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New Music CDs Round-Up 2 | reviews, news & interviews

New Music CDs Round-Up 2

New Music CDs Round-Up 2

What theartsdesk is listening to this month

This month's roundup of new music CDs is a selection of the most interesting releases and compilations to come our way in October, from Céu to Mariah Carey, Patrick Cowley to Julian Casablancas, Bob Dylan to Seasick Steve. Our reviewers this month are Peter Culshaw, Adam Sweeting, Joe Muggs, Robert Sandall, Thomas H Green, Russ Coffey, Veronica Lee, Sue Steward and Marcus O'Dair.

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CD of the Month

Céu, Vagaros (Six Degrees Records)

by Peter Culshaw

The São Paulo scene, dubbed in some quarters "Sampa Nova", has been bubbling along mainly under the radar for years. A key figure was Suba, a Serbian producer who died in a studio fire and who called the Brazilian city "the Blade Runner of the Tropics”, and produced the million-selling Tanta Tiempo by Bebel Gilberto. Céu is, whisper it, a better singer and more confident artist than Bebel, and Vagarosa (a word that loosely translates as easy-going) has an irresistible swing and delicious pop sensibility that makes it hard to believe this won’t also be some kind of impressively global hit.

Forgetting the gentle retro daydreams of girls from Ipanema – Céu and her production team led by Beto Villares have taken the baton from Suba and fashioned a pop artefact which is utterly contemporary, reversing into the future. With unshakeable confidence they shamelessly steal from British drum'n'bass and trip-hop, American break beats and Jamaican reggae, and mix it with Brazilian musical forms such as samba and forro and a seductive melodic sense. The different strands are still bound together by a sense of what Brazilians call alegría – a love of life. There's humour in the madness of the megapolis they call Sampa.

The album’s lack of concern with cool, for example its ever-so-slightly naff Portisheadisms (on the downbeat "Congote", notably) suggest the producers are actually having proper fun in the studio. There are several tracks like "Comadi" that absorb the history of pop and emerge as bravura instant classics as much as anything by Duffy or Amy Winehouse.  With Brazil hosting the World Cup and the Olympics and its currency increasing more than any other in the last year, sooner or later the Brazilians will start really competing and winning again in the pop stakes - and this album is a real contender. Vagarosa on Amazon

New Releases

Mariah_CareyMariah Carey, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (Island/Def Jam)

by Robert Sandall

There are various points over the past six months when it’s tempting to imagine the cheery voice of Michael Winner goading an increasingly overwrought Mariah Carey: “Calm down, dear, it’s only a pop record!” Such moments might include her decision back in the spring to dump all of the tracks she’d recorded with her first choice of producer Timbaland, the subsequent rejection of everything she’d done with her second choice Jermaine Dupri, the realization that, with so much nestling in the dumper, the album wasn’t going to be finished in time for its planned August release (except for the UK, where for reasons known only to the marketing guys at Island Records, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel doesn’t go on sale until 16 November), or any of the other release dates that were teased throughout the early autumn at media playbacks in Tokyo, Hong Kong, London and Berlin.

When the album dropped in the US in late September, attention focused less on what it sounded like - originally described by la Carey herself as "very personal and dedicated to the fans" - than on the remarkable sequence of lifestyle ads she had bundled around it. Carmen Steffens shoes, Angel Champagne, Forever scent and the Bahamas Board of Tourism were among the personal messages to fans contained in a 34-page booklet, produced and co-branded with Elle magazine, which doubled as the CD’s liner notes. Adding to the general confusion as to what the soi-disant imperfect angel was trying to flog here was the image on the cover, in which the curvaceous Carey pouted and posed in triplicate, like a one-woman girl group. "There are a lot of different emotions and stories revealed on this album,” she explained.

All of them were presumably connected in some mysterious way to her tight white frock and come-hither grin, but Carey soon found that the party was not going to plan. Her 12th studio album debuted at number three in the US chart behind Barbra Streisand and Paramore, with first-week sales of 168,000 well down on E=MC2 her previous album's opening week of 463,000. Her label Universal were not amused. The success or otherwise of blockbuster albums such as this can decide the difference between a fourth-quarter profit or loss. Def Jam’s banker for the crucial Christmas market was suddenly looking rather fragile.

