The best new albums this week
Quite simply, the best albums in your world this week
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Confidence Man – TILT (Heavenly)
Confidence Man’s sophomore album TILT begins with an idiosyncratic statement of intent from singer Janet Planet. “This is my house, the house I built with my own two hands”, she boldly proclaims on opening track ‘Woman’. “And if I so desire, I will burn it down.”
Not only is it a celebration of autonomous femininity, but a distillation of the Australian band’s ethos. Their debut, 2018’s Confident Music for Confident People, was a campy, colourful smorgasbord of cowbell-infused dance-pop, alternative disco and Madchester grooves that empowered as well as energised. At its centre was the vocal one-two of Planet and Sugar Bones, whose takes on topics such as stale relationships, druggy escapades and the perks of fame were delivered with unshakeable self-assurance and a playful wink. Simply put, it did exactly what it said on the tin.
None of the maximalism that we’ve been accustomed to has been sacrificed on TILT. In fact, this is Confidence Man turned up to 11. Their sound, which leans closer towards the euphoria of 90s house music this time around, is bigger, sleeker and more anthemic, having been influenced by rave culture and the New York ballroom scene. Befitting of the dancefloor and the runway, ‘Woman’ sets the tone for the rest of the album with its sumptuous pianos, rubbery basslines and blistering snares. A gospel choir propels ‘Feels Like a Different Thing’ into the stratosphere, while ‘Holiday’ is a shimmering club banger coated in a psychedelic haze. A move towards a sound that has been a ubiquity in the charts for some time might have led them to “play it safe.” Thankfully, their identity hasn’t dulled, and they truly make it their own.
Moreover, Planet has become a multi-dimensional frontwoman. The it-girl persona she revelled in on Confident Music has been slightly dialled back here, her charisma now coming in various shapes and sizes. She channels her inner Madonna a-la ‘Vogue’ on ‘Break It Bought It’, with her spoken/sung delivery carrying an air of omniscience. Of course, there’s a tongue-in-cheek element to it as well, especially when she wryly jokes that “they named all the planets” after her. This energy carries over into the ebullient ‘Relieve the Pressure’, where she reels off a series of mistranslated French idioms. Elsewhere, she’s at her most flirtatious on the slinky ‘Toy Boy’ – a track she brands as a “J-Lo slut jam” – ‘Luvin U Is Easy’ showcases a tenderness so far unseen, while ‘Angry Girl’ finds her voice straining in an exhibition in manic preposterousness.
Bones has less opportunities to shine, but he certainly makes the most of them. His performance on ‘What I Like’ is a highlight on an album packed with them. Reprising the playboy shtick he pulled off wonderfully on ‘Don’t You Know I’m In a Band’, he plays a bravado-oozing party starter basking in the “beautiful crowd”. It’s a typical Confidence Man moment, both strangely alluring and a gleeful send-up of the narcissism perpetuated by social media. Meanwhile, he chants the sky-kissing verses on ‘Holiday’, with lines such as “We all need somethin’ to live for baby” emphasising its spiritual essence, and romps through the flamenco-flavoured interlude ‘Kiss and Tell’.
Despite its loftier ambitions, TILT is everything we’ve come to love about Confidence Man. Like the ponytail and eyeliner that Planet graces on the album’s cover, it’s bold, gloriously decadent and commands your attention at every turn. “I reckon we’re gonna sell out soon. We were born to sell out, to be honest”, quipped Planet in a recent interview. On this evidence, it’s difficult to argue that that would be a bad thing.
MDW
Formula Uno – Racing (Bordello A Parigi)
Bordello A Parigi welcome a pair of much-loved luminaries of the global dance underground, with the dream pairing of DJ Rocca and AIMES joining forces to usher their high-octane Formula Uno project into glorious life. Both of the featured protagonists have already made indelible marks on the world’s esoteric discotheques, so it’s of little surprise that their newly-formed union yields instantly glittering results. Musical polymath Luca ‘DJ Rocca’ Roccatagliati has been crafting infectious disco-tinged grooves for decades – releasing on benchmark labels including Toy Tonics, Gomma, Paper Recordings and Claremont 56, and collaborating with artists as revered as Danielle Baldelli and Dimitri From Paris. Meanwhile, Aman ‘AIMES’ Ellis has made equally good use of his time in the studio, finding room outside of running the Wonder Stories label to release exquisite sounds on the likes of Tusk Wax and Star Creature.
