theartsdesk on Vinyl 88: Violent Femmes, Ringo Starr, ARXX, Dexter Gordon, Black Star, Dennis Bovell and more

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Buñuel Mansuetude (Skin Graft/Overdrive)

This is a balls-out punk rock’n’roll mess, grunge that’s eaten the hash-cake then swigged a pint of Bourbon at high speed. Buñuel is Eugene S Robinson of San Francisco noiseniks Oxbow, accompanied by a trio of Italian musicians. Across this two-record set, which comes on gatefold double on vinyl that looks like a neon green alien has thrown up breakfast, the quartet are having a ball. Robinson leads the charge, his shrieking vocals whirlpooling around a caterwauling riff assault that’s psychedelicized in the manner of bands such as Butthole Surfers, Terminal Cheesecake and God, echoing and skronking and generally sounding gloriously fucked up. An out-of-its-head set that haemorrhages demented energy. Comes with a folded 12” x 24” lyric-poster insert.

VINYL REVIEWS

Jo Hill Girlhood (UROK)

From Cheddar in Somerset, Jo Hill was signed to a major label but was dropped last year. Their loss. Her debut album is a well-balanced gumbo of 2025 chart-pop in the shadow of Taylor Swift and something more characterful, chatty and indie-centric. The album’s primary theme, as its title suggests, is what it is to be young and a woman right now. It’s no mope, though; chugging along instead with the kind of narrative flow and forward drive one more commonly finds in country music. Most of all, the songs are there, from the slick pop-rock of “All My Girls Are Tomboys” to the acoustic singer-songwriter-esque “Supermarket Sushi” to the Lana del Sad-girl slowie ”Just as Strong”. It’s not aimed at me, 57 and male, and I don’t like all of it (too sugared in places), but something keeps me coming back.

Simple Minds Sparkle in the Rain (Universal) + Violent Femmes Hallowed Ground (Craft)

Two reissues of albums that were released in the first half of 1984, both by cult bands seeking ways forward. In February 1984, when Sparkle in the Rain was released, Simple Minds were coming off the back of their 1982 commercial breakthrough, New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84, and were determined not to lose momentum. Unfortunately, this meant emulating U2 and eventually becoming the epitome of the decade’s stadium bombast. Not quite yet, though. Sparkle in the Rain is a transitional album and, I admit, a guilty pleasure of mine. I bought it at the time but got rid of it a year or two later, embarrassed by its grandiosity. I’m glad to have it again. The plasticky Eighties stadium production and general bluster cannot hide a set of songs that have both tunes and swagger. Their version of Lou Reed’s “Street Hassle” is still obnoxious and unlistenable, and “’C’ Moon Cry Like a Baby” is a proto-INXS horror, but the rest, especially the singles “Waterfront” and “Up on the Catwalk” are catchy, enjoyable hokum. Comes on blue transparent vinyl in art/info inner sleeve. Violent Femmes’ Hallowed Ground, on the other hand, released in May 1984, was their second album and is a stone-cold classic of weird, uncanny, queasy Americana, somewhere between Eugene Chadbourne and Butthole Surfers’ “country” songs. What it wasn’t was a commercial breakthrough. In fact, critics were not sure what to make of it. 40 years later, its caustically post-punk take on US roots traditions, Gordon Gano’s whiny, sneery, shouting vocals, the untrammelled southern Baptist Christianity, the blood-soaked American gothic, all add up to an addictive indie-dance folk horror hoedown. Gram Parsons goes to Hell. Essential.

Black Star No Fear of Time (Rhymesayers)

No Fear of Time, the second album from yasiin bey & Talib Kweli’s Black Star project, was released in 2022 and now, finally, appears on plastic (in art/info inner sleeve and photo/info inner sleeves). Their debut appeared in 1998 and was a hip hop milestone which launched both their solo careers (yasiin bey was previously Mod Def). They have teased cuts over the years but the album, when it eventually appeared, received mixed reviews. Mostly the negative ones were from hardcore B-Boy listeners wanting to recapture the sheer sense of change its predecessor engendered. Almost a quarter-of-a century later, No Fear of Time cannot do that, but one of hip hop’s most vanguard producers, Madlib, provides a sonic backdrop that’s never dull, whether post rock’n’roll soundbeds or simple rolling machine beats (NB. Madlib lost his entire gigantic record collection in the recent LA fires: theartsdesk on Vinyl can’t even imagine!). The duo’s vocal input is not energized but it's drily twisty and gets into lyrical corners that are well-woven and chewy. Overall, with the benefit of letting the hype settle, better than expected.

Jean Claude Vannier Jean Claude Vannier et Son Orchestre de Mandolines (Ipecac)

Jean Claude Vannier is a venerable French film composer who’s also worked with everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Beck. On this album he combines his talents with Mandolin virtuoso Vincent Beer-Demander and accordionist Grégory Daltin. The result is a very Gallic melée, suffused with nostalgic sentiment and cinematic sweep. The way the mandolin is played often sounds like a zither or bouzouki, and the music here brings to mind some combination of Parisian café street music, Anton Caras’s “Harry Lime Theme” from Carol Reed’s 1949 classic The Third Man, Nino Rota’s work on The Godfather, and Maurice Jarre’s “Lara’s Theme” from David Lean’s Dr Zhivago. It’s a delicious confection. Comes in art/info inner sleeve.

