The best new albums this week

The must own albums of the week

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Baxter Dury – Mr. Maserati — The Best of Baxter Dury (Heavenly Recordings)

“I don’t think you realise how successful I am. I’m like a shipping tycoon, full of promises and cum. I’m a salamander, a short riff lover boy, causing grief to the bleeding eyes. I’m the turgid fucked-up little goat pissing on your fucking hill. And you can’t shit me out.”

It has been two decades since we first encountered the laconic, piss-taking, wide boy, no messing about, salt-of-the-Earth southern English gangster storytelling of Baxter Dury. In that time he has certainly grown in self-confidence, as those opening lines to his 2017 single ‘Miami’ go to show. But trace things all the way back to the oldest track on this Best of compilation he doesn’t think he deserves, namely ‘Oscar Brown’, and you start to realise that assurance was always been there. And anyone pigeonholing the son of Ian ‘Blockhead’ Dury in simplistic terms like ‘swaggering spoken word player’ needs to do more homework.

First unveiled back in 2005, four years after this particular creative story really began, at the time said song felt like stepping into warm, healing sunlight, somehow managing to conjure thoughts of John Lennon, The Carpenters, and Spiritualized, the utilisation of Johana Hussey’s stunning background voice and cello accompaniment set the bar high for musicality early on. And the London-born poet for our times has never really looked back since, consistently opting to marry those razor sharp, sardonic verses with classic pop-rock instrumentation and vocal sections that hit nail on head for gospel, rhythm and blues, and soul inflected contemporary chart-topping vibes.

From that inaugural offering this album’s timeline quickly grows darker and street, with ‘Cocaine Man’ living up to its name and then some, taking a sideswipe at the UK’s filthy-but-aspirational habits by way of surrealist imagery, soundtrack sitting somewhere between Arab Strap and singalong indie rock. And it’s this juxtaposition of half-opposing sonic realms that really makes the impact here, the end result carving out what feels like an entire creative world all of Dury’s own devising. A place that’s at once unfathomable and completely familiar, unsettling, and yet unarguably comfortable. At times laying bare the wrongs we try to forget about, while also overall presenting something that sounds entirely right — a unique voice, with exceptional arrangements and some top-drawer ideas.

With all that in mind it’s no surprise Dury himself references the mighty Sleaford Mods and Fat White Family as comparable contemporaries. Or, as he coins it, “blokey talky bands”. As with those two touchstones, though, he’s not really someone you can easily draw many real likenesses to. He manages to write lines that are as insidious as they are often beautiful, opting to draw inspiration from classic bygone eras of trans-Atlantic pop culture, rather than committing himself to a present day that has long-since proven incapable of emulating the sophistication of those tones from times past.

Of course, there are some clear clues as to the era that gave birth to, nurtured, and allowed Dury to shine through. ‘D.O.A.’, the only new track here, packs vocoders and theremin notes, although the eagle-eyed might note that neither of those things are necessarily new, just perhaps indicative of electronic futures rather than organic pasts. Rambling done, and mistakes likely made along the way, what does seem utterly certain is that in an age when people find it easy to throw their hands up in despair, and declare that all is lost, our man offers a compelling argument that there are still some innovative, musically-minded wordsmiths left.

MH

Ultramarine – Interiors (Blackford Hill)

For many, Ultramarine represent the gentler kind of 90s indie-dance crossover encapsulated on their breakthrough album Every Man And Woman Is A Star. But Paul Hammond and Ian Cooper’s collaborative project has been more varied than that one album, previously tilted towards industrial and shoegaze before edging towards a bubbly kind of braindance-electro and intimate, off-centre deep house. Since starting out in 1989 their activity has gone through understandable ebbs and flows, but the past decade has yielded a steady flow of material which now comfortably folds their previous styles into a sound defined more by cosy atmospheres and lilting, organic experimentation than any particular genre.

During a period of reawakening around 2011, Hammond and Cooper were shifting their focus towards this new direction in which the joins between live instruments, samples and synthesis became very hard to discern. They returned with the double-dose of the Find A Way and Acid / Butch singles, but there was of course more material from this period which never got committed to wax. During the ritual housekeeping of 2020’s lockdown which many artists undertook, Ultramarine presented some additional pieces from that period as the digital-only Interiors release, and now Blackford Hill have pressed those tracks plus an additional demo.