‘Racing’ finds the pair in confident mood throughout, bursting out of the grid into a synth-heavy fervour with their authentic blend of synth-infused Italo, new beat, and anarchic pop. The hyper-infectious opener ‘Digits’ vividly sets the tone, with buoyant synth melodies cascading over punchy drums, throbbing bass arpeggios and floating pads. Fred Ventura enters the pit for a retro-flecked vocal performance on the ’80s themed ‘Into My Life’, laying down the gauntlet for Hard Ton to maintain the sparkling Italo pace on the equally revivalist melodies of ‘Step By Step’. Elegantly veering from the course, the rolling breaks and intoxicating synths of ‘Racing 3000’ provide a spellbinding interval, as snappy percussion cuts through waves of tightly woven melodies.
Slaloming onto the B-side, the proudly kitsch vocal leads of ‘Cocktail Time’ explode with Grand Prix decadence, before Francesca Bono supplies a gorgeous vocal performance on the blissfully haunting ‘Good Girl’. The pace is restored via the wonderfully idiosyncratic synths and simmering bass arpeggios of ‘Turbo Slam’, before the hypnotic vocoders and lush analogue chords of ‘Home’ see the Formula Uno pairing bursting over the finish line for a podium finish. Glamorously retro-futurist, elegantly camp, immaculately constructed and, above all, bags of fun.
PC
Hannah Peel & Paraorchestra – The Unfolding (Real World)
As a solo artist, Hannah Peel has come a very long way since her cute ‘Rebox’ musicbox EP in 2010. With each subsequent release she has just got better and better. And not just better musically. Her line of thinking, her quest for invention and innovation and a constant pushing forwards is fast seeing her become something of an alt national treasure.
What’s more, she also shape-shifts seamlessly from accomplished pop (see 2016’s ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’) to full-blown composer. Her Emmy-nominated ‘Game Of Thrones: The Last Watch’ soundtrack and her work on Channel 5 thriller ‘The Deceived’ are worth spending time with. And yet, there’s no resting on laurels with Peel who continues to challenge herself (I refer you to last year’s ‘Fir Wave’ album, a reinterpretation of Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodson and Don Harper’s classic 1972 ‘KPM 1000 Series: Electrosonic’).
‘The Unfolding’ finds her collaborating with Charles Hazlewood’s Bristol-based Paraorchestra – the world’s first professional ensemble of virtuoso disabled and non-disable musicians. It’s an ambitious work that explores life cycles, our roots as human beings, and the beginnings in the universe. As you do. Or as Peel puts it, “Our time here on earth is short and we will never fully hear the rocks sing as they shift over millennia.”
If anyone can make rocks sing, it’s Hannah Peel. It’s a glorious work that, well, unfolds across eight movements. It’s hard to tell what the star of the show is here. On the one hand, the rich vocal stylings of soprano Victoria Oruwari lend an otherworldy serene beauty to tracks like the opener, ‘The Universe Before Matter’, on the other, when the primal power of the orchestra is fully unleashed, complete with Peel on synth squelches, on ‘If After Weeks Of Early Sun’, it’s goosebumpingly good.
‘The Unfolding’ has a similar kind of power and impact as Max Richter’s ‘Blue Notebooks’. Which is big talk for sure, but on this showing it is only a matter of time before Peel is stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the neo-classical behemoths.
NM
Anadol is Turkish artist Gözen Atila, who follows up her 2019 album Uzun Havalar with this assured progression into furthermore ambitious, psyched-out and accomplished compositions. Her sound sits between worlds, at one turn fuelled by the wide-open vistas and incessant thrum of krautrock, but equally steeped in Turkish folk and prog, jazz and so much more. The opening track on Felicita, ‘Gizli Duygular’, sets out Atila’s stall in perfect fashion, starting as a whimsical synth reverie which grows into a hulking, cosmic monster across nine minutes.