Siouxie & The Skunks Songs About Cuddles (Wild Honey)

It takes some bottle to call yourself Siouxie (even if it is “Siouxie” rather than “Siouxsie”) but one hopes that, if she heard the scuzz-punkin’ of this lot, the original would take it as a compliment. The band are from Brescia in Italy, on the reliably rock’n’roll Wild Honey label which is based in Bergamo, 50 miles to the west. It’s a screechin’ nine-track set that pelts by on pile-driving guitars, yet offers enough variety to retain the interest throughout. Notably on the wibbly-wobbly punk version of a psychedelic interlude on “Mushrooms” and a couple of slower-burning songs on Side 2, especially “Corner”. Not sure how many songs are actually about cuddles…

Bjarki A Guide to Hellthier Lifestyle (Differance Engine) + Boysen Alta Ripa (Erased Tapes)

A couple of electronic outings. Icelandic producer Bjarki Sigurðarson broke through a decade ago as a new face in techno but has since proved harder to categorize. Relatively prolific on the album front, his latest is a two record set of sternly android head-fry. It is psychedelic, in the true sense, in that it's designed to muck around with the consciousness, but it bears no resemblance to what rock magazines usually term “psychedelic”, ie lots of spaced-out guitar pedal and a nod to the Sixties. Bjarki’s music is machine-led and stark, with robotic sounding voices occasionally contributing ruminative thoughts. There are beats, but it’s no club record. It’s a futurist wonk-brain listening experience. Comes with a poster of the cover art. NB. the label name, Differance Engine – that’s not a spelling mistake on my part. Prolific German musician Ben Lukas Boysen’s latest is, more, what we tend to think of when the word “electronica” springs up. Boysen is based in Berlin but grew up in Rhine town of Altrip, after which this album is named, an exercise in creating music his teen self would have enjoyed. While, like Bjarki, it’s not, strictly, a club record, it’s far closer to one, with stentorian rhythms propelling things forward. It is not trance but has some of that style’s melodic architecture. Large scale and cinematic, as we might expect from a man who composes film soundtracks, it’s maximalism still contains symphonic emotional scope.  

Dexter Gordon Getting’ Around (Blue Note) + Jake Long City Swamp (New Soil) + Møster Springs (Action Jazz)

Three very different jazz gems, two new, one old. Let’s start with the latter. By 1965 Dexter Gordon was living in Europe, to escape the racism and strife of his native USA, but he popped back to New Jersey to record Gettin’ Around in 1965. Gordon was adept at throwing his sax at East Coast hard bop or much smoother Los Angeles-friendly styles. This album is joyously the latter, gorgeously laid back on cuts including “Somebody’s Fool”, Anthony Newley’s “Who Can I Turn To” and sprightly Latinate opener “Manha de Carnaval”. With Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Barry Harris on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums, this one can’t fail, and doesn’t. Jake Long is a founder member of acclaimed London unit Maisha (alongside Nubiya Garcia), as well as working with Snapped Ankles, Saul Williams and others. His debut solo album gathers together input from his London jazz peers, including Garcia, and stews it into something new in his studio. Vibing off the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis and, especially, Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain”, the album consist of four sprawling tracks, including the stoned-out funk endlessness of“Ideological Rubble”, and “Swamps”’s equally bong-hazed reinvention of Cream’s “Sunshine of your Love”. Muzzy but rolling, a murky treat. Finally, and most noisily, the sixth album, Springs, from Kjetil Møster’s self-titled four-piece band. Members are drawn from a pool of Norwegian musicians involved in the intersection of prog rock, psychedelia and jazz, bands such as Motorpsycho and Elephant9. Thus the listener doesn’t know, from one track to the next whether it’s going to be gnarly noise-rock, ambient drone or some sort of ballsy beat-funk. But it’s a journey worth taking.

ARXX Good Boy (Submarine Cat) + Sassyhiya Take You Somewhere (Skepwax)

Two independent records that are both proudly queer. Brighton duo ARXX appear on the front of their album with their multitude of dogs, three of whom appear in close-up on an enclosed 12” x 12” four-page photo insert, and presumably the album’s title is dog-centric too, Fear not, though, the music, on clear vinyl, is not a celebration of the canine. Instead it’s stomping, bullish electro-pop, sounding occasionally like a La Roux on shouty steroids, with occasional bursts of rock guitar. The duo, vocalist Hanni Pidduck and drummer Clara Townsend, understand their way round a catchy tune and have the hi-NRG 4/4 dynamics to keep a dancefloor jumping. It’s full of the vim of being who they are and sending their experience and positivity to those feeling stuck. Sassyhiya are an old-school indie band from London fronted by life partners Katherine Wright and Helen Skinner, once of another indie outfit, Barry. Their label, Skepwax, was created by Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey of Heavenly (and other indie projects – she was once in Tallulah Gosh). Sassyhiya’s album adheres to such lo-fi Eighties indie principles, straightforward songs, simply made. Every now and then a song really leaps out. Their ode to “Kristen Stewart” is one. For much of the album Sassyhiya wear their LGBT colours lightly but, every now and then, as on the song “Puppet Show”, they revel in richly fruity wordplay (“Put your hand up my hole so we can start this puppet show/Tug gently on my strings/Let the puppet show begin”). Comes with 12” x 12” photo/lyric insert.

Dennis Bovell Sufferer Sounds (Disciples)

Dennis Bovell’s reputation is partly based on his bringing reggae production ideas to post-punk, ranging from The Pop Group to Bananarama to Orange Juice. But before all that he’d been involved with his own band Matumbi and his Jah Sufferer Sound System. Whoever put this collection together (it’s not clear) has painstakingly dug up cuts from this period, 1976-1980, wherein Bovell usually engineered, produced and played bass, culminating in the “Game of Dubs” version of his breakthrough songwriting/production credit, Janet Key’s defining Lovers Rock hit, “Silly Games”. The rest of these four sides contain tunes by Matumbi, Errol Campbell, Young Lions, Dennis Curtis, African Stone, and others. Great care has been taken to restore old, long-lost dubplates to pristine throbbers at the Dubplates & Mastering Studio in Berlin, and the inner sleeves contains an in-depth interview with Bovell about the tunes and the times. A meaty set, reeking of ganja and late night skanking.