There’s something truly exquisite about Ultramarine in this period – the sound of a group so at ease with their direction and methodology the music seems to positively flow from their fingers. From post-rock guitar treatments and dub mixing desk flair to voluptuous house-geared synthesis and outernational rhythmic passages, the tracks on Interiors have the quality of a rich stew bursting with flavours given enough time to blend to perfection. Whether slinking towards a drum machine beat on ‘Find A Way Back’ or revelling in hazy downtempo reveries on ‘Decoy Point (Version)’, Hammond and Cooper sound utterly at ease and lucid, expressing their musical ideas with startling dexterity. If this was indeed the sound of a group re-connecting with their craft, then they made the return to the studio sound effortless.    

OW

Cherry Point – Black Witchery (Helicopter)

As far as pagan harsh noise goes, the name ‘Black Witchery’ certainly nails the feel of this LP reissue, which compiles and remasters 3 CDRs made by prolific noise artist Phil Blankenship in 2004. 

Missing two booms in occult media (the 90s saw Japanoise’s heyday and The Blair Witch Project, while the 2010s saw to witch house), ‘Black Witchery’ came at a strange time. Inspired by the artist’s love for witchy horror films, the 3 CDRs were originally released separately, scattered like lost wiccan ingredients: ‘Virgin Witch’, ‘Devil’s Witch’ and ‘Season Of The Witch’ once languished like estranged, wayward sisters, desperately searching for their dead ringers.

Now – thanks to one of LA’s foremost noise enterprises Helicopter – we can hear each fragment as parts of a whole, like pieces of Exodia or Frankenstein. ‘Virgin Witch’, the demon’s head, is a crushing, gargantuan, 16-minute storm of analog noise, blurring tones of anger, murk and blind power in its supernatural, bent circuitry. The listener, confused yet infatuated by this blizzard, might make out satanic moans and wails in the mix, but it’s uncertain. Perhaps the ‘cackles’ we hear are just a quirk of the wind – or so we kid ourselves. 

As track 1 peters out, a short quiet follows, as the next page in the necronomicon turns, revealing ‘Devil’s Witch’. Like the dark ambient work of Zoat-Aon – unmatched in his ambient cosmic horror – this piece occurs in a seemingly endless cavernous space. A demented bird tweets away, echoing maniacally across concave rocks, while gusts of pale air flutter between metallic shrieks. All is again calm; a guttural witch’s voice starts to drone on in endless response, as an unholy swathe of bats and locusts encircle its singularity. ‘Season Of The Witch’ is the most abrasive, its noise occurring entirely up-front in the mix, and remaining untreated by reverb, unlike the preceding tracks. Our verdict? ‘Black Witchery’ is like nails down an ouija board, and we love to hear it.

JIJ

Claus Fovea – Open Eyes Wide Shut (Lux)

The depressing, yet deft solo synthwork of Sweden’s Claus Fovea is resurrected on this vinyl reissue of ‘Open Eyes Shut’. Initially a self-released tape put out by the mysterious artist in 2012, Lux Records have since rediscovered this cold, minimal synth droner nine years later, marvelling at its raw new wave energy and frank vocal style. 

Fans of The Pool, James Asher or Patrick Cowley will surely enjoy this one. But even so, while said artists tended to indulge in quirky synth experiments for the sake of it, Fovea’s artistic statement rests more in evoking a depressed state of mind. Low-attention listens to ‘Open Eyes Wide Shut’ might lead some punters to believe each track here is simply a slight variation on the same song. Just as Fovea sings on ‘Dreams’ – “it’s just the same song playing all the time” – every track has a stripped down, bare-bones acid synth line and only a few peppered-in vocals. 

The real meat of the matter comes towards the album’s latter half, though. When it comes to vocal science, the B1 and B2, ‘We Are Machines’ and ‘Make You Mine’ form a devilish duo, both being trigger-happy on the wacky pitch shifter, and easily recalling Glass Domain or Radioactivity-era Kraftwerk. By the time we reach ‘Eyes Shut’, the album’s best and moodiest track, we’re sold on the Fovea’s dour vision.

JIJ

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die – Illusory Walls (Epitaph)

In the midst of the modern-day emo revival, few bands have likely garnered as much bewilderment, praise, or been dubbed with the outlier status quite like The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die.

