Pop & Rock pick
Paul Weller — Sonik Kicks
Island 2789805
It isn’t hard to imagine musicians of a certain vintage casting an envious eye in Paul Weller’s direction. Here is a musician who, 35 years after he first set the charts ablaze in the lead-up to Thatcherism, is not only in the middle of a purple patch, but — at 53 — producing some of the most experimental and involving work of his career. Sonik Kicks joins 2008’s sprawling 22 Dreams and 2010’s urgent, Mercury-nominated Wake Up the Nation as the third part in what is already being seen as a trilogy representing Weller’s second golden age (or third, according to taste). Working again with his co-producer, Simon Dine, and joined here by Noel Gallagher and Graham Coxon, Weller continues to exercise his right to roam: Study in Blue (a duet with his wife, Hannah) is a dubby jazz workout, which follows on from That Dangerous Age’s Beatlesy chord progressions, Bowie vocal stylings and self-deprecating lyrics about midlife mess-ups. Weller adapts a poem by his daughter Jessie on Dragonfly before immersing himself in pastoralia on the Syd Barrett homage When Your Garden’s Overgrown. Paperchase is poignant pop, inspired by the death of Amy Winehouse, Kling I Klang is a fire-and-brimstone blast at our military follies in the Middle East, and Be Happy Children wraps up the proceedings with a tender tribute to the singer’s late father. Long may he reign. DC
The Shins — Port of Morrow
Aural Apothecary/Sony 88691926702
The question is this: is Port of Morrow all about the band’s front man and famous micro-manager, James Mercer, taking over even more control, or is it about him finally letting go? At first, you imagine it will be the former, as there seems to have been a purge of band members since their last album, Wincing the Night Away; but then it turns out that Mercer has handed over co-production duties to Greg Kurstin, a man perhaps best known for working with Lily Allen, and you realise that, in fact, this is the album on which Mercer finally allows a little slack in the reins. While his songs are as before — clever, slightly psychedelic pop with clever, slightly angsty lyrics — Kurstin has been allowed to steer the Shins into a slightly glossier, more radio-friendly world. ME
Miike Snow — Happy to You
Columbia 88697859242
A side project that gradually got serious, Miike Snow released a well-received debut album in 2009, found themselves touring the world with it and, in the process, came to the realisation they were now a bona fide group. This second release from the top Swedish songwriters Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (Britney et al) and their singer, the New Yorker Andrew Wyatt, could so easily have been hampered by the arrival of intent in place of their debut’s spirit of haphazardness. The opposite is the case: the bonkers, brass-pocked house of The Devil’s Work, the harp-flecked, Postal Service-like God Help This Divorce and Paddling Out’s declamatory, dancefloor-filling propulsion all exemplify an infectious and surprisingly strong follow-up. DC
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Frankie Rose — Interstellar
Memphis Industries MI0211
The former drummer with iconic girl groups such as Vivian Girls and Dum Dum Girls, Frankie Rose released her first solo album in 2010, all reverb-soaked shoegaze and murky surf-pop. There are elements of both on this follow-up, but what comes across most strongly is the sense of Rose no longer hiding behind sound effects and tentativeness. On the contrary, you listen to songs such as the harmony-soaked, Cure-indebted Gospel/Grace, the haunting Apples for the Sun and the hypnotic, repetitive, synth-blanketed Pair of Wings and experience that lovely feeling that comes from witnessing an artist peeling back the wrapping and stepping forward in full colour. This is dreamy and unashamedly huge music that demands to be heard. DC
Napalm Death — Utilitarian
Century Media 9981652
Thirty years ago, this Birmingham band invented “grindcore” and initiated a dialogue between anarcho-punk, extreme metal and the experimental jazz crew. Without them, almost nothing your surly, weed-eyed nephew nods out to at weekends would exist. Today, behind an ersatz protest-punk sleeve, a long-serving line-up finds Barney Greenway bellowing fearsomely incomprehensible cut-and-paste complaints over shifting high-velocity blast beats. John Zorn wafts in from the New York conservatoire to blow a sax solo, and there’s an uncharacteristic symphonic moment on the chorally enhanced Fall on Their Swords. SL