Eva Cassidy Walkin’ After Midnight (Blix Street) + Ringo Starr Look Up (Lost Highway)

Two records from artists taking unexpected turns into country music. Eva Cassidy, unknown outside her native Washington DC in her lifetime, tragically and famously died of cancer in 1996 aged 33. Her music then slowly achieved huge global success after being discovered by the BBC Radio 2 breakfast DJ Terry Wogan. There have been loads of posthumous albums but I’ve not been a fan of her work. However, the latest release is a set, recorded at the King of France Tavern in Annapolis, Maryland, that leans into the early 20^th century style known as “Western Swing”, essentially a mingling of country and jazz. Her unusual band set-up was down to regular sidemen not being available, plus the ad hoc addition of violinist Bruno Nasta. The result sounds, aside from her undeniably stunning voice, different to what I’ve heard of her in the past. It’s jazzier, lighter, and fans will enjoy never-before-released versions of “Fever”, “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Summertime, as well as her only extant recording of ZZ Top’s “Down Home Blues”. Comes in info sleeve containing extensive notes from Blix Street Records founder Bill Straw. The last thing we expected from 84-year-old Ringo Starr is a new direction, and delivered with verve. But that’s what’s happening on Look Up, wherein the Beatle joins forces with T Bone Burnett for a set of country originals, mostly written by Burnett and Kris Kristofferson’s close associate Billy Swan. There are well-chosen guests, such as Molly Tuttle, Alison Krauss and Larkin Poe, but this is very much Starr and Burnett’s record. The sound is classic country’n’western, taking a measured approach to adornment. There are strings, but the heart of it is the songs, the steel guitar and the band. I don’t think anyone expected this. Criticism could be thrown at Starr’s singing voice but it seems beside the point; this is a late career triumph that deserves musical plaudits its maker seldom receives. Comes with a large photo/lyric poster and a 12” x 12” photo insert which, for reasons unknown, contains the transcribed notes that Elvis Costello wrote about the album while taking a train journey.

Various Naya Beat Volume 2: South Asian Dance and Electronic Music 1988-1994 (Naya Beat)

I don’t own Volume 1 in this series but Volume 2 certainly holds its own. Ranging from India to Trinidad & Tobago but with an especial focus on the melting pot of London, this collection is lively, dancefloor-ready and, upon occasion, more than a bit kitsch. Proceedings open with the TARDIS noise from Doctor Who, on the tabla-tastic acid house-adjacent sounds of West India Company’s “My Shooting Star,” a band containing not only Ashe Bhosle, Blancmange’s Stephen Luscombe, and percussionist Pandit Dinesh, but also theartdesk’s Peter Culshaw (who knew!?). The music on the two records, on info/photo inner sleeve, dives all over then place, but is mostly in thrall to then-rising tide of clubland styles engendered by the house music explosion. Due to cultural cross-pollination, they’re usually a heap more interesting the contemporary house. The zanier cuts are worthwhile too, especially Sharlene Boodram’s fabulous ragga-favoured ode to chutney. A juicy set that bubbles with wriggly, foot-moving nighttime potential.

The Dickies The Incredible Shrinking Dickies (Cherry Red)

Original punk rock goofs The Dickies were regarded, with their own encouragement, as a cartoon. Little did anyone know, as the Seventies came to an end, that 20 years later, pop-punk would swamp America and be multi-million-selling business. The Californian band’s first two albums, both released in 1979, don’t take themselves in the least seriously but they’re both a ram-raid of nuts-fast catchy songs, somewhere between The Ramones, early Dead Kennedys, and long-forgotten Strawbs punk pastiche The Monks. Cherry Red now reissues the debut, in lyric gatefold, with six bonus cuts, including their most famous hit, a manic cover of the theme to kids TV show Banana Splits. Other covers on board include Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” (fiery but excess to purpose), “Silent Night” (naff), Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” (OK), and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” (good fun). They were famed for their covers but their originals are surprisingly ballistic and more-ish. Comes on bright red vinyl.

The Tenementals Glasgow: A History (Vol. I of VI) (Strength in Numbers)

Chin-strokey academic projects have their place but don’t tend to whip up much enthusiasm at theartsdesk on Vinyl Mansions. The opening salvo from The Tenementals is an exception to the rule. Their frontman, David Archibald, Professor of Political Cinema at the University of Glasgow, leads a collective of similarly minded souls through a set of 10 witty, wordy songs that celebrate their city. On lyric gatefold, the sound ranges across Fall-like abrasion, Chumbawamba-ish multi-layered indie-folk pop, pub piano stompers, spoken word, and more, with female vocalists Jen Cunnion and Therese Martin making notable contributions. Thematically focused on working class radicalism, the songs flit between history (the Spanish Civil War, suffragettes, etc) and poetically sketched observations of the geographical space. What’s most impressive about it, though, is that it’s so approachable and tuneful.

Homer Enastina (Big Crown)

Brooklyn’s Big Crown Records are always digging down into retro-modern soul. Their latest foray promotes Homer Steinweiss, a drummer who’s worked with everyone from Amy Winehouse to Adele to Bruno Mars. His debut album, Ensatina, is headnod sweet, warm and loose, featuring a raft of guest vocalists. It’s reverbed super-laidback trip-hop soul that bleeds a sense that it was thrown together with in-the-moment enthusiasm which conveys nicely to the listener. Not an album that shouts, but one that slowly reaches you in its own sunny time.

ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION

Taxi Girls Rainy/The Lion’s Share (Wild Honey): Only on their second single, as far as I can tell, Montreal four-piece Taxi Girls drop a 7” both sides of which boasts punk rock in the current Aussie femme-raucous-with-big-choruses fashion (think Amyl and the Sniffers or Teen Jesus & The Jean Teasers). To these ear “The Lion’s Share” is the snarlier and catchier.