For starters, when you choose such a catchy moniker for your band/project/collective (the group seem to exist in between the lines of all three), there’s clearly an intent. Whether that intent is to enthrall and captivate, or simply to get eyes rolling firmly back into skulls, it’s evident that reaction is paramount.

Reactionary art is the fulcrum where ‘Illusory Walls’ sits. The fourth full-length from the conneticut based emo post-rockers is their first since the departure of guitarist/vocalists Tyler Bussey and Dylan Balliett, as well as the death of founding member Tom Diaz. All of this interpersonal change is integral when attempting to unpack the 70-minute density of their follow-up to 2017’s ‘Always Foreign’. 

Teeming with an abundance of dynamic ideas and restraint as the only no-go; the ethereal hush of opener, ‘Afraid To Die’, quickly gives way to guitar-led prog-punk abandon, further doubled down by the synth-heavy melodies and saccharine hooks found on ‘Queen Sophie For President’.

The multi-lead vocal approach makes for an ever-shifting sense of direction and narrative, primarily focused on fading youth, the monotony of adulthood and the uncertainty of the future. A striking blend of metaphorical poetics and honest, almost diary entry directness, makes for a listening experience quite unlike any of the output from their current peers.

The brazen decision to close out the project with not one, but two quarter-hour length tracks, pushes the prog-rock leanings into the stratosphere, with spacey future-punk leads and thundering percussive fury elevating the heartfelt penultimate cut, ‘Infinite Josh’, to a rare place of emotive spectacle. 

Trading their more muted, sombre tendencies for a shimmering, vibrant flood of colourful riffs, mammoth drumming and gargantuan scope; The World Is… have simultaneously crafted their most ambitious, over the top, yet accessible work to date. 

ZB

Hesitation – The Last Christmas (Kit)

Never mind handmade wreaths, sacks of oranges or mistletoe. All the down-to-earth aspects of Christmas are thrown out the window with ‘The Last Christmas’, the newest album by two label heads, Reckno’s Chris Catlin and Kit’s Richard Greenan. Like the synthy, snowdropping tones of Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’, this is a unique take on the idea of holiday music, mixing analog synths and folk instruments to create strange rerubs of classic Christmas carols.

In terms of the imagery it inspires, this album isn’t a baby boomer’s ideal, festive family fireplace scene. Rather, it’s the ghost of Christmas yet to come, once again visiting the listener in a strange, hooded musical guise. As the folky string rendition of ‘We Three Kings’ opens, one might imagine it softly blaring from the surround sound system of a year-3000 art deco apartment, like a festive reenactment of Tarkovsky’s Solaris. Rather than just snow falling outside, blizzards rage to the subdued, no-wavey tune of ‘Silent Night’ – of course, climate change has caused a sixth ice age to emerge. The fireplace burns not from locally-sourced pine wood – it’s fuelled rather by a universalised, sustainable, man-made synthetic material known as ‘Flamm-2.0’. Only such a scientifically advanced resource could add extra crackly texture to the clean, pure bell tones of ‘Christmas Medley’, which spookily blends ‘Troika’, ‘Feast’ and ‘Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree’ into one. Befitting for the global mood of uncertainty this past year, stick this one on your grammophone for a sad and eerie soundtrack to your bizarro yuletide.

JIJ

Coldcut / Mixmaster Morris / Various ‘@0’ (Ahead Of Our Time)

Dance pioneers and electronic music leviathans Coldcut present a lavish collection of introspective ambient tracks on the sprawling compilation album, ‘@0’. Arriving on the Ahead Of Our Time label they run alongside in-form umbrella label, Ninja Tune, the duo teamed up with lord of the backroom, Mixmaster Morris, to curate a stunning selection of magnificently experimental and utterly captivating compositions. The noble motivation behind the album was to serve as an antidote to the endemic depression or mania many of us experience or battle on a daily basis – particularly during the challenging times through which we’re collectively living. Half of the profits raised will be split between three eminently deserving charities, namely the Campaign Against Living Miserably, Mind, and Black Lives Matter.

Featuring work from burgeoning artists alongside undisputed heavyweights of the scene, the album includes breathtaking music from Ryuichi Sakamoto, Suzanne Ciani, Imogen Heap, FSOL, Mira Calix, and Coldcut themselves, and is also available in a seamless version blended by Mixmaster Morris.

