The best new albums this week
We go that extra mile, so you don’t have to
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Red Snapper – Everybody Is Somebody (Lo Recordings)
There’s always been plenty of affection for Red Snapper. When I see their name, I immediately think, “Oh great”, and I suspect I’m not alone. But sticking a neat label on them has always proved tricky – Big beat? Trip hop? Nu soul? Jazz? Acid jazz? Dubby electronica? It didn’t help that for the release of their debut album, 1996’s ‘Prince Blimey’, they signed to Warp where they were very much outliers among the expert knob twiddlers.
Of course, Red Snapper bring a little bit of everything, which is the appeal, but is absolutely no help with the neat labels. What Red Snapper have always been – as anyone who caught them on their recent tour will know – is an explosive live band. At their core, double bassist Ali Friend, drummer Richard Thair and guitarist David Ayers, calling in friends and favours when required. And what friends.
Early doors they worked out of the same Bermondsey backstreet recording studio (Orinoco) and nearby rehearsal rooms (Terminal) as the likes of Beth Orton, Sabres Of Paradise/Andrew Weatherall, The Aloof, Death In Vegas and The Chemical Brothers, which saw plenty of cross pollination. As a demon bass player, double or single, Ali Friend was a man in demand. Indeed, that’s him filling his boots on The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Dig Your Own Hole’ and maybe that’s him on ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’ too. While it sounds like a lift from The Crusaders’ ‘The Well’s Gone Dry’, it remains a bone of contention, but you can hear Friend’s point on ‘Three Strikes And You’re Out’ from ‘Prince Blimey’.
And it’s that debut album that Red Snapper are channelling with ‘Everybody Is Somebody’, their first outing since 2014’s ‘Hyena’, the soundtrack to a restored version of the 1973 Senegalese film ‘Touki Bouki’. Curiously, the eight-year break between releases means they’ve been away longer than when they split up due to “musical differences” in 2002. They reformed in 2007 with saxophonist Tom Challenger joining as a permanent member for their sixth album 2008’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’. In their time away, Friend and Thair did team up as NUMBER and served up the excellent ‘BINARY’ album in 2019. Want a label for that? Wiki has one – post-punk disco funk and who am I to argue? Excellent stuff it is too.
Anyway. In these times of playlists and track surfing, Everybody Is Somebody feels like a proper album – one that has been thoughtfully sequenced and demands to be listened to from start to finish. The Opener, ‘The Warp And The Weft’, sets the scene nicely. It’s one of three songs to feature up-and-coming north London vocalist/rapper Natty Wylah. His delivery is mellow, with a proper London twang, which is 100 per cent in line with the Red Snapper vibe.
‘Tremble’, four tracks in, stops me dead every time I get to it. It’s a stunner. Beautifully downtempo, it’s completely awash with strings, which swell to bursting lending an epic Massive Attack kind of feel. For contrast, it sits right next to ‘Equals’, which is full to bursting with growling, squelching electronics fighting to escape.
‘Albert’s Day Off’, another outing featuring Natty Wylah, feels like a pause, punctuation, time for a laze around, a bit of a breather, while ‘Travis Bickle’ is as you’d imagine something with title like that would be – all steamy nighttime New York streets, warm sax, rattling drums, hectic grooves. The fun they’ve packed into recent single ‘Truth 1’ is surely going to nail it down as a live favourite. The squalling sax makes me think of Pigbag’s euphoric ‘Papa’s Got A Brand-new Bag’ and the party it has isn’t dissimilar.
Welcome back then Red Snapper. I once again welcome you and your label-defying exploits. This is an album destined for some serious turntable action over the summer no doubt.
NM
Laura Jane Grace – At War With The Silverfish (Big Scary Monsters)
Against Me! frontwoman, Laura Jane Grace, seems to have some of the idlest hands in the modern punk scene. There’s always a new project or release lying in wait, which made last year’s surprise EP, ‘At War With the Silverfish’, land with not so much of a shock, but a very welcome reminder of the constant craft and drive that permeates her now decades-spanning material.
Upon release, she was clear on her refusal to stress about the project, or announce tour dates or release in tandem with vinyl pressings. Citing the quarter-hour collection of reflective folk-punk ballad-bangers as not so much a pandemic project, although written, recorded and released during said pandemic times, but just a batch of personal musings and almost non-experiences that become intrinsically relatable in their homely specificity.