Juanita Stein The Weightless Hour (Agricultural Audio/Vacancy): The best part of 20 years ago, Australian band Howling Bells moved to London and made waves. When that band wound down, around five years later, frontwoman Juanita Stein went on to a solo career. Her fourth album, mingles lovely gruff thoughtful songs, such as “Old World”, with rockier numbers. In fact, running the gamut from Lush-like haziness to raw jangling to twangy Leonard Cohen-ish fare, she seems to be picking her way around the wide possibilities of downtempo late night electric guitar music. A grower.

The Verve This is Music: The Singles (Virgin): The Verve created other music well worth a listen, notably their early lysergic space-rock-ish material (“She’s a Superstar” and “Gravity’s Grave” are here in their full-length versions, as is non-album debut single “All in the Mind”), but they only hit “timeless classics” status with one gigantic and, in the Nineties, ubiquitous album, Urban Hymns. The three main singles from it remain monsters, time capsules of an era, “Lucky Man”, “The Drugs Don’t Work” and, of course, “Bitter Sweet Symphony”. They were clearly one of those bands whose creativity came from REALLY not getting on (Richard Ashcroft has never emanated a public persona that shouts, “He seems a good egg”). Listening to their early 1990s material reminds how much Britpop owed them. This two record set in photo gatefold and photo/info inner sleeves also demonstrates that, aside from the two singles from their final 21^st century comeback incarnation, they consistently fired out rock songs that ranged between solid and fine.

Toumani Diabaté Kaira (Chrysalis): In recent years, particularly the last decade, Mali has become renowned in European music circles as a hotbed of music we can get our teeth into. Back in the mid-1980s, before such a rep had broadly developed, the young British ethnomusicologist Lucy Durán, enamoured of the kora, a west African lute-harp, and via series of interactions she explains in the 12” x 12” photo/info insert, came across 21-year-old Toumani Diabaté, a player with a long family tradition in the instrument. She brought him to London and recorded this five-track set, entirely live. Diabaté would go on to be well-known for fusing his music in multiple areas, from flamenco to Bjork, but this initial recording has a gleaming purity, complex, bright, fresh and accessible.

Norken Our Memories of Winter (Hydrogen Dukebox) + Icarus An Ever-growing Meridional Entertainment Transgression at the Edge of the Multiverse (Not Applicable) + Glok/Timothy Clerkin Alliance (Bytes): Three albums that showcase worthwhile electronica. Lee Norris has been making music for a long time under a wide variety of aliases, notable Metamatics and Norken. Quarter of a century ago I was a fan of the latter’s debut album Soul Static Bureau. His latest is a double on white vinyl in gatefold in stylishly minimal grey-white packaging. Intended to emulate winter, the club backroom housey bubblings combine warmth and a tint of desolation. It’s one of those to have on when working or doing the washing up, propulsive yet not intrusive. Good for MDMA too, I should imagine. Icarus, consisting of Brit producers Ollie Bown and Sam Britton, have also been going for aeons (since the mid-Nineties) but, unlike acts who mine similar territory, such as, loosely speaking, Bogdan Raczynski, Amon Tobin and Autechre, maybe even Four Tet, wider recognition has evaded them, despite a constant and ear-boggling output. Their latest is a jarred exercise in twitched-out rhythms that submerge, resurface and entangle. It’s boundary-pushing, wibbly and out-there. It remains to be seen whether Andy Bell will be included in the line-up for the much-touted Oasis reunion concerts. If he is, what he’s playing will be about as far away from his work as Glok as is possible. Bell is a musician who enjoys dipping into sounds well beyond the predictable. He’s been creating Glok’s wobbly electronica since just before COVID and now joins forces with DJ-producer Timothy Clerkin for a welcome set that buzzes with gnarly energy but also holds together as an album listening experience. There is something of those Chemical Brothers downtempo tracks with female vocals about it, but Alliance is its own creature and worth investigating, polished but fritzed-out round the edges.

Spoon They Want My Soul: Deluxe More Soul Edition (Matador): Spoon, from Austin, Texas, are one of America’s most exciting commercially successful rock bands. They don’t do the usual; most in their position would not have commissioned an Adrian Sherwood remix of their entire album Lucifer on the Sofa. There biggest hit albums so far (in their homeland, not here) have been 2010’s Transference and this one, now receiving a tenth anniversary Deluxe Edition. The second record in gatefold, contains offcuts, band demos, home demos, a “Reduction Mix” of “Inside Out”, essentially an ambient piano take, and an instrumental “Night Version Dub” of “Let Me Be Mine”, which channels the spirit of Iggy Pop’s “Nightclubbing”. This group are playful, imaginative and inventive, while always pop, and always worth investigating.

Black Pumas Live From Brooklyn Paramount (ATO): Like Spoon, reviewed above, Black Pumas are from Austin, Texas, and bring that city’s energy and spirit to their sassy reinvention of classic soul’s rockin’ and upbeat side, sonically making reference to the late-Sixties period when people like The Temptations were letting weed and speed dribble into their music. This two record set in photo/info gatefold is a concert recording from the tour for their second album, Chronicles of a Diamond Dark. The recording is rich and fulsome, pressed to dark mauve vinyl, and shows off the band to FOMO effect as they are absolutely nailing it. These songs only become hotter in the live arena and, after hearing it, I just want to see them at a festival as soon as possible.

Various Emelia Pérez: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Masterworks): I have not seen the film yet, Emelia Pérez, helmed by French director Jacques Audiard. So, in one sense, it’s trickier to respond to this two record set in photo/info gatefold. The film has been receiving strong responses, both negative and positive, which, for me, is a good sign. The story of a Mexican cartel leader who wants to transition to a woman, the songs are by film composer Clément Ducol and, more intriguingly, his wife, the singer Camille, who first came to British attention via her work on the early Nouvelle Vague albums, but has since developed a career in both music and cinema. The songs are mostly performed by the stars of the film, Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez. Full of Hispanic verve, and in that language, on a first listen it’s an atmospheric, wide-ranging set, from stark balladry to enormous set-pieces, from modern pop-rock to flamenco-splattered theatrics. I enjoyed it but, with this one, as with, say, the songs from La La Land, only time and viewings of the film will tell what sticks.