In truth, Memoirs is not a bad effort from an r’n’b diva whose career tally of 175 million records and 40 American hit singles hardly needs another grillion-seller to confirm her status. The album’s abiding problem, in line with all the overblown marketing blah plastered around it, is the oppressive sense that she and the team are trying too hard. In a sane world, no singer with Carey’s sublime vocal chops would ever have her voice fed through the weirdly robotic software programme, Auto Tune, as she does on the stalker song, "Obsessed".

Elsewhere the album has a distracting tendency to multi-track the mighty Carey instrument into a squadron of breathy whispers – this in obedience to the fashionable urban mantra “slow-jam r’n’b.” For the uninitiated, this feels a bit like being stuck in a nail salon with a load of laryngitic vamps. It stands in roughly the same relation to sexy as Auto Tune does to melody.

As so often with decent r’n’b, less is more. Memoirs improves as its long tracklist unfolds and Carey stretches out. Her material is seldom better than OK-plus but having taken a leaf from Beyonce Knowles’s book and played down her prodigious soul technique in favour of a less histrionic, spoken approach, it sounds perfectly pleasant in a sort of background/bedroom music way. It’s almost as if somebody stepped in in the nick of time to remind Mariah to calm down and just make a pop record – and thank God, or Mr Winner, they did. Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel on Amazon

patrick_cowleyPatrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras, Catholic (Macro)

by Joe Muggs

The idea of a “lost album” by a cult artist appearing fully formed 30 years after it was made seems unlikely in these days when it feels like every vault has been stripmined for deluxe reissues and exhaustive box sets – and for that lost album to be a masterpiece is just too bizarre to be true.  But here is Catholic, and it is as incredible as its back-story.

Patrick Cowley defined the Euro-influenced gay club sound of the late 1970s and early '80s with his work with vocalist Sylvester and most notably with his 16-minute remix of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" which became without question one of the most influential electronic productions of all time.  The subtlety and sensualism that could be heard in even his most exuberant productions showed clearly that there was more to him than pure dancefloor hedonism, and this collaboration with the vocalist from the band Indoor Life, recorded between 1976-79 then lost in a DJ's cellar, was his chance to explore further afield.

The album is as fabulously arch as anything by Devo or Sparks, yet manages to sound entirely sincere at the same time.  Socarras's voice is the missing link between the great mannered singers of the era – Bryan Ferry, John Lydon, David Byrne – and the songs cover everything from Ramones-meet-Suicide electro-punk, through genuinely hypnotic synth pieces of chilling minimalism, to the dominating style of glorious electro-pop that easily equals and possibly predates anything the Human League, Yello or any other European pioneers were making at the time.  The boldness with which it completely ignores any idea that pop and the avant-garde are even separate, let alone mutually exclusive, is a joy to behold - the thoughts of how this could have changed music had it emerged before Cowley's untimely death in 1982 are frankly dizzying, and if I hear a better chorus this year than “Do you still love your robot children” I will be very surprised.  Beyond curiosity value, beyond cult status, this is a stunningly good record and a bittersweet joy to hear now, knowing what it could have achieved. Catholic on Amazon

Guy-ClarkGuy Clark, Somedays The Song Writes You (Dualtone Records)

by Adam Sweeting

Clark’s first batch of new material since 2006’s Workbench Songs continues his tradition of distilled and finely crafted songwriting, and once again almost all the material is co-written. The sole exception is his easeful version of old comrade Townes Van Zandt’s "If I Needed You", sprung over upright bass, mandolin and Kenny Malone’s tactful percussion. Considering that Clark was always a solo writer, the collaborative mode fits him remarkably snugly. Among numerous highlights are his two-hander with Rodney Crowell, "Eamon", the saga of an old seafarer who comes back to dry land to die, which gains extra force from being understated and unsentimental. Clark is a keen amateur guitar-maker, so "The Guitar" (co-written with Verlon Thompson) must have almost composed itself. The narrator goes into a pawn shop and unearths a haunted guitar which inspires him to play like a combination of Segovia and Jimi Hendrix (or in this case like Verlon Thompson), then eerily finds his own name already on the guitar case. Any criticisms would centre on the album’s overriding downbeat tone, expressed in the likes of Hollywood (“you’ll always be a stranger here”) or the thoroughly dispiriting lowlife saga, "Wrong Side Of The Tracks". "The Coat" is pretty glum too, though that doesn’t prevent it from being a painfully affecting piece of writing. Overall, Clark fans will love it, and non-Clark fans could easily learn to. Somedays the Song Writes You on Amazon

