Album reviews: July 2013

This month's album releases reviewed by the Evening Standard's music critics
26 July 2013

Come back here next Friday for reviews of albums released on Monday Aug 5

Released on Mon Jul 29

POP

AlunaGeorge
Body Music
(Island)
****
Aluna Francis and George Reid have taken their time producing their debut album after early buzz (tipped them last September) but have succeeded in creating a sound that’s distinctively theirs — no mean feat in electropop. Francis’s feline voice is perfect for Reid’s minimal grooves. They ease you into their late-night world with the sparse, slow jam Outlines, before summoning a little more movement with the rubbery bass of You Know You Like It. The pace finally picks up with the stuttery beats of Lost and Found, and there’s a cheeky cover of Montell Jordan’s 1995 hit, This Is How We Do It, at the end but mostly it’s a collection of low-key excellence.

David Smyth


Alela Diane
About Farewell
(Believe)
****
Some albums scream for your attention; others whisper gently in your ear. The fourth offering from Nevada City’s Alela Diane is the latter variety — 10 gorgeously understated tracks built on little more than plucked acoustic guitar and Diane’s crystalline voice. The close harmonies of Colorado Blue recall Fleet Foxes, while the windswept folk-rock of Black Sheep nods to Neil Young. If the 30-year-old is using old tools, with them she’s crafted songs filled with emotion and melody that reward repeated listening. It’s unlikely to translate into chart success but fans of simple, old-fashioned songwriting will find plenty to enjoy here.

Rick Pearson


Backstreet Boys
In a World Like This
(BMG)
***
Having apparently sold more than 130 million records in their 18-year career, Backstreet Boys are the American equivalent of Take That: a band who transcended boyband roots to become an adult phenomenon, although the American quintet are much less involved in the songwriting than their British counterparts. Now back to full strength after Kevin Richardson formally rejoined last year, their eighth album is less strident than the previous seven — bar the stomping Feels Like Home — and is as efficient and clinical as globe-straddling pop ought to be. Superb, often spine-tingling harmonies — always Backstreet

Boys’ chief strength — abound, be it in the multi-layered standout Soldier or the breezy title track, which even carries hints of Tom Petty at his most windswept. It’s predictable but it’s no less rewarding, and no less expertly crafted for all that.

John Aizlewood


Martin Simpson
Vagrant Stanzas
(Topic)
****
If you’re looking for a chuckle before, or after, sunset, then you can forget this record. Martin Simpson is an uncompromising folk-music purist whose selection of guitars, banjos and their strings are faithfully annotated in the sleeve notes, although he does not give the provenance of his austere fisherman’s jumper or the details of his moisturising regime. Vagrant Stanzas is a record of austere beauty and purity. The man plays his assortment of acoustic and electric instruments with a skill approached only by Richard Thompson. His northern mate Richard Hawley helps with production. Highlights include Diamond Joe, popularised by Bob Dylan, and North Country Blues, written by Dylan. Simpson has a style that might be described as finger-pickin’ good — check out the instrumentals Lorena, Molly as she Swings and Come Write Me Down. There’s no nod to fashion here.

Pete Clark


JAZZ

Reuben Fowler
Between Shadows
(Edition)
***
It’s a fact of life that today’s young trumpet pros spend more time reading music than standing up and playing. In earlier days an award-winning Royal Academy graduate such as Reuben Fowler would have formed a quartet and blown to his heart’s content. Instead, his impressive debut album is a big-band extravaganza designed to showcase his composing and arranging skills. Recorded in London and New York, it finds soprano saxman Stan Sulzmann and US trumpeter Tom Harrell taking the juiciest solo spots and an uncredited altoist, probably Sammy Mayne, voicing the album’s sole ballad, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Fowler doesn’t mind all that. His original use of voices and lustrous ensemble scoring, particularly for brass, are obviously targeted at an orchestral career.

Jack Massarik


WORLD

Jaipur Kawa Brass Band
Dance of the Cobra
(Riverboat Records)
***
One of the Britain’s enduring legacies in India is the brass band – not that Indian brass bands sound anything like the military or colliery bands we might be familiar with here - essential at weddings and other celebrations. From Jaipur, in the desert state of Rajasthan, this band plays a wide-ranging repertoire of Rajasthani folk and Bollywood songs full of exuberance and musical humour. Put together by percussionist Hameed Khan, trumpets duel with reedy clarinets over a vibrant tapestry of percussion. The band also features a charismatic dancer who mirrors the movement of a snake, hence the album’s title. The band is performing at festivals all over the country this summer.      