She Keeps Bees Eight Houses (BB*Island) + Simon Joyner Coyote Butterfly (B*Island): Two from the always worthwhile BB*Island label outta Germany. She Keeps Bees is the duo of singer Jessica Larrabee and drummer Andy LaPlant, born of the same New York scene that gave us Sharon Van Etten (who contributes to this reissued album). Eight Houses is their fourth full album, and the one before their most recent. Released in 2014, it sees the pair in raucous indie-blues form, Larrabee’s voice a formidable weapon that would give prime Grace Slick a good run. Their song “Owls” was transformed by Dutch duo Redondo, collaborating with countryman Leon Bolier, into “Every Single Piece”, one of the original and lovelier tropical house tunes, before that scene turned to excrement. But don’t expect “Owls” to sound anything like that. It doesn’t, but you can hear where the melody came from. Eight Houses comes with a 12” x 24” folded lyric/photo poster. Nebraskan singer-songwriter Simon Joyner has been making delicately whispy folk for 30 years or more, stepping murmuringly in the shoes of the Townes Van Zandt school of Americana. His latest album is a sparse acoustic affair that honours his son Owen, who died two years ago of a drug overdose. It is grief-riven but not dour, as Joyner, over delicate acoustic guitar, reminisces, ponders, has imaginary chats, and weaves the whole into a heartfelt tapestry of raw – but not overdone – emotion. There’s a touch of Leonard Cohen about it but Coyote Butterfly is its own unique elegy. Comes in lyric inner sleeve in art/photo gatefold

Dusty Springfield Dusty: The BBC Sessions (Mercury/BBC): A collection from the huge-voiced Sixties singer who suffered so much from the oppressive attitudes to sexuality of her era. The two record set on double in gatefold follows Springfield from 1962, with her cutesey-pie corny “folk” trio The Springfields (check out the faux-Afro “Swahili Papa”!) through her mid-Sixties Motown-adjacent sound, which brought her massive fame (yes, theatrical torch song “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” is here), through to, arguably, her creative peak with the southern soul of her Dusty in Memphis period, the most famous cut of which is the magnificent “Son of a Preacher Man” (the version here is rhythmically stilted compared to the original but her voice gives it sensual oomph). Fans will want this for rare cuts such as her version of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” but the whole things has a boisterous retro-soul energy.

Deep Drives Big Mountain County (Sister 9): The new album, the fourth (I think) from Italian outfit Big Mountain County, sits somewhere tasty between Sleaford Mods, Suicide, Fat Dog and Genesis Owusu. Which is to say that, while remaining deliberately head-frying, they have left their psyche-rock side behind to dwell in noisy electronic shoutiness, occasionally giving off a whiff of Alabama 3 funkiness. This is a one darkly, sneeringly groovy album, cut fat to plastic.

Ruby Rushton Stapodia/Kalo Livadi (22a) + Alawari Leviathan (April) + Elin Forkelid Songs to Keep You Company…: (Sail Cabin): Three records that focus (mostly!) on the mellower side of jazz, without giving ground to blandness. First off, a 10” from Ruby Rushton, a band led by rated Brit saxophonist/flautist Tenderlonius, known to his mum as Ed Cawthorne. To be honest, his sax on A-side “Stapodia” is hardly mellow, more brash and twisty, but everything else on the cut is, and on the flip, which I prefer, the instrumentation is stripped right back to a very-late-at-night keys’n’percussion groove, to which his flute occasionally adds texture. Alawari are a Danish six-piece who appeared on vinyl in 2022 with the noisy bastard challenge of their eponymous debut album. This time they’ve stepped back from that with a classically-leaning suite of pieces which mingle ruminative autumnal tones with loose serialism. It may not be a bracing but it’s actually a step sideways and forward which showcases a very deliberate and rehearsed musicality. Finally, and most interesting of this bunch, is the latest from well-established Swedish saxophonist-composer Elin Forkelid. It is also the most laidback. Forkelid has, on occasion, pushed at the walls of free jazz, but this set, which arrives on photo/info gatefold, is, as she puts it “an attempt to bring a little comfort, to whomever may need it”. This doesn’t mean she’s wandered into elevator music. There are moments of experimentation and pokey oddness, but it's mostly sublimated to the cause of calm.

Sparks Annette: An Opera – The Original 2013 Recordings Boxset (Lil’ Beethoven): The start of the 2020s saw a sudden and unexpected cinematic overload of brilliantly eccentric US duo Sparks, the documentary The Sparks Brothers and, more surprisingly, the musical Annette, directed Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. The latter confused critics (I’ve not seen it so can’t comment) but all agreed it had an opulent originality. Now an explanatory back story arrives in the form of a three-record boxset. The film derived from an intended operatic project that Sparks wanted to take on global tour with soprano Rebecca Sjöwall. Once Carax heard the unreleased album these plans changed. The boxset redresses the situation, with Russell Mael portraying standup comic Henry McHenry, Sjöwall playing his opera star wife Ann, and Ron Mael, aptly, playing an accompanist/conductor. The opera is about the central couple’s turbulent relationship and parenthood, and is a wild achievement, ranging from “proper” Sparks pop song “So May We Start” to the over-the-top comic theatricality of “She’s Out of This World” to pieces featuring a children’s choir. To call it an enjoyable romp would be to understate its musical heft. You’ll need to be in the right mood but, if you are, a freakishly overboard pleasure.

Peter Alexander Jobson Burn the Ration Books of Love (Absolute): It’s impossible to write about this record without mentioning the don himself, Leonard Cohen. Northumberland poet-singer Peter Alexander Jobson sings almost exactly like him, enunciation, song structure, croak and everything (albeit with a hint of recent and very old Willie Nelson). Once one has accepted the inspirational shadow under which this album dwells, it allows the songs to blossom. They are pared-back literate baroque singer-songwriter numbers, featuring small ensemble instrumentation, partly drawn from Jobson’s own life. He was bassist-keyboardist with I Am Kloot and has since worked with Elbow and Nadine Shah, but his own work is worthwhile. The album opens, incongruously, with the live throwaway comedy cut “Holiday”, but then settles. Comes with a 12” x 12” lyric insert.