Seasick-SteveSeasick Steve, Man From Another Time (Atlantic)

by Adam Sweeting

“Ain’t you got nothin’ better to do than listen to a man from another time?” growls Seasick Steve, on the title tune of his new disc. Tempting fate, you might think, since in these fickle file-sharing days the answer might be: “Well, now you mention it…” But Steve is nothing if not tenacious, and although his musical and instrumental palette is defiantly limited, he fires up his material with enough beady-eyed intensity to seize your attention. Indeed, the whole Seasick phenomenon is a case of mind over matter. He suddenly appears out of the blue in 2007, aged 66 (roughly), complete with a hobos-and-railroads back story straight out of Woody Guthrie, and becomes an instant heritage-classic. There’s a slightly intimidating aura about him that defies you to doubt a word of it, and the new album is mostly tough enough to back him up. He’s always on a winner with his big, gutbucket stomps like the opener "Diddley-Bo" (an ode to his crude one-string guitar) or the beefy plantation-yomp of "Big Green and Yeller" (an ode to a John Deere tractor). He’s much more riskily exposed on "The Banjo Song", a rasping backwoods blues with only a solitary banjo for support, but he brings it off with panache. As he sings in "Just Because I Can", “I know I ain’t so young, my health ain’t what it used to be… but I’m gonna write all day for free, just because I can.” Man From Another Time on amazon

julian-casablancasJulian Casablancas, Phrazes For The Young (Rough Trade)

by Adam Sweeting

The Strokes’ front man has been mysteriously absent from the rock’n’roll barricades of late, but the sustained quality and musical ingenuity he has poured into this debut solo album is justification enough. Though there some discernable Strokes-like attributes here, what’s far more striking is the way Casablancas has sped backwards in time to the Noo Yawk new wave of the late Seventies and Eighties. "Left & Right in the Dark" is a deftly organised melange of synths and pattering drum machine offset against choppy, echoey rhythm guitar, channelling Blondie and early Talking Heads right up to the point where it veers off into a baroque fugal section. "Glass", a kind of nouveau-Electric Dreams, stretches its Bachian synth fantasies to almost Wendy Carlos-like extremes as Casablancas treats us to his soaring falsetto. Integral to the album’s consistent likeability is the way its author has balanced seriousness with wry humour. "Ludlow Street", named after a Lower East Side address once haunted by Lou Reed, is an ironic barndance, featuring skittish synthetic banjo and what sounds suspiciously like an expert parody of Rufus Wainwright’s woozy, slurry singing style. Exuberant songwriting excellence abounds, not least the opener, "Out of the Blue", a pounding slab of punk-art rock with a soaring chorus and multitracked guitars, as if Television had been forced into collusion with the Buzzcocks. On this evidence, a solo Casablancas could be a very viable prospect indeed. Phrazes for the Young on amazon

indigo_girls_1Indigo Girls, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug (IG)

by Veronica Lee

After two low-key albums, Indigo Girls return to livelier material with their first on their own label. Producer Mitchell Froom achieves a pleasing balance between Saliers'  emotional ballads  and Ray's rockier songs and, as ever, their harmonies are intricate, and their guitar-based sound rich in texture. The album is another collection of songs about love, relationships and Southern life, plus a few making heartfelt political points, and all are expressed in Indigo Girls’ trademark language rich in metaphor and allusion. Matt Chamberlain (percussion) and Clare Kenny (bass) provide a cracking rhythm section; for the purists, though, there’s also a double CD of Poseidon and the Bitter Bug, which has acoustic versions of each song as well. Stand-out tracks are Ray’s “Sugar Tongue”, on which she sings in a higher register than we normally hear, and Saliers' “Love of Our Lives”. Both songs are deeply political (about colonialism and gay marriage respectively) but Saliers’ “Fleet of Hope” and Ray’s Ghost of the Gang” - the former about lost love, the latter about remaining true to one’s friends - are no less heartfelt and poetic in their language. Released from the constraints of big-label demands, the Indigo Girls are clearly having fun. “Sugar Tongue” is driven by a bossa nova beat and Ray’s “Driver Education”, which she previously recorded on a solo album, is here given a very un-Indigo Girls 80s teen-pop makeover. A very pleasing album indeed. Poseidon and the Bitter Bug on amazon

gilles_peterson_HavanaGilles Peterson presents Havana Cultura, New Cuban Sound (2-CD, Brownswood Recordings)