Simon Broughton

Released on Mon Jul 22

POP

Johnny Borrell
Borrell1
(Virgin EMI)
**
Just when you thought Johnny Borrell couldn’t get any more ridiculous, he releases this utterly bizarre solo album. Complete with song names such as Pan-European Supermodel Song (Oh! Gina) and Cyrano Masochiste, it finds the former Razorlight man ditching the indie-rock in favour of cod reggae, French chanson and liberal helpings of saxophone. The lyrics are little better. “I received an erotic letter, but it didn’t turn me on,” he deadpans on the unintentionally hilarious Erotic Letter.

Dahlia Allegro proves he still has a golden touch for melody and a decent rock voice. Highlights are few, however, in an album as misguided as Borrell’s previous declaration that he’s a better songwriter than Bob Dylan.

Rick Pearson


Jahmene Douglas
Love Never Fails
(RCA)
*
As Nick Berry once told us, every loser wins. Jahmene Douglas failed to win X Factor 2012 but the former shelf-stacker has somehow secured himself a record deal. The grisly result is 10 dashed-off, syrup-laden, charisma-free cover versions from Emeli Sande’s Next to You to Bob Dylan’s Forever Young via Beyoncé and Whitney Houston. The lumbering arrangements are desperately shabby, but the central problem is Douglas himself. Simpering like a wounded puppy rather than actually singing, such is his incomprehension of songs as multi-layered as Sarah McLachlan’s In the Arms of the Angel that he diminishes everything he touches. As a result, Coldplay’s Fix You is delivered with the presence of someone popping round to fix the central heating, while his ruining of the gospel chestnut His Eye on the Sparrow takes gormlessness to new levels. Unspeakable.

John Aizlewood


F*** Buttons
Slow Focus
(ATP Recordings)
***
That childish band name aside, Bristol’s Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power are making distinctly adult music on their third album.

Trading in an electronic version of post-rock with slowly shifting instrumental textures and a bassy growl dominating over softer synths, Slow Focus is not an easy listen.

It could have signalled an unlikely shift towards the mainstream after two of the duo’s songs played roles in last year’s Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Instead it heads to even darker places, with Brainfreeze built on earbashing tribal drums and Sentients featuring what sounds like one of those giant robots that is always destroying the world in films nowadays.

The hip hop feel of The Red Wing offers a rare lighter touch — otherwise it’s heavy going.

David Smyth


Nadine Shah
Love Your Dum and Mad
(Apollo)
****
Please look beyond the clunky title of this debut LP, because there are compensations within. Nadine Shah — complete with Pakistani and Norwegian antecedents — has the voice of a goddess. It has been compared to the young Polly Harvey and Marianne Faithfull although, to me, it is closer to Amy Winehouse, if the latter had chosen dark pop. Producer Ben Hillier has influenced proceedings: having worked with Blur, Depeche Mode and The Horrors, he evidently has a preference for the mixed-metaphor backdrop. Acoustic guitar and plaintive piano are menaced by thudding percussion and industrial electro-noise to great effect. Aching Bones, To Be a Young Man, Runaway and Dreary Town are treasures. All I Want offers prosaic romanticism. You might want to get this now and put it away until the nights draw in.

Pete Clark


JAZZ

Eldar Djangirov
Breakthrough
(Motema Music)
*****
Born in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic as difficult to pronounce as it is to spell, pianist Eldar Djangirov was transplanted to Kansas City at 10, forwarded to San Diego in his teens and currently lives in New York, so his remarkable keyboard prowess bespeaks a classic combination of nature and nurture. Even on themes as basic as Somebody Loves Me and No Moon at All, his jazz conceptions with bassist Armando Gola and drummer Ludwig Alfonso sizzle with originality. Classical training is obviously present, yet his steely rhythmic momentum and glorious right-hand fluency recall jazz masters from Oscar Peterson to Chick Corea. Tenorist Chris Potter and vibist Joe Locke make stylish guest contributions to an album that clearly announces a vibrant new talent.

Jack Massarik


WORLD

Habadekuk
Hopsadaddy
(Go Danish)
****
I think this disc may have passed me by had I not been lucky enough to see this Danish band recently headline at the amazing Rainforest Festival in Sarawak. They created a dancing frenzy of thousands of people.

Habadekuk are a big nine-piece band playing music with its roots in Danish folk with violin, accordion, sax, horns and a distinct sense of fun. This recording is pretty good too and deserves to fulfil the band’s aim to reach “a wider audience than usually listens to traditional Danish music”.