Apifera Keep the Outside Open (Stones Throw): Los Angeles label Stones Throw steps away, for a moment, from their more customary blend of soul, funk and hip hop, for an album of jazz-rock-pop that tips its hat firmly in the direction of Sixties psychedelic grooviness. Sometimes stoned instrumentals, sometimes based on British lysergic whimsy, as on “Theodor Marmalade” (the clue’s in the title!), the Israeli band are fully committed to their retro style, giving it a modern rhythmic underpinning and contemporary polish. They sound like they’re having a good time.

Marcelo D2 & Sambadrive Direct-to-Disc (Night Dreamer): Big-in-America, even-bigger in Brasil hip hop star Marcelo D2 may be in his fifties but he’s still keen on embracing new ground. Put together with his fluidly jazzy band Sambadrive, Direct-to-Disc was recorded live in a studio in Haarlem, Holland, when they were on tour and captures an in-the-moment zest. They combine a variety of Brazilian styles with D2’s ebullient rapping. Initially, his abrasive tones jar against the slick samba-swing of the backdrop but, once the ear has accustomed, a different kind of punchiness is revealed. Comes in info inner sleeve with a 12” x 12” four-page photo/info booklet.

AND WHILE WE’RE HERE…

• The second album from Sophie Jameson, I Still Want to Share on Bella Union, is a baroque singer-songwriter set that matches her quavering voice with music that flits between reverbed hush and explosions of string-swathed emotion. Her subject matters are love, broken love and self-doubt, which she attends to in a persuasively thoughtful manner. She is based in London but I don’t know where she comes from as Google is being uncharacteristically reticent. Wherever she’s from she's a talent whose work has a morose bedsit charm.
• Krautpop! Records new compilation Kernobeat! Volume 1 is a very likeable outing, supporting local talent around Cornwall. Sounds like they’ve been on the mushrooms out west as the whole thing is dipped in old school psyche vibes, lots of wooshing effects and the feel of an old Pebbles collection, with a few interludes of cheery harmonic sunshine guitar pop along the way. Featuring The Heavenly Bodes, Thin Walls, B. Spanks, The Booyah Settlement, Pallet, Father Throat, The Vile Grass, Dinomoves, and the Tantric Tantrums. Comes in info inner sleeve.
• Eclectic London indie label Submarine Cat fire out the latest EP from feisty south-western five-piece Flat Party, the It’s All Been Done Before EP. It showcases tuneage that, like The Last Dinner Party, owes a debt to Suede at their most flamboyant, but this lot are male-fronted and more noisily kicking at the walls of rock’n’roll. Comes on maroon vinyl.
• Irish singer Hozier is that rare artist who’s turned his natural, unforced stylings into a successful – and global – pop career. His third album was reviewed on theartsdesk by Tom Carr, here, but now reappears as Unreal Unearth Unending which, on vinyl, means four sides of the original album, plus another two of extra cuts, which are a match for the rest. His music is mostly not my bag, but I like the way he dives about soul, folk, funk and rock with an unforced, catchy sincerity. On triple gatefold on Island Records on “tooth white” vinyl.
• There has been a revival of shoegaze over the last decade and, who’d have thunk it, the kids now love Slowdive. An unexpected turn! COSM, a fourpiece hailing from the south-west of the UK, are on board and drop their five-track debut So I Let Go EP on Krautpop! Records. It is, indeed, more pop than rock, tuneful indie occasionally lathered in the requisite spaced feedback. “Say About Me”, for instance, is catchy. Ones to watch. Comes on black’n’white streaked 10” vinyl with a photo insert of the band.
• Berlin-based sonic explorer Jules Reidy teams up with Italian drummer-composer Andrea Belfi for the album Dessus Oben Alto Up (as Belfi & Reidy) on Marionette Records. It’s a thoughtful exercise in skittering ambience, unobtrusive but complex and occasionally, abstractly interesting.
• Shabaka Hutchings’ Native Rebel Records offers up a collaboration between London rapper Confucius MC and jazzy beats production perennial Bastien Keb. Entitled Songs For Lost Travellers, it is a laidback affair, wherein the MC’s lyrics arrive calmly stewed against a brightly presented backdrop which twinkles with 3.00 AM jazz club charm. Comes photo/info inner sleeve.
• US indie rockers My Morning Jacket have been releasing a series of live albums, of which Volume 4 is entitled 10/18/10 Terminal 5, NYC: The Tennessee Fire on ATO Records. It’s on triple gatefold on red vinyl and sees their 1999 debut album laid out in full, the band really having a blast with it, letting the songs stretch and breathe, as well as a seven song encore. Recorded clear and loud, it’s a solidly nailed way for fans to re-engage with these songs.
• Another one from Cornish label Krautpop! who are flying the flag for talent in their area. Good on ‘em! The curiously named Low Harness are from Falmouth and their debut album, Salvo, mingles elements of doomy Eighties post-punk, notably in the rhythm section, with female-fronted songs that have indie rock heft, and a dash of shoegaze. Gothy guitar pop a-go-go. Something’s going on in Cornwall...
• Martin Horntveth of Norwegian jazz experientialists Jaga Jazzist releases his second album as Gouldian Finch, entitled Scizho [SIC] on All Ape Records. Based on a commission for Kongsberg Jazz Festival, it showcases a pro’ nine-piece band letting rip on a mess of jazz-funk which, even when occasionally noisy and skonky, stays loose and joyful. Comes in art gatefold on orange vinyl art/info inner sleeve.
• US-based singer, author and promoter of Tamil artistry Ganavya gathered together a bunch of musicians and artists to a retreat in Houston, including Esperanza Spaulding, Vijay Iyer, theatrical innovator Peter Sellars, and the ubiquitous Shabaka Hutchings. From these sessions Daughter of a Temple was born, which appears on Leiter-Verlag Records, edited and further produced and edited by Nils Frahm. It is a set of heavily Indo-Asian-flavoured gentle spiritual music, suitable for meditation and the like.