by Sue Steward

From the Old Havana of Buena Vista to the hip-hopping patios around the city, DJ Gilles Peterson exploits A&R skills as sharp as World Circuit Records' Nick Gold’s in the production of 28 tracks which glide along the musical spectrum from Buena Vista lush to languid rap. The pioneer of Acid Jazz was slow in arriving in Havana after concentrating on Brazil and Africa, but the result is magnificent, and depends on the perfect partnership with Latin Music’s most significant and original pianist, Roberto Fonseca (book here for Royal Festival Hall, 14 November). His band glides through time and place with classic and Cuban salsa (timba), Peterson’s signature Latin jazz dance and references to the legends (Beny Moré, Irakere, Buena Vista); they inject flamenco and sprinklings of '70s fusion, leap to new beats and drum to African rumba. The brilliant remake of Fela Kuti’s “Roforofo Fight” feeds Peterson’s Afro-funk passion. In every song, though, the ear turns to Fonseca’s luminous solos and the 20 cherry-picked musicians, including singers Danay, Telmany, Mayra Valdes; Afro-Cubans Ogguere; hiphoppers Obsesíon and Doble Filo. “Not Cuban jazzmatazz but challenging,” explains Peterson. It flows like a dream night in Havana and is a significant marker for Cuban music. Havana Cultura: New Cuba Sound on amazon

portico_islaPortico Quartet, Isla (Real World)

by Marcus O’Dair

Whatever one thinks of Speech Debelle claiming this year’s Mercury, it’s widely agreed that the real winners are often the folk, classical and jazz artists who make that award’s shortlist, though inevitably fail to claim the prize. East London’s Portico Quartet, who combine jazz with the more lightweight end of minimalist classical music, are a case in point. They may have lost out to Elbow for last year’s award, but sales of their debut rose by a reported 750 per cent, a staggering achievement for a record released on a small jazz label, and by a group at that point still best known as buskers. This follow-up is a very different beast, recorded at Abbey Road studios by John Leckie, of Stone Roses/Radiohead fame, and released on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. Yet while the band’s escape from the jazz ghetto will no doubt annoy purists, those whose vision of the genre extends beyond “swinging ride cymbal and blue notes” will hail it as an artistic triumph.

Debut Knee Deep In The North Sea impressed for its unusual sound palette, notably its use of the tuned percussion instrument known as the hang (somewhere in between a metallophone and a steel drum). Yet too often it failed to maintain that initial interest, and the results – hampered by the hang’s harmonic limitations – at times veered towards the bland. The hang features equally heavily on Isla, but the overall feel is both more moody and more mature. They have introduced into the mix a subtle strain of ambient electronica, while on Clipper saxophonist Jack Wyllie even approaches a free jazz squawk. It’s still very tasteful, and probably too polite for fans of Trio VD or other acts demolishing the boundaries of contemporary jazz with rather more violence. But then, who wants to listen to Zu or Original Silence every minute of the day? Isla on amazon

air_love2Air, Love 2 (Virgin)

by Thomas H Green

It's sometimes forgotten what a terminally naff reputation most French popular music had before Air and Daft Punk. In 2009 Parisian labels such as Kitsune and Ed Banger are achingly hip, nailing the clubland and electro-pop zeitgeist with ease, but it was Air's 1998 album Moon Safari that, for the first time since Serge Gainsbourg, started hip Brits looking across the Channel. It sold millions and set a template for accessible downtempo electronica that eventually bloomed into the dinner party-friendly sub-genre known as chill-out. Since then, however, with the exception of their underrated 2001 masterpiece 10,000 Herz Legend, the duo of Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin have delivered music of gradually diminishing returns.

The good news is that Love 2 is up there with their best, tipping its hat to their past but delving into fresh areas. Their obsession with retro synthesizers is vigorously intact but they've added a tint of fuzzed Sixties garage guitar to their armoury. Opener "Do The Joy" has retro Moog sounds a-plenty but also riffs along like a super-sedated Hawkwind, and the driving "Be A Bee" comes on like Henry Mancini's twangy guitar staple, "Peter Gunn Theme". Air also expand on their easy-listening orchestral leanings, notably on the throbbing piano-led "Tropical Disease", and maintain their smart line in elegant spaced out love songs such as "So Light Is Her Footfall".