The arrangements of the 10 tracks are inventive and varied, with a couple of lyrical quieter numbers amongst the energetic jigs, reels and hopsas which are the group’s signature sound.

Simon Broughton

Released on Mon Jul 15

POP

Robin Thicke
Blurred Lines
(Polydor)
***
The Californian R&B singer-songwriter’s sixth album is named after his belated first major hit, which trails only Daft Punk’s Get Lucky as the year’s biggest seller. The song’s jittery funk is something genuinely different, regardless of the controversy over its sleazy lyrics and nudity-packed video, so it’s a shame that the rest of the album is more generic.

There’s thumping dance pop on Take it Easy on Me and the trance synth sound on Feel Good. Elsewhere there’s retro disco, from the horns and rubbery bass of Get in My Way to the falsetto and swirling strings of Ooo La La. He sounds more modern on the harder, darker Give It 2 U, but the one-track lyrics let him down.

David Smyth

Pet Shop Boys
Electric
(X2)
****
The dancefloor isn’t the most forgiving of places for men in their fifties but that’s exactly where the Pet Shop Boys have headed on their 12th album. Produced by Stuart Price (Madonna, Kylie) and released on their own label x2, Electric is the most energised Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have sounded in more than a decade.

Axis is a mass of clubland synths and skittering beats, while Love Is a Bourgeois Concept and Stay for the Weekend are proof that the duo remain masters of the cute, clever chorus.

They still tread the fine line between inspiration and irritation but, for the most part, this album is electric by name and nature.

Rick Pearson


David Lynch
The Big Dream
(Sunday Best)
****
You wouldn’t expect anything other than strange from the master film-maker of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, so it’s no surprise that The Big Dream is a curious piece of work, a reverb-drenched collection of blues-tinged rockabilly. Lynch provides the virtually spoken vocals and guitar from some echoing swamp.

The title track opens in eerie style, while Cold Wind Blowin’ has that Twin Peaks sound at its heart. The one non-original song on the record is Bob Dylan’s murder lamenting The Ballad of Hollis Brown. Lynch is after mood but some compositions linger in the memory: Say It; Sun Can’t Be Seen No More; Last Call. Some relief comes from Lykke Li on the closing I’m Waiting Here. A treasure otherwise.

Pete Clark


Court Yard Hounds
Amelita
(Columbia)
***
A response to lead singer Natalie Maines’s reluctance to reconvene The Dixie Chicks, Court Yard Hounds showcase Emily Robison’s yearning vocals and her sister Martie Maguire’s fiddle. Maguire is the more prolific songwriter of the pair but the overall sweetness of the sound (we’ll pass over Rock All Night’s ludicrous claim that “guitar players make me hot”) is an ideal foil for these tales of accepting the onset of middle age and its different kind of romantic possibilities.

There’s vaguely maternal advice on the rip-roaring title track and on Phoebe to the lost and lonely: “Boys can be mean, but girls are downright cruel.” The youth vote may elude them but middle America and Radio 2 won’t.

John Aizlewood


JAZZ

Wallace Roney
Understanding
(HighNote)
*****
Wallace Roney must be the most underrated trumpeter in jazz today. Admittedly his style stems directly from Miles Davis’s golden acoustic period but how many players have the talent and sensitivity even to aim for that?

On this fine album he also demonstrates Davis’s courage in surrounding himself with the best young player-composers available. Altoist Arnold Lee, pianists Victor Gould and Eden Ladin and tenorist Ben Solomon, a supercharged neo-Coltrane, are all mighty impressive newcomers. Savour their brilliance on classics by Duke Pearson and McCoy Tyner (Search for Peace and You Taught my Heart to Sing) plus worthy originals by members of the group.

Jack Massarik


WORLD

Cüneyt Sepetçi and Orchestra Dolapdere
Bahriye Çiftetellisi
(LM Dupli-cation)
****
Some of the greatest clarinettists in the world are to be found in Istanbul’s Turkish Gypsy community. Following in the footsteps of masters like Mustafa Kandirali and Selim Sesler, Cüneyt Sepetçi is a virtuoso of the dark, steamy dance repertoire of Turkey’s European territory, Thrace. This is the exuberant music of celebration with the piercing clarinet joined by violin, lute, rippling kanun zither and energetic percussion – making up Orchestra Dolapdere, named after the Roma district of Istanbul where they are based. Sepetçi playfully swoops around and bends the notes in music that has a foot-tapping drive and breathtaking virtuosity. A musician that I am longing to see play live.