Still a snarling punk at heart, most of these brief acoustic ditties don’t even make it past the two-minute mark. Like the all too familiar, ‘Day Old Coffee’; a decrepit ode to bouncing off the walls of your home in cabin fever induced isolation, or the aptly titled, ‘Smug FuckFace’, which sparses Grace’s knack for pissed off vitriol and insightful whimsy, melding the two in anecdotal endearment like only she can.
Finally, making its way to vinyl after the anticipated nightmare turnaround times the industry is currently experiencing, it feels homely and right for a batch of non-pandemic pandemic cuts written at home with the world blocked out, to have the opportunity to be spun, experienced and appreciated in the same manner.
ZB
Al Cisneros – Sinai Dub Box 2012-2022 (Sinai)
Al Cisneros has a legacy in music which reaches back to the start of the 90s, when his band Asbestosdeath splintered and reformed as stoner rock titans Sleep. The Californian bassist then went on to form OM with Chris Hakius – a project which evolved through the 00s and took in artists such as modular synth whizz Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe but always retained its roots in psychedelic, anvil-weighted rock. As such, you might not have immediately expected him to have a dub side to his musicality, but for any bassist worth their salt, Jamaica’s skeletal, subsonic terrain is a natural home.
Cisneros has been releasing dub 7”s via his Sinai label since 2012, also shoring up on labels like Drag City and ZamZam Sounds. Now he’s 10 years deep in the project, he’s gathered together these nuggets for a retrospective box set which neatly sums up his sound. The ZamZam link should be a useful indication for those who appreciate leftfield but traditionally-rooted variations on dub – Cisneros doesn’t attempt to make dub in the Jamaican sense, but his craft is reverentially grounded in the mixing desk alchemy which caused seismic shifts in music production when the likes of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and King Tubby went wild with delay and reverb.
The bong rip which punctuates ‘Carport Dispensary’ feels like a playful callback to Cisneros’ stoner rock roots (Sleep’s iconic ‘Dopesmoker’ springs to mind) but by and large this is serious, immersive stuff. There’s elements of rockist approaches woven into the fabric of his sound – moody riffs and bashy drum patterns – but they’re more like inflections than overbearing signifiers. At times the effect is more ambient and dreamy, like on ‘Indica Field’, and elsewhere you hear the mystical steppas tones you might expect from a Disciples record. Nothing sounds quite like anything else, though, and pressed up on 7”s and presented as one hit, it’s a remarkable statement of Cisneros’ commitment to dub exploration.
OW
Vomit The Soul – Cold (Unique Leader)
Italian deathcore slammers, Vomit The Soul, made their long awaited return on last year’s relentless, ‘Cold’; their first full-length in over a decade. Following up the malodorous, ‘Apostles of Inexpression’, was a prospect most fans had resigned themselves to believing would never occur.
Picking up right where their decrepit streak had initially ended, these nine visceral cuts run the gamut of all tried and tested hardcore entwined slamming death metal motifs, but with a notable sense of seasoned grandiosity.
From the obliterating intensity of the opening title-track onwards, dense, abrasive breakdowns, sludging grooves and nihilistic shrieks abound. With a lyrical approach matured by time and experience; gory mayhem is exchanged for cosmic, Lovecraftian negativity, detailing the cosmos and void of our universe with vehement dread. Deep diving the trademark unintelligible lyrics conjures visions of abyssal plains and crushing negation, only cemented further by the caustic production that provides sonic contradiction between oppressive clarity and murky sludge.
Finally making its way to wax, ‘Cold’, is a vicious, cerebral, expertly crafted rediscovering of the band’s brutality, yet executed with an artistry only merely tempered with during their initial tenure.
ZB
Parrish Smith – Light Cruel Vain (Dekmantel)
In years to come, if someone discovers Parrish Smith and starts their exploration of his catalogue with his debut album, the technoid 12”s that predate it may well seem like misnomers. The Dutch artist has always set out a certain rockist attitude in his music – lashings of distortion and maximal energy – and his DJ sets are even more instructive. His mix for Dekmantel’s podcast series featured 90s metal cuts from Korn and Sepultura alongside bruising club fare, and he’ll happily get on the mic and bring some guttural vocal intensity to his confrontational sets. But even with the squalling guitar laced through 2018’s ‘Sex Suicide & Speed Metal’, his modest run of records still adhered to techno in principle. It’s no accident that he released on L.I.E.S., after all.