There’s a wilful desire to unsettle at times on the record, with ‘Eciflere Gel’ revelling in plastic preset swing, noirish sax and conspicuous call and response between an exotic bird and Atila’s own moans and grunts. 15-minute epic ‘İstasyon Plajında Bir Tren Battı’ runs through passages of unsettling, discordant tonality before occasionally blooming into harmonious musicality. But there’s also space for pop too. ‘Ablamin Gözleri’ comes on like mid 80s Laurie Anderson taking a trip through Anatolia.
Atila’s muse comes through strong at every turn, whether directing the musicians who played over the top of her preliminary synth sketches, wrangling sonics through avant-garde processing or lending her own daring vocal performance. If you have any kind of affinity for psychedelic, experimental music from the 70s up to now, you’re sure to fall for this album.
OW
Amine Mesnaoui & Labelle – African Prayers (Lo Recordings)
The partnership of pianist Amine Mesnaoui and producer Jérémy Labelle, from Morocco and Reunion Island respectively, tracks back 15 years. Labelle saved Mesnaoui from drowning in the Seine in the midst of a techno party he was playing at, and they’ve remained friends ever since. Wild riverside parties and slamming techno sound a long way from their first ever collaboration, which comes out on Lo in a subtle, fluid form of interdisciplinary, traditionally-informed music.
The inspiration for the album lies in the lila rituals of the Gnawa masters in Mesnaoui’s homeland – a ritual depicting the genesis of the universe through the seven manifestations of the divine being. Mesnaoui and Labelle have striven to reinterpret that traditional music through their chosen instruments – Mesnaoui’s prepared piano and Labelle’s electronics and processing – and created seven experimental but wholly approachable pieces out of their practice. From the percussive, microtonal thump of ‘Krazé Muneataf Tanzen’ to the barley there whispers of ‘Forêt’, there’s surprising range given the minimal set up and specific methodology.
The clarity of the idea and the attentive way it has been rendered results in an album which charms and surprises at every turn. The uplifting, harmonious lilt of ‘Bleu Noir’ captures the project at its most immediate, with Mesnaoui’s sparkling playing reaching beautiful crescendos without losing sight of the deeper meditative purpose behind the music. Reinterpreting spiritual music of this kind can be a dubious endeavour in the wrong hands, but there’s sincerity, skill and innovation in every sound the duo make as they come good on that fateful meeting many years ago.
OW
Kraftwerk – Remixes (Parlophone)
While there’s been no new material from The Beatles of electronic music for almost 20 years, they’ve not been short on the retools. Under the sole charge of Ralf Hütter these days, Der Katalog (the eight-album run from 1974’s ‘Autobahn’ to 2003’s ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’, sod the first three albums) has been well and truly rinsed with reissues galore.
This set, which snuck onto streaming platforms in December 2020, is finally get a physical release as a triple vinyl or double CD set. Collecting 19 official remixes (seven of which are in-house Kling Klang takes), it not only shows off the vast influence Kraftwerk had on dance music, but it’s also a direct line into Ralfworld. You know that every last remixer here has been hand-picked and approved by the mothership, and the list includes long-time collaborator François Kervorkian, Étienne de Crécy, Hot Chip and Underground Resistance.
Standouts here include William Orbit’s ‘Hardcore Remix’ of ‘Radioactivity’, only previously available on a 1991 US 12-inch, which is a proper acid belter, and Orbital do their thing with some style on one of no less than nine versions of ‘Expo 2000’ (four of which star come from the UR camp).
While the tracks are mostly taken from various out-of-print Kraftwerk releases from 1991-2002, it does feature some fairly recent Kling Klang output with newly updated mixes of ‘Home Computer’ and ‘Tour De France (Etape 2)’. There’s also a lovely drifty version of ‘Non Stop’ which began life as an MTV soundbite in the 1980s, but was transformed in 2020 into this full eight-minute version.
Can you ever have enough Kraftwerk? Not in my book.
NM
A Pale December – Death Panacea (Avantgarde Music)
The duo of Riccardo Di Bella and Ernesto Ciotola first made themselves known with 2017’s tortured yet ethereal ‘The Shrine Of Primal Fear’; a perplexing, euphoric take on atmospheric black metal that would see the name A Pale December permeate through the underground.