Simon Broughton


Released on Mon Jul 8

POP

Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo
Dear River
(Linn)
****
Folk singer-songwriters are hardly an endangered species in 2013 but there should still be room for those as talented as Emily Barker. With the help of her all-female Red Clay Halo, the Australia-born, England-based singer has released her biggest, boldest album to date. Dear River sees Barker add muscle to her skeletal folk songs: the title track comes complete with a radio-ready chorus; Everywhen is powered by driving bass and drums. In the absence of any studio trickery, the album’s success lies in the strength of the songwriting and Barker’s soothing voice. “I hope I’ll know when I should leave,” she sings on The Blackwood. On this showing, that shouldn’t be for a while yet.

Rick Pearson


Thriftstore Masterpiece
Trouble is a Lonesome Town
(Side One Dummy)
***
Those who can’t wait for the next Pixies tour might look at this oddity, a remake of Lee Hazlewood’s 1963 album featuring Frank Black as well as members of The Dandy Warhols and Modest Mouse. It’s the brainchild of Charles Normal, briefly a bassist for Guns N’ Roses, who beefs up Hazlewood’s acoustic backdrop with a heavy guitar solo on Six Feet of Chain and mariachi horns on Long Black Train. A concept album about small- town America, the spoken-word parts about local beauties and undertakers drinking embalming fluid are taken on by Normal’s postman. None of the guests can match Hazlewood’s toasted tones, though this is an entertaining reminder of a largely forgotten work.

David Smyth

Dave Matthews Band
Away from the World
(Bama Rags/ATO)
****
Away from the World is already the Dave Matthews Band’s sixth American chart topper but unless the world is rotating on a different axis, it’s unlikely to raise a shrug here. Again, the Americans prove themselves to be musical sophisticates and this is unhurried, balm-like music for adults. It’s far from instant but every listen yields something new and glorious. Matthews’s raspy yet soothing voice curls itself around tunes which are lengthy and languid but burst with melody and warmth. Aside from two songs having the word Belly in the title, best comes last with the trumpet-propelled Drunken Soldier. But Broken Things, the euphoric Sweet and Rooftop glide where others plod. The US’s gain is the UK’s loss.

John Aizlewood


Goldheart Assembly
Long Distance Song Effects
(New Music Club)
****
Essentially a five-piece band, Goldheart Assembly are passionate devotees of extending their soundscape: this second LP is brimming with added strings and horns, the songs frequently building from softly strummed intros into full-blown pop epics, notably on the impressive Billy in the Lowground and Bird on a Chain. James Dale and John Herbert share lead vocal duties, their mellow voices often combining effectively with what can only be described as weird, electronic noises. At the heart of everything, though, lies a strong melodic sense.

Although the lyrics are frequently gnomic, a sense of melancholy pervades the record – Harvest in the Snow, Sad Sad Stage, Behind this Lonely Sun – although playful elements are not entirely absent. Into Desperate Arms sounds as if it might be a Eurovision Song contender from Mars, while Stephanie and the Ferris Wheel oozes charm. A harsh critic might describe the sound at times as a little saccharine, while another could opine that the whole is less than the sum of its parts. This one feels that Long Distance Song Effects is quirkily compelling.

Pete Clark

JAZZ

David Murray
Be My Monster Love
(Motema Music)
****
Vampire flicks are all the rage right now, possibly because they neatly combine America’s twin obsessions with sex and gore. David Murray, working this theme, is a monster tenor-sax player of the suspenseful kind whose solos will erupt into thunderous roars and spine-tingling shrieks. Pianist Marc Cary, drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Jaribu Shahid complete his full-blooded rhythm section, and Macy Gray delivers the spooky title lyric —“My window’s half open/ My neck is yours”— based on an Ishmael Reed poem. Another lusty guest is Gregory Porter, whose deep baritone will shake the outdoor marquees of this weekend’s Love Supreme Festival.

Jack Massarik


WORLD

Jyotsna Srikanth
Call of Bangalore
(Riverboat Records)
****
Jyotsna Srikanth is a London-based south Indian violinist who’s performed at the Darbar Festival and plays at Carnatic Fest next month. She comes from Bangalore, more famous for its call centres than its music, hence the title, but from age five she imbibed the rich traditions of the city’s classical music. It has a sultry character, swooping and sliding and playing off percussive partners on mridangam drum and khanjira (clay pot). Some tracks, such as Annapoorne, are short — a classic piece by Muttuswami Dikshitar, a contemporary of Beethoven. Others, like the 40-minute Brovabarama, full of delicate ornamentation, seem to make time stand still.