Rather than haul in all manner of guests and second guess themselves, as they did on their last album, 2007's flat and unrewarding Pocket Symphony, Air closed their studio to visitors and have relocated their kitsch creative spark. The result is as balmily delicious as anything they've mustered in years. Love 2 on amazon

Big_Sexy_Noise_CDBig Sexy Noise, Big Sexy Noise (Sartorial)

by Thomas H Green

Whether screeching blue murder in her no wave band Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, starring in raw sex-centric art films, or disseminating literary venom through her poetry, Lydia Lunch is the ultimate punk bad girl. At 50 the New York iconoclast shows little sign of mellowing as she growls her way through a new set of songs in league with James Johnson, Terry Edwards and Ian White of swamp-dirt blues outfit Gallon Drunk. It's a suitable match. The band grinds out grimy distorted riffs, Lydia spits and snarls, half-bored, half furious, and Terry Edwards tops the whole thing off with squalls of sleazy sax and pounding Hammond organ. Especially notable is a rampaging assault on Lynyrd Skynyrd's anti-drug anthem "That Smell". For those who thought Nick Cave's raucous Grinderman project didn't go nearly far enough, this is for you. Big Sexy Noise on amazon

Paul_Haig_RelivePaul Haig, Relive (Rhythm Of Life)

by Thomas H Green

Scottish band Josef K's small body of work at the dawn of the Eighties provided one of the key blueprints for the next 30 years of indie music, a fact acknowledged by Franz Ferdinand who certainly owe them a sonic debt. Lead singer Paul Haig failed to make the predicted leap to pop stardom and, uncomfortable with the pop promotional machine, never seemed to be able to decide whether he was avant-garde or a slick Eighties soulboy. In the end he appeared to give up and became something of a cult. Relive marks the third album in a sudden spate of activity that started in 2007. Full of boisterous, canny pop music, it throbs with widescreen opulence and sounds hungry, like a younger artist, albeit one with a gruff, worldly perspective and a rich sense of orchestration. A pleasant surprise. Relive on amazon

mumford__sonsMumford and Sons, Sigh No More

by Russ Coffey

Is the opposite of a grower a shrinker? If so, I suspect time will reveal Sigh No More, the debut from North London nu-folksters Mumford and Son, as one. It may be a genre thing. Nu-folk mines a seam of music built on other people’s hard life experiences. And with that to live up to, the music will never be enough. The lyrics will be scrutinized, and then the personal circumstances of the band. Four middle class guys in their early twenties with little more to express than a few broken hearts and religious false starts, haven’t much hope.

But to write off Mumford and Sons as just another part of a revival that includes Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling is precipitous. For a start that’s excellent company to be in. And even if Mumford and Son ride above their influences less successfully than their peers, when the influences are as attractive as these, the better parts of the American folk songbook, it makes for pleasant listening. As indeed do the arrangements. Sigh No More is dominated by Marcus Mumford’s voice. It’s a voice that already sounds lived in, even if it still falls well short of the precocious maturity of Marling. There’s also melody and harmony aplenty. In places, like "Timshel", it feels overdone, like a self-conscious attempt to ape the Fleet Foxes. But elsewhere, such as the ubiquitous single, "Little Lion Man" or "The Cave" we find them tap into a real energy and sincere emotion, to reach towards a more original sound.

Sigh No More on amazon

the_clienteleThe Clientele, Bonfires on the Heath

by Russ Coffey

Four years on from the blissed-out and frequently sublime Strange Geometry, The Clientele seem to be struggling to write new music. Bonfires on the Heath is an attractive lo-fi album that still invites comparisons with Slowdive and The Delgados, but the question remains, haven’t we heard much of this before, and wasn’t it a little better last time? Again we have The Clientele’s trademark surreal dream-like ambience. And the lyrics, although often hard to pin down, seem perpetually to evoke a sense of personal past and sadness at the passing of time. But where this album differs from its predecessor is that, whilst it’ll no doubt provide an attractive backdrop to many a Hoxton coffee shop it’s not the sort of record you are likely to sit down and listen to. Especially with headphones.