Light Cruel Vain does away with such matters in a pronounced way. It’s a debut album proper in that sense, providing an opportunity for Smith to step into the fullest, and perhaps truest, dimension of his muse. “I want to be an idol so, so bad,” he intones in a mantra like fashion over the album’s penultimate track, a kick-thumping industrial metal party starter. In such explicit terms, the lyrics could be taken as a sharp critique of posturing celebrity in the techno world, but with the stadium-sized production values and vociferous charisma Smith doubles down on for this record, it actually sounds plausible.
This is absolutely the sound of someone expressing music already pumping through their veins. At times the sound veers well and truly into nu metal territory, as on the gnarly hip-hop-pop-rawk fusion of ‘Never Break Faith’ with it’s “kill this day in harmony” refrain. It’s brash, but it’s also sincere and it’s certainly not clumsy. At times the sound veers a little towards that Americanised mid-90s techno-rock hybrid style you might associate with The Matrix and Spawn soundtracks, but equally there’s a degree of sophistication which nods to one of Smith’s declared heroes, Trent Reznor. If his rockist swerves in DJ sets divided opinion, this album should make things a little clearer about what to expect from him going forwards. On the basis of Light Cruel Vain, Parrish Smith might just as easily become a metal idol who curiously kicked off his career with some techno 12”s.
OW
Rheinzand – Atlantis Atlantis (Music For Dreams)
Polychromatic genre-defiers Rheinzand return to Music For Dreams with the long-playing follow up to their eponymous debut, serving a colossal 13 tracks on the wonderfully vivacious ‘Atlantis Atlantis’. With a unique sound that’s rooted in a varied blend of stylistic soil – including, but not limited to, synth-pop, post-punk, Italo and indie – it’s of little surprise that the Ghent-based band have won over a fair share of admirers since emerging in 2016. Between them, the dream team of Reinhard Vanbergen, Charlotte Caluwaerts (Tundra) and Mo Disko (The Glimmers) most certainly know how to construct compelling soundscapes, weaving magic into their music that helps separate them from the crowded pack. Opening with the simplistic lyrical gloss of ‘Better’, the new album is chocked full of memorable moments.
The Italian romanticism of ‘Facciamo L’amore’ makes way for the Tom Tom Club inspired quirk of ‘Orange Bun’, before the new wave strut of ‘Elefantasi’ propels us into rousing dancefloor moves. Poignant moments arrive too, nowhere more so than in the striking ballad, ‘The Gift Of Love’, with more sublime introspection appearing later in the collection in the form of closing track, ‘Dudo’. The bulk of the work, though, is endowed with a joyously dance-ready edge, with the title track ‘Atlantis Atlantis’ among the most hyperactive – brimming, as it is, with turbocharged swagger and post-punk vigour. The gorgeous cover of Level 42’s jazz-funk classic ‘Love Games’ is another starry-eyed highlight, while the growling bass arpeggios and Spanish vocals of ‘Hotel Carthago’ inject a touch of faintly demented Italo heat into the mix. Elsewhere, the disco strut of ‘La Nuit’ provides an enticing bed from where the magical juxtaposition of Vanbergen’s vocal gravel and Caluwaerts’ honey are able to magnificently flourish, while the gloriously optimistic ‘We’ll Be Alright’ is yet another focal point. A collection that’s ripe with colour and exploding with contrasts, this is another dose of dynamic and roundly enjoyable work from the Rheinzand bunch.
PC
Tom van der Geld – Small Mountain (Black Sweat)
Accomplished vibraphonist Tom van der Geld had already committed his dulcet chimes to many projects and recordings by the mid 80s. Leading the Children At Play project he worked with Roger Janotta, Larry Porter, Richard Appleman and Jamey Haddad, recording for ECM amongst others. He worked with Munich kosmische fusionists Between and took part in Vibes Summit in 1979 with fellow vibe virtuosos Wolfgang Lackerschmid, David Friedman and Karl Berger.
Originally released in 1986, Small Mountain presented four pieces developed for four marimbas, although the title track takes the lion’s share of attention as it unfurls across 23 minutes. Expressed in methodical, minimal deployment of looping polyrhythms, this expansive solo work shows van der Geld perfecting the art of repetition and subtly shifting intonation to create an engaging whole. Compared to the austere nature of so much similarly spirited music, there’s a fluttering, natural spirit to ‘Small Mountain’ which helps it land much easier. For all the motorik insistency of the patterns, there’s a constant sense of movement as we pass from one interwoven melodic cascade to the next, each transition as understated and elegant as the last.