Simon Broughton

Released on Mon Jul 1

POP

Editors
The Weight of Your Love
(PIAS)
****
“I promised myself I wouldn’t sing about death,” croons Tom Smith on album opener The Weight, a menacing ballad about, well, death.

So far, so Editors — but the Birmingham band’s fourth record is an exciting new chapter in a career that had seemed to be flatlining.

A new line-up and location — the record was recorded in Nashville with new members Justin Lockey and Elliott Williams — has led to a refreshing of musical ideas.

Sugar’s grungy guitars are almost sexy — not a word readily associated with these gloom-mongers — while the U2-inspired A Ton of Love sees Smith exploring the raspier reachesof his voice. Refocused and re-energised, Editors sound ready to rewrite their history.

Rick Pearson


Congo Natty
Jungle Revolution
(Big Dada)
***
While dance music dominates the charts, here’s an album that’s completely out of step with the current mainstream culture. Congo Natty, the alias of Rastafarian Tottenham producer Mikail Tafari, is best known for the bouncy 1989 pop hit Street Tuff, which he did as Rebel MC. Now he’s reviving the jungle genre, uniting clattering breakbeats with deep dub bass and reggae sounds.

The pace of the rhythms and toasting on UK Allstars is dizzying, and there are more thrills on Get Ready’s mix of sweet female vocals and supercharged beats.

A calmer pace on the second half, as on the tense London Dungeons, makes this just about viable as home listening. But it will really take off come Carnival time.

David Smyth


Mavis Staples
One True Vine
(Anti-)
****
Mavis Staples lived through the Civil Rights movement and in 2013 is the embodiment of faith-driven dignity. She’s also enjoying a new musical lease of life alongside Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who produces, plays everything here bar drums (his son does that) and contributes three songs to an album that covers both Low and Nick Lowe. It’s so porch it’s a wonder it doesn’t come with a free rocking chair but there’s an edge that recalls Daniel Lanois and the wisdom age brings in the rattling I Like The Things About Me. The real star, though, is Staples herself: a queenly presence, who simultaneously exudes a devotional humility that brings new meaning to Funkadelic’s Can You Get to That and adds further conviction to the evocative title track and Lowe’s Far Celestial Shore.

John Aizlewood

Half Moon Run
Dark Eyes
(Communion/Island)
****
Half Moon Run are four strangers who got together via Craigslist in Montreal and made music with no pre-conceived notions about what it would sound like. The result is a soufflé of styles, ranging from songs based on acoustic guitar strummings to mini Arcade Fire epics, a prog-rock tendency and a penchant for spaced-out electric guitar salvoes.

Songs such as Full Circle, Give Up and Drug You are built on the unorthodox drumming of Dylan Phillips and the haunting vocals and lyrics of Devon Portielje. The mood changes between melancholic — Need It, Unofferable — to playful pop. 21 Gun Salute closes the record with what sounds like a heavenly choir. This is uncompromising music that will grow on you like ivy. In a nice way.

Pete Clark


JAZZ

Michael Janisch
Jazz for Babies
(Whirlwind)
***
Doctors in California (where else?) claim that children react positively to music while still in the womb. Start them early is their watchword, and how better than with a soothing lullaby in rhythm. Having identified this market gap for cool mothers, US bassist Michael Janisch has smartly filled it with a tension-releasing five-disc set designed to keep your bump grinding.

Using top London players — Phil Robson handles the guitar division, for example, and Jay Phelps the muted-trumpet part — it smuggles such great standards as God Bless the Child, Embraceable You and Someone to Watch Over Me into the subconscious mind of your bundle of joy. Record numbers of them are expected this summer, too. Someone should send Wills and Kate a set.

Jack Massarik

WORLD

Jupiter & Okwess International
Hotel Univers
(Out Here Records)
****
This is Jupiter Bokondji’s debut album but he’s been making music for years on the streets of Kinshasa. He’s been the subject of a gritty documentary called Jupiter’s Travels and was in the circle of street musicians including internationally-renowned Staff Benda Bilili.

Jupiter & Okwess International are part of the Kinshasa underground sound dubbed Congotronics. What makes the music scene so rich is the mixing of the many ethnic groups that come to the city with their own rhythms and styles. What leaps out from this album is its energy, with honking saxes, psychedelic guitars, wailing sirens and vibrant percussion. They play Glastonbury this weekend and the Open East Festival in the Olympic Park on July 28.

Simon Broughton

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