It’s not a bad album. And it’s well timed. Like its title it has autumn down pat. It’s instant conkers, mist and red leaves, even when songs like Harvest Time are telling you that it’s summer time. And certainly no-one can argue with songs like "Tonight" which someone is surely falling in love to as we speak. Alasdair Maclean’s voice floats and trembles and then rests on dreamy harmonies from the equally dreamy Mel Draisy. And it’s not as if the record is without variation, because "Share the Night" and "I Wonder Who We Are" are definitely different from the rest even if they have the same guitar part as each other. It’s just that, those aside every time I try to pick out songs for comment, I have to refer back to the liner notes. Is it Bonfires on the Heath or is it Harvest Time? Which song is which? I really can’t tell. Bonfires on the Heath on amazon

Dylan_Xmas_in_the_heartBob Dylan, Christmas in the Heart

by Russ Coffey

The natural reaction on listening to Christmas in the Heart is to ask "is this some kind of joke?". A trilogy of exceptional albums under his belt and, oops, the contrary old buzzard has done it again, confounding expectations with an album that will provide amusement to diehard fans but which anyone else surely must approach with caution. On the plus side, let’s say it shows that Bob likes Christmas, and that he does, in fact, like to be jolly. But the thing is that Bob does jolly in a slightly terrifying way. Like a drunk in a midnight choir. Anyone hoping that this album was going to throw up shambolic masterstrokes like the Pogues' “Fairytale of New York” will be disappointed. And there’s certainly no slurring energy like Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is coming to town”. And as for Bowie’s “the Little Drummer Boy”, forget it (yes, Bob does cover it).

Dylan’s voice set against a folk or blues backdrop sounds like time itself. But next to sleigh-bells and children’s choirs it sounds more like an aged relative of Nick Cave with emphysema. In fact much of the album sounds plain insane. And the more traditional the song, the more deranged. I won’t even try to describe his take on "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing". But I will tell you that I have heard cats do better renditions of "O, Come, All Ye Faithful".
It may be for charity, but so was Jo Brand dressing up as Britney. Charity does not forgive all. And yet, as awful as it is, I somehow can’t find myself disliking this record. There’s a strange pleasure in all this madness. Christmas is musical madness after all – how else can you explain Roy Wood and Wizzard? The song "Do you hear what I hear?" is really beginning to grow on me. I have a funny feeling I know what is going to be playing as I put up my tree... Christmas in the Heart on amazon

BQE_StevensSufjan Stevens, The BQE

by Russ Coffey

There are two opinions of The BQE doing the rounds of internet forums and chat rooms. One says that Sufjan Stevens’ instrumental ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is a triumph, the first truly successful symphony from a rock artist. The other version says it’s rather boring and asks where is all the singing? Both have a point. Stevens clearly knows his way around an orchestra. And yet, given his vocal ability to deliver songs about God, whilst making you think that you’re listening to a sublime catalogue of America’s most forbidden trysts, it’s ambitious to think he can do without the singing: it is, after all, his unique brand of ethereal and intimate folk rock that inspires love.

The BQE, however, makes a lot more sense seen in its full context. It is the score for Stevens’ art-house Super-8 film about a congested unloved road. It is also part of his seemingly compulsive desire to constantly release music (If he’s done it then invariably he feels we should have it). As a stand-alone instrumental piece it almost works. Certainly it’s a perfectly good soundtrack. The main problem is that it lacks coherence. It’s a string of pearls some more precious than others. There are echoes of Reich, Glass, Copeland, but there are more echoes of the melodies, harmonies and instrumental flourishes from Seven Swans, Illinoise and Michigan. And no one part really relates to the other.

It may not quite work as an opus, but its sheer existence is surely worth celebrating. Despite the shockingly self-indulgent titles such as "Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges", it’s not an ego record. It’s just over-ambitious. It’ll probably end up as a curiosity, rarely listened to in its entirety. But it’s very likeable in parts. And, like the woodwind fills, and piano riffs from recent records, expect clips to resurface as incidental music  in “real” films. The BQE on amazon

Joe Muggs also recommends:

POINT_BPoint B, Suicide Beauty Spot (Combat Recordings)

Like Burial with cleaner lines and less complicated emotions, the gorgeous nighttime city visions of this sleek, contemplative record are the perfect example of how dubstep has given 'home listening' electronica a sense of purpose again.