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Lee Ranaldo — Between the Times and Tides
Matador OLE9802
The guitarist Lee Ranaldo’s songs were among the New York art-rockers Sonic Youth’s most beautiful, his extended tonal workouts mixing Deadhead riffing with minimalist repetition, unencumbered by the ironic fascination with kitsch pop culture that dates his colleagues’ work. Ranaldo’s extracurricular activities usually display solid downtown experimental sensibilities, but this solo album offers grown-up alt-rock writ large. Xtina as I Knew Her is 1970s Neil Young lost in 1980s no-wave New York, a Crazy Horse vamp stained with psychedelic post-punk droplets, a school-run soundtrack for former grungers not yet ready to let go. SL
Dud of the week
Balkan Beat — Box Give
Crammed Discs CRAW78
Balkan Beat Box are a party band. Most of the songs here could apply for the job of director of getting the party started and expect to be hired on the spot. String them all together on an album, however, and they make for surprisingly flat listening. Perhaps it’s because they’re so focused on grabbing your attention, they haven’t got room for much that actually rewards it. Or perhaps it’s because the uneven lyrics rarely tell us anything new (“Money leads to more money”), are sometimes just wrong (“Everybody wants to be king in the world” — most people don’t) and are on occasion completely incomprehensible. There are valid reasons to declaim the words to Political F*** through a megaphone, but God knows what they’re going on about. ME
Jazz
Marty Grosz & The Hot Winds — The James P Johnson Songbook
Arbors ARCD19427
The octogenarian Marty Grosz is an American national treasure, a hustling guitarist with hot-jazz tastes. As befits the son of the great Weimar caricaturist Georg Grosz, he brings a dry sense of humour to the bandstand. His latest project sheds fresh light on the Harlem stride-piano master, who was also a skilful purveyor of Broadway songs. There’s a snippet, too, of the operetta De Organizer, co-written with the poet Langston Hughes. The band, including James Dapogny on piano and Dan Block on clarinet, brings the lightest of touches to the likes of Alabama Stomp, and there’s plenty of room for the leader’s brand of mischief. CD
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Various artists — Songlines Music Awards 2012
Songlines SPLCD006
Reducing something as unwieldy as world music to a single disc can be a thankless task, but Songlines magazine carries it off with aplomb. As usual, the list of nominees provides ammunition for an argument or two. Wot, no Aurelio Martinez? Will the desert blues band Tinariwen have the edge over Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara? Anoushka Shankar’s sitar-meets-flamenco project may have been uneven, but she deserves her place in the line-up, as do that dynamic London-based ensemble the Bollywood Brass Band. Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma make the cut, too. Ry Cooder is guaranteed a win in the topical-humour stakes for his raucous performance on No Banker Left Behind. CD
Breaking act
Alabama Shakes
Who are they?
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A four-piece from Alabama, fronted by Brittany Howard, a fiercely charismatic, bespectacled former postwoman whose blood-and-guts delivery and defiantly non-packaged appearance complements a sound that has no truck whatsoever with received wisdom about how to launch a new group. The music on their sensational debut album, Boys & Girls, bursts forth in a torrent of unvarnished, Led Zep-meets-Otis Redding blues-rock and soul. These are songs that, the moment they leap out of the speakers, break clear of all considerations of authenticity, retro and cool (tiresome and invariably unanswerable questions at the best of times), and instead wrestle you to the floor and ravish you. No wonder Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis felt compelled to sign them on the spot.
When’s the album out?
Boys & Girls is released on April 9 on Rough Trade; alabamashakes.com. DC
Playlist
Chris Geddes is the keyboardist of Belle and Sebastian, whose Late Night Tales Volume Two is out on March 26. Here are the tracks inspiring him.
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Can: Halleluwah I finally got around to getting a vinyl copy of Tago Mago recently. This has been on constant rotation since then.
Peaking Lights: All the Sun That Shines A compelling blend of dub and psychedelia, with a mantra-like vocal.
Shelagh McDonald: Liz’s Song A haunting song from the Edinburgh folk singer’s 1971 album, Stargazer.