• On SusannaSonata, the label of Susanna of Susanna and the Magic Orchestra (which is as many “Susanna”s as can be fitted in a short sentence), comes Vivid Peace Restored by Stina Stjern. With a background in jazz, as well as once fronting rock band Supervixen, she’s now moved fully into avant-garde-ism, on a set, built from cassette tapes, that whirrs, clonks, fizzes and hisses, with occasional blurred snippets of vocal. If you’re after this sort of fritzed-out, treated analogue electronic experimentalism, she delivers.
• One their own self-titled label, Tasmanian rockers A. Swayze & the Ghosts deliver their second album Let’s Live a Life Better Than This eight years after their first. It’s a set of tight songs in a new wave vein; it may be forever 1979 in Ghosts-world, the spiky guitars, vocals somewhere between The Cure and The Vapors, snappy choruses and, one hopes, drainpipe trousers. They sound like they’d light up a venue playing live. Comes on lurid bright green vinyl.
• Hull’s Matt Edible & The Obtuse Angels may be many geographical miles different from A. Swayze and the Ghosts, reviewed above, but their new album The Optometrist sometimes embraces a similar sonic timeframe. Then again, it’s equally happy embracing glam and homemade Eighties indie. It's wordy and full of heart, effectively represented by the punky vocals of frontman Matt Edible. This is an unashamed sing-along affair. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
• The Danish duo of Jonathan Bremer on double bass and Morten McCoy on keys and electronics go by the po-faced named of Bremer/McCoy but their music is cuddly and easy. Their third album is called Kosmos, on Luaka Bop Records, and is a proper late-night dose of mellow, shuffling toasty ambience with human feeling and jazz chops, even slivers of tune. Easy listening for the fine whisky and a good book crowd. Comes in art inner sleeve.
• Melike Şahin used to sing with Turkish psyche merchants BaBa ZuLa but her own solo material is a far cry from their fuzzed-out rocking. Her second solo album, AKKOR, was recorded in London and appears via Istanbul’s Gülbaba Records. Sung in Turkish, it’s a pretty straightforward amalgam of Turkish pop and western mainstream rock. Comes in photo/lyric gatefold with 12” x 12” lyric/photo insert.
• The Making of Silk is the third album by Australian singer Allysha Joy, on First Word Records. It’s full of R&B-flavoured smoochy smooth downtempo jazz-soul, all string-laden and lush, with the vocals intimately delivered. There’s never a time when I want to listen to this particular variety of this sort of music, but for those who enjoy the style, it’s done with class and musical depth. Comes with a 12” x 12” photo/info insert.
• Stephen Wilkinson, AKA Bibio, is his own person, bridging the overlap between the kind of electronica covered in Mixmag and the kind of modern classical favoured by The Wire. In 2017 he released Phantom Brickworks, an album of hissing ambience and piano muffle. The music felt like an abandoned space and, indeed, was based around deserted British locations. Now the sequel arrives on double on Warp, Phantom Brickworks (LP II). It is quietly (very quietly) lovely and peaceful, soothing if in the mood.
• Erland Cooper is known to pop/rock music fans as the guy behind The Magnetic North and Erland and the Carnival but has long since departed from such territory to become a well-regarded classical composer. He buried the only tape of his first violin concerto, Carve the Runes then be Content with Silence, in his native Orkney in 2012, deleting all digital versions, so that it might become one with nature for a while. It was located by fans in 2022 and allowed to dry out in record shops. Now it receives a limited-edition-of-1000 vinyl release on MercuryKX Records, replete with a signed photo piece featuring his signature and snippet of the original tape. Musically these sedate contemplative string pieces, with occasional poetic talk-overs do, as intended, bring to mind the wilds of Scotland (also, slightly, Ivor Cutler), but are as much an admirably conceived piece of psychogeographic art.
• Kidnap, previously Kidnap Kid, is Sheffield electronic music producer Matt Relton. His latest album is Something Lost, Something Gained on PIAS. Anyone remember “Days Go By” by Dirty Vegas? It was an atmospheric, catchy hit back in 2003, combining a kind of early tropical house roll with slick male yacht rock vocals and, after being used in a TV car advert, it grew globally enormous. That’s the vibe throughout this album, slickly executed over a 4/4, somewhere between high street house and actual Ibiza Balearic, but with an emotive home listening capability. It’s not my bag but it’s tuneful and well done. Comes in info inner sleeve
• Usually New York-based Danish pianist Rasmus Sørensen returns to his homeland for his latest album, At the Right Time on April Records, his third. Backed by agile bassist Jon Henriksson and Wynton Marsalis drummer Francesco Ciniglio, Sørensen musters an easy going roll that’s for jazz purists who like light music which pushes... but not into dissonance. Easy on the ears.
• This one, Disappointment Machine by Arliston on Sob Story Records, arrived with a sticker, a tee-shirt and a well-designed art/photo/info lyric book. Which was nice. They are a duo from London, Jack Ratcliffe and George Hasbury, and deal in self-described sad songs, as their record label name implies. These sorrowful numbers, with a reverbed backdrop of piano and electronics, and Jeff Buckley-esque falsetto voice-breaking, are 100% not my bag but, given how popular such solipsistic James Blake-ish music is, that doesn’t mean it won’t be successful.
• Italian folk-punk duo Menagramo keep things stripped back to a guitar and washboard. The mononymous pairing go by Wally and Enri, the former on roaring, sweary accented vocals, lyrics raging at the suits who keep us down. Their third album, Dental Plan on Wild Honey Records, is redolent of Gogol Bordello (although not Balkan-flavoured). However, I suspect the live arena is where to catch them. Comes with 12” x 12” lyric insert.