For ‘Small Mountain’, ‘March April Marimba’ and ‘Aspen Leaves’ van der Geld focused on his titular four marimbas. Final track ‘Karmic Dance’ however open the process up as he reaches from concert marimbas to a variety of gongs and bells from around the world, salad bowls and dancing duck toys. The difference is subtle in the context of the album – the same delicacy and measured patterns emerge, but there’s a sense of roaming and play that creeps into the method to end the record on a more open-ended note.
Once prohibitively expensive and now repressed by the always-reliable Black Sweat, Small Mountain is an exquisite document with all the hypnotic, healing qualities you expect of minimal marimba playing, but it never feels static. It’s a trip from start to finish, and not one that takes undue effort to stay on track with.
OW
Terror – Pain Into Power (Pure Noise)
Los Angeles based hardcore punk veterans, Terror, return with their highly anticipated eighth full-length, ‘Pain Into Power.’ One of the true retainers of their mantel, and testaments to longevity and vitality within the scene, few acts have managed to consistently increase their brutality and undiluted force with such vitriolic ease.
From the crushing, not-even-a-minute-long opening title-track to the chugging, crossover-thrash bedlam of ‘Boundless Contempt’, this 20-something minute victory lap serves as an arresting reminder that one would most definitely misplace their glasses witnessing these cuts in a live setting. Further doubling down on their visceral accomplishments, death metal icon and Cannibal Corpse frontman George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher lends his distinct gutturals to the battering ram intensity of lead single, “Can’t Help But Hate.”
With zero interest in appealing to the unwashed masses, Terror lean ever further into expanding the unkempt aggression few genres ever manage to replicate in the fashion which beatdown hardcore excels. Whether a long-time bruiser, or harbouring certain morbid curiosities regarding the scene, no act remains as vital, vicious or prepared to give listeners a palpable crash course than LA’s finest.
ZB
Various – Kwalk (Wah Wah Wino)
Given the prevalence of drug heraldry in music culture, it’s surprising ketamine doesn’t get more props from trippier corners of the common room. There are plenty of acid celebrations, mushroom sermons and wry coke winks, and that’s before we get started on songs about weed and smack. If ever there were to be a label to wave a friendly hello to your horse’s favourite dissociative, it seems logical it would be Wah Wah Wino. The curious coterie of Morgan Buckley, Davy Kehoe, Olmo Devin and the like has always presented itself with a dislocated logic – moments of profundity scattered amongst moss, flanked by scuffed sketches and tape run-off. A shoe-in for the internalized voyager, then.
Kwalk appears to be as literal as it sounds – just look at the boot-stamped sleeve and its cheeky pun on the hardiest of footwear-cum-industrial machinery manufacturers. We’re presented with 27 pieces from inside the Wah Wah circle and beyond, and there’s little thematically glueing the sounds together other than a certain strung out splendour. Olmo Devin’s ‘Rock2’ in particular is a marvel, all slide guitar serenity punctuated by a cockerel crowing. There are ambient blob outs, perplexing speech interjections, barely there folk whispers and plenty more ephemera in between. It plays out like a radio play for the freaks, and, high or not, it’s utterly magnificent.
OW
We’re never short of ambient pleasantries to cast adrift in these days, but equally it’s helpful to be signposted to specific, standout releases which really bring the best out of beatless. Vladimir Karpov could be considered a method actor in his approach to ambient music – he purposefully defines himself as a recluse soundtracking isolation in soft tones. In 10 years he’s unfurled an ever-swelling catalogue of albums gracing labels like 12th Isle, Quiet Time, Constellation Tatsu and, most regularly of all, Not Not Fun.
He’s back on the latter with Aquarealm, an album title which doesn’t leave much to the imagination. True, you probably won’t be bowled over with the unexpected when hitting play on this one, whether you know Karpov’s work or not, but that’s hardly the point with his music. This is soothing, gentle music first and foremost, but that’s also not at the expense of intrigue and detail.
The blue-hued, soft-focus pads and drip-drop delay touches are all pristinely pitched for the overall concept, and they all sound utterly lovely. But more importantly, each piece plays out with a discernible narrative. If we bite on the imagery being dangled in front of us (yes, I already took the bait), we might well be meandering around coral reefs safely hidden from human interference, viewing the underwater flora and fauna from slowly shifting but reliably beautiful angles.
OW
This week’s reviewers: Neil Mason, Zach Buggy, Patrizio Cavaliere, Oli Warwick.