Predictably, the music is excellent across the board, revealing new highlights with each immersive listen, making it difficult to select clear favourites. Among those that have stirred the strongest emotions here are: the cinematic Paul Corley rework of Sigur Ros’ ‘Rembihnutur’; the heavenly harmonics of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s ‘Mt Baker’; and Nailah Hunter’s celestial escape, ‘Sadko’. Meanwhile, the lunar landscape of Helena Hauff’s ‘Thalassa’ and the disorienting sonics of Mira Calix’s ‘Danaides’ offer some of the more abstract moments of the piece. On balance, though, if it’s an extended period of soul-soothing escapism you’re after, hitting play on the entire compilation is an entirely sensible course of action.

PC

Various – Palace Of Memory Where Nostalgia Is Fear (Public System)

Public System’s modus operandi is to “refuse to conform to the status and trends associated with contemporary electronic music” – recalling the anti-publicity, anti-press ethos of labels like Forced Nostalgia or 5 Gate Temple. Even so, they’re confident enough in themselves to present this new double LP comp without much press or a distinct conceptual backing. For ‘Palace Of Memory Where Nostalgia Is Fear’, label owner Myn has stripped back the bullshit, opting simply to let the spitting, radical post-industrialist sound of each featuring artist to speak for itself. 

The resulting statement is stronger than any kind of forced concept could convey. From the opening, crosshythmic electro-acid alarmer of Container’s ‘Recliner’ to the circuit bent deconstructed-destructo rhythms of Myntha’s ‘Creepin Nova Sleepin’, this LP is a trip through a unified vision of a future punk dystopia. Every tune is anxious and bursting, like the sonic equivalent of a sarin gas bag exploding in the album equivalent of an Orwellian spy film. Yves Tumor co-producer extraordinaire Anthem makes a curveball appearance on ‘Couilles d’Hirondelles’, taking a convincing step into noise, screamo, trap and witch house in an otherwise electro-ey project. Post-punk is also ticked off; Maenad Veyl’s industrial masterpiece ‘Carbon Copy’ verges on Italo-thrash, and is certainly the best cut on this V/A, a verifiably whirlwind, totalitarian house of horrors.

JIJ

Various – Donne Che Corrono Coi Lupi (Osare! Editions)

Not many artists can be said to have captured, or even attempted to capture, the archetype of ‘wild feminine’. But perhaps Elena Colombi and her Osare! Editions label have bested the work of any other artist drawing on the concept. Or at least – in contrast to Fatima Al Qadiri’s recent album ‘Medieval Femme’, which springs to mind for its polar portrayal of the ‘captive feminine’ – they’ve certainly shed light on a new, unexplored angle of the musical anima.

‘Donne Che Corrono Coi Lupi’ is a limited, orange V/A, featuring only female artists, and inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ book ‘Women Who Run With The Wolves’, a Jungian analysis of the ‘wild woman’. Extracting ideas from her patients who fulfilled the archetype, Estés’ vision of the ‘primal woman’ had recurrent motifs: menstrual blood, caves, ritual dancing, creative work, desert foraging, and even alternative takes on old gendered myths like Bluebeard. 

Fittingly, the mood of ‘wildness’ on this tape builds slowly, and in contrast to archaic 19th Century ideas of women as ‘hysterical’, isn’t without measure. While much of it is as abrasive as Boudica’s fabled appearance, opener ‘Liikaa Iiimaa’ (by Glaswegian sound artist Cucina Povera) – with its refracting vocal chants and riffing strings – is as calm as a dormant dragon resting on gold, recalling the haunting ambient work of NYX or Grouper. As Gaia awakens, so do choice tunes by Bergsonist (‘Speculation’) and Isabella (‘Cherry Sky’), which exemplify, and demonstrate with due diligence, many of the featuring artists’ preferences for raw, live recorded tracks. The latter was made entirely on an Elektron Octatrack, and the former falls under Bergsonist’s staunch inspirations from the philosophy of Bergsonism, which rejects stasis in favour of continuous sonic motion.

On the whole, we’re raving like Bacchanals over this knowingly chaotic full-length, which – through the cascading random-generative synthwork of Naomie Klaus’ ‘Network Junkies’ to the scarily verdant arpeggiating planes of Deradoorian’s ‘Dali’s Elephant’ – impressively  rethinks the idea of ‘women as wild’.

JIJ

This week’s reviewers: Martin Hewitt, Zach Buggy, Jude Iago James, Oli Warwick, Patrizio Cavaliere.