Five long years have gone into their challenging sophomore effort, ‘Death Panacea’, which sees the Italian pair signing with highly revered extreme music label Avantgarde Music (responsible for arguably some of the most groundbreaking, unique metal discoveries of the past decade).
Where its predecessor thrived upon the delicacy and nuance within the chaos, ‘Death Panacea’ operates as a far more bombastic, malicious beast. The opening cut, ‘Simulacrum’, paints warring sonics with an audible meshing of conflicting styles and emotions.
Thunderous blast beats, tremolo picking dexterity and shrill, cavernous vocals all coalesce in expertly harrowing fashion, yet the near macabre vulnerability of the melodic sections casts uncertainty across the momentum.
The slow build, for example, of ‘Atoning Monuments’ leads an initially lush composition further downward into dread, while the despondent clean vocals seem to be at constant odds with the surrounding malevolence.
With a loose concept praising the futility and failure of common man without offering reward or solace, the fractured musical dichotomy is only bolstered by the lyrical complexity of nihilistic positivity and ultimately, its shortcomings.
Faithful to the black metal blueprint, yet teeming with creative abandon and lofty ideas, A Pale December’s second full-length delivers one of the year’s most vital contributions to the genre.
ZB
Cabaret Du Ciel – Raintears (Quindi)
It’s not often that we’re so moved by the quaint delicacy of an ambient tape release such as this. But there’s something in the emotive, mega-ahead-of-its-time progression native to Italian duo Cabaret Du Ciel’s early mini-album ‘Raintears’ that moves us to, well, a deluge of tears.
Cabaret Du Ciel were originally composed of twin flames Andrea Desidera and Gian Luigi Morosin. Both were important experimental artists and contributors to Italy’s 90s scene. None were so gut-stabbing as ‘Raintears’, though: as reflective as the lazy sunday afternoon on which the original piano version was recorded, its final mix was made in a spate of synthwork, sampling and ornamenting. It recalls the hazy piano-pained of newly reissued film soundtracks like Drive My Car or Chungking Express, in as much as it does Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks or Gigi Masin’s beatless elegies. Awash in tape noise, hiss and squash, both versions offer a first taste of the unpredictable nature of Cabaret Du Ciel’s string progressions, which reach such high-pitched heights as to crack glass.
The two-part ‘Time Of The Twins’ pays homage to the pair’s creative partnership, and hears an early vocaloid synth morph into Halpern-esque pads, montage jazz, and melodic bass prog-ressions, all of which could put Allan Holdsworth to shame. ‘A Delvaux Postcard’, like its cosmic boomwhackers and ambient circulations, even has a Renaissance-style music video bundled with it. As such, this mini-album might be considered the mother of all good ambient tape releases, if you will, and shouldn’t be passed up.
JIJ
Don’t Worry – Remorseless Swing (Specialist Subject)
On their second full-length, Essex emo-indie darlings Don’t Worry take the literal approach to processing loss, maturity, and growth.
With a sound that evokes the initial early noughties noodly emo/math-rock scene, there’s no ignoring the clear nods to the likes of genre stalwarts such as This Town Needs Guns, Delta Sleep or Meet Me In St. Louis, yet prioritising charm and cohesion over complexity or spasmodic energy.
‘Remorseless Swing’ is bolstered by understated rhythms, slow burning hooks and frank, sobering lyricism that fluctuates from the painfully mundane to the mildly traumatic. From the sparkly musings of opener, ‘Head’s Chocka’, to the regretful apathy anthem, ‘Do That Thing’, the dynamic double vocal of founding members, Ronan Van Kehoe and Samuel Watson, help to guide these unassuming pieces through devastating emotional territory while never giving away more than a passing semblance of discomfort.
On this long awaited sophomore effort, Don’t Worry offer subtle confirmation to the pondering question of whether UK emo is as alive, witty and downtrodden as ever.
ZB
This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Patrizio Cavaliere, Matthew D Watkin, Neil Mason, Zach Buggy.