• Seth Lakeman offers a rather different side of folk. He inhabits an area for those who want their folk accessible but not, maybe, as accessible as Mumford and Sons. He is prolific but his latest album, The Granite Way on Honour Oak Records, tightly nails down a set trad in feel, but with enough American trimming and rock fan-friendly architecture. Feels live and lived in. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
• Miranda and the Beat are a New York garage outfit transposed to New Orleans. Their second album Can’t Take It, on the Italian Wild Honey label, fizzes with energy and proper CBGBs-meets-Hammond-fuelled 1960s punk trashiness. Sometimes their sound makes one imagine what might have happened if Debbie Harry had ended up in The Cramps instead of Blondie, but at others frontwoman Miranda Zipse comes on more like Deap Vally singer Lindsey Tory at her rawest and most screechy. Crackin’ stuff. Comes on murky blue vinyl.
• Berlin-based Australian Kat Frankie is clearly invested in reinventing what acapella can mean. She has built a reputation for putting on concerts with her eight-piece female group, solely vocal, no instruments. The project is known as B O D I E S, as is her/their debut album on Gronland Records. It has a beauty to it, all those lush layers of harmony mushing into each other. It’s an album that is crafted and clever but also achieves its aims, showcasing a new spin on a very old singing form. Comes on transparent vinyl.
• Morganway are a British six-piece, well-established on the British festival circuit. Their background is in folk and Americana. That’s where their rep has been built, but their second album, Kill the Silence, on their own eponymous label, pushes into mainstream rock. The fiddle is still there but what’s really to the fore on these muscular Seventies-style songs is the barroom brawlin’ voices of singers Callum Morgan and, most especially, SJ Mortimer, the latter’s femme-roar the band’s (not so) secret weapon. It’s a sturdily constructed album and, if they can achieve decent exposure, this set is ripe for larger venues. Comes on vinyl that looks like black ink streaking a pine forest pond.
• Dave Robinson, once of Stiff Records, has thrown his weight behind Carlisle five-piece Hardwicke Circus, even producing their music. Robinson signed Madness so it’s easy to see what he hears in them. On their new album, a live one, recorded at Pizza Express in Holborn, they showcase songs from their three studio albums, mixing everyday realities with easy lyricism over music that’s light and jolly, with much saxophone. Entitled Cumbria Pizza: The Greatest Hits Unplugged, on Alternative Facts Records, it’s too musically polite and edgeless for theartsdesk on Vinyl but the songs are, indeed, there, and fans of The Beautiful South may wish to take a listen.
• One gets the impression that Matt Berry, a successful TV/film actor, voiceover artist and comedian, wishes his main income was from making music. For the last decade he’s pumped out almost an album a year. He has his fans too, a cult artist on a respected label, Acid Jazz Records, and his music is not short on imagination. His latest is a case in point. Heard Noises has a retro pastiche appeal, coming on somewhere between 1970s BBC Radio 2 easy listening, John Barry, and mildly psychedelic 1960s TV theme songs. It’s wittily done and likeable. Features Natasha Lyonne of Orange is the New Black and Poker Face on one song and arrives on powder blue vinyl in photo/info inner sleeve.
• By 1982 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Bob-Dylan-rejigged-as-bar-band-rock was an established force in the American charts. Their fifth album Long After Dark was their second Top Ten hit and now reappears as a double on gatefold on Geffen Records with a second disc containing alternate versions and “rediscovered” tracks. In terms of the produced sound, if you’re into Born to Run-era Springsteen, “Jump”-era Van Halen and the rockier moments of Hall & Oates, you may enjoy. I am not.
• Over the last 40 years singer Paul Kelly has become an absolute institution in his native Australia. He’s put out ten zillion albums, most of which have been successful, albeit not beyond his homeland. Fever Longing Still, then, on Cooking Vinyl, is full of skankin’ bar rock and twangy indie, so business as usual, which isn’t meant as a takedown, but it's unlikely to propel him beyond where he is already.
• Google The Sea Kings and there appears to be at least three acts of that name in the UK alone. The Glasgow four-piece are the ones we speak of here. On their latest album Fear is All Around, on their own Iffy Folk Records, they deal in folk-rock with a baroque cinematic edge that recalls the likes of Bookhouse Boys. Their songs are literate and hold the attention – check out “Crematoria Dostoyevsky”. Comes with a small four-page photo/lyric booklet.
• Sasha was once one of the biggest DJs in the world. It appeared that he didn’t particularly like his icon status. It didn’t sit well with his retiring persona (except when he’d had a few). Like many DJs, he’s drawn to orchestration, and his new album, a double, captures the soundtrack he put together with his team, Dave Gardner, Dennis White and Barry Jamieson, to soundtrack one of those immersive and immensely profitable travelling art shows. Entitled Da Vinci Genius: The Score on Late Night Tales’ sister label, Night Time Stories, it’s ethereal-aiming orchestrated ambience that is unmemorable but likely served its purpose in situ.
• Around the turn of the millennium The Corrs were absolutely massive, their middle-of-the-road folk-tinted pop-rock initially propelled into the upper reaches of the UK charts by cheesy dance remixes. The entire album back catalogue of the Irish sibling quartet is now reissued by Warner Brothers – Forgiven Not Forgotten (1995), Talk On Corners (1997), In Blue (2000), Borrowed Heaven (2004), Home (2005) and Jupiter Calling (2017). Sometimes, when returning years later to music dismissed as cheesy and naff, once it’s disconnected from the surrounding culture, I can hear something my younger self missed. Such has been the case recently, for instance, with Natalie Imbruglia’s fantastic pop song, “Torn”. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case with these albums.

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