Luigi_Archetti__Bo_WigetLuigi Archetti / Bo Wiget, Low Tide Digitalis III (Rune Grammofon)

Cello bows drag imperceptibly slowly over strings, dying synthesizers groan quietly, hissing echoes breathe in your ear – the most severe, austere ambient music you can imagine, but also a strangely enjoyable and cleansing listen. Low Tide Digitals Iii on amazon

Filthy_DukesFilthy Dukes, Fabriclive 48 (Fabric Records)

Camden-based indie band construct the latest DJ mix in the London club Fabric's series from the most bouncy, good natured recent club hits and dance mixes of rock bands.  Like Blondie down a techno club, it's a perfect introduction to current good-times disco-dance music. Fabric Live 48/Filthy Dukes on amazon

wrought_ironNancy Elizabeth, Wrought Iron (Leaf)

Individualist chanteuse's meticulously built minimalist ballads recorded in Faroe Isles and rural Spain with piano, chimes and big beautiful empty spaces as influenced by Arvo Pärt as they are by Joni Mitchell. Wrought Iron on amazon

Micah_P_HinsonMicah P Hinson, All Dressed Up And Smelling Of Strangers (Full Time Hobby)

Grizzled Nashville crooner/croaker takes on "The Times They Are A Changin'", "Suzanne", "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and "My Way" and wins, by virtue of playing them dead straight and interspersing with more obscure country, indie, punk covers. All Dressed Up And Smelling Of Strangers on amazon

Peter Culshaw also recommends:

puerto_plataPuerto Plata, Casita De Campo

86-year-old Dominican soñero oozes charm, grace and resilience in this collection of love songs and lilting dance numbers. Casita de Campo on amazon

pink_martiniPink Martini, Splendour In the Grass (Wrasse)

Nothing authentic about Pink Martini, but their perfectly produced cross-cultural cocktail music is irresistible anyway like you wish hotel music would sound, but never does. Splendour In The Grass on amazon

manu_chao_baiarenaManu Chao, Baionarena (Because)

High-energy live CD and DVD of the set of Chao and band’s recent global tour, with videos from his last album La Radiolina. Baïonarena Digipack on amazon

Compilation of the Month:

Fire_in_my_BonesFire In My Bones, Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007 (Tompkins Square)

Triple album set that explores the outer reaches of Gospel – the rich, strange, raw music is often spine-tingling and only rarely dull. Fire In My Bones on amazon

francophonicFrancophonic, Vol 2 (Sterns)

Second volume of Sterns’ handsome tribute explains why Franco, who died 20 years ago this month, was Africa’s most loved musician. Francophonic Retrospective V2 on amazon

Stinker of the Month:

Devandra_Banhart_stinkerDevendra Banhart, What Will We Be (Warner/Reprise)

by Robert Sandall

Most listeners who make it through this arch and irritating record are likely at some juncture to experience a powerful urge to thump Devendra Banhart. I lost it with him early, on the first track in fact, when the 28-year-old exponent of “freak folk” started to sound like a bad pastiche of those icons of British 70s jugband kitsch Mungo Jerry. My patience with the man whose given name refers to the Hindu god of rain and thunder – a parental error that seems to have set him on a career of overweaning bad taste - never really recovered. Other points at which I began to foam at the mouth included Banhart’s frequent mimickry of Marc Bolan circa 1969, during his fey phase with the pre-boogie version of Tyrannosaurus Rex, and the song called “Rats” in which he inexplicably decides to take off Jim Morrison of The Doors. Lyrically, Banhart cued uncontrollable rages with his babyish references to “choo-choo trains”, the unsustainably delusory “I take everything as a sign from God” and a casual piece of gay braggadocio, “I had a lot of young boys,” which he follows up with one of the most pointless trumpet solos ever recorded.

Any suspicion that this pampered bo-ho beardie might have been the product of an absurdly over-indulged upbringing in which his art and his elbow were never properly pointed out to him, finds its apogee on "Chin Chin & Muck Muck", a song on which Banhart commits poetical suicide with the line: "All my thoughts are hairs on a wild, wild boar." Which you sort of hope might have been a spelling mistake.

Anyway, the good news with this record according to the folks in America who reckon DB to be a bit of a hippie character – he’s actually managed by the same guy who looks after Neil Young – is that it’s a big improvement on his last one Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. That it’s the first he’s made for a major-label is another ominous sign that Banhart’s brand of calculated eccentricity might have convinced the record company suits that he’s the future. Another well-deserved thump for that, then, and an immediate moratorium please on Banhart’s snoozy acoustic shuffles and unnecessary impersonations of dead or retired psychedelic icons. It’s late, let’s move on. What Will We Be on amazon

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Comments

Nice post, I would recommend mumford and sons and 30 sedonds to mars... aswell as The temper trap and The XX Look out for them... Thanks for writing, most people don't bother.

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