer sound of the excitement, a whole new audio world fizzing into the future. Out on Cherry Red.
Joe Meek – The Bublight
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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