The best new albums this week
All the albums worth crossing the road for this week
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
The Fear Ratio – Slinky (Tresor)
More than a mere side-project now, The Fear Ratio stride into album number four as fully-fledged facilitators of circuit-fried HD beats for quantum limbed breakdancers. The first album on Blueprint seemed to fly under the radar for many, but 2015’s Refuge Of A Twisted Soul on Skam made everyone sit up and pay attention to the wild new sound being mined by UK techno archetypes James Ruskin and Mark Broom. For producers you could reasonably call veterans, it was genuinely exciting to hear them swerving so pointedly away from their established sound and indulging in what was clearly a passion project.
More than the change though, it was the quality of what they came up with which shocked. Here were two totems of techno getting wild with crunchy, hip hop tempo rhythms and the kind of brain melting DSP you associate with labels like, well, Skam. It still felt like a rare and special sideline though, given how busy both artists tend to be in the broader techno scene. It was with the third album They Can’t Be Saved that it became clear The Fear Ratio wasn’t a mere anomaly but a vital strand growing in purpose with each album.
When a project’s entire ethos hinges on extremes of production flair, it can be hard to picture where it might head next. You could keep rolling out more of the same knotty, cybernetic funk, but at some point you would still end up treading water. Given the alignment between this strain of electronica and OG electro and hip-hop, it feels natural to see Ruskin and Broom welcome some vocal elements into the picture. They did the same in a slightly more focused way as Deadhand, delivering a double EP to Seagrave last year which featured scratches from Prime Cuts and vocal trickery from the mighty Sensational.
On Slinky, their first LP on Tresor, King Kashmere comes into the fold to bring a new angle to The Fear Ratio. Kashmere is a seasoned UK rapper who dropped his debut back in 2006, working with the likes of Jehst and Zygote (aka The Maghreban), so he’s no stranger to inventive beats to flow over. He sounds at home raining down his invective on ‘Death Switch’ and ‘Spinning Globe’, with the latter especially providing a hard-knocking slow-fast beat which matches the snarl of his fierce performance. It’s the kind of daring approach to hip-hop which reminds you genres decades old can still be injected with fresh ideas. You might have heard the likes of Shadow Huntaz or Push Button Objects trying some of these ideas in the past, but there’s a modernist sheen in the beats and confidence in the treatment of Kashmere’s vocal which is quite simply next level.
Also on the vocal tip, Ella Fleur appears on the track ‘Lacovset’, although in this instance it’s a trickier job appraising her performance given the obtuse gating her voice gets subjected to. Either way, the very human snatches of her voice cut a little relief into the steel and electricity which largely defines the Fear Ratio sound. Around these set pieces, Ruskin and Broom build a vivid tapestry of bugged out beats. Despite the earlier discussion about treading water, there’s a flexibility in this style which avoids it sounding repetitive. There’s quite simply too much information flying round in the mix, with successive listens intimating new notches and kinks in every bar, from bass contortions to refracted rhythmic shudders and so much more in between.
At a time when there isn’t a great deal of this kind of electronica being made, The Fear Ratio cut through with visceral accuracy, and their explicit openness to new avenues within the project suggest it’s going to keep on mutating for some time to come yet.
OW
Low End Activist – Hostile Utopia (Sneaker Social Club)
Low End Activist’s Patrick Conway picks up where his 2019 breakthrough ‘Low End Activism’ 12-inch left off. For that release his starting point was a 1988 recording of Muzikon Sound System in Cuddesdon Park on Oxford’s Blackbird Leys estate where he grew up. For this full-length debut we find him back on the estate picking through the conflicting emotions – the yin and yang of social inequality meets the unity of the multi-ethnic community – of his formative years.
Across its 15 tracks, ‘Hostile Utopia’ brings to the fore a nostalgia for growing up in such, well, hostile environments. The album’s Cold War Steve-like artwork is an nod to the estate dissolving into a riot as joyriders clashed with police in 1991. In a neat twist, the wheels of choice were MG turbo versions of the Maestro and Montego, made at the nearby Cowley car plant and doing donuts on the very streets where many of the factory workers lived.
In among all this, rave was Conway’s salvation. The Prodigy’s ‘Charly’ blew his socks off and the old school influence has been seeping in ever since. But he’s no rear-view mirror copycat. He trade blows in the 130bpm range, waaaaaay slower than back in the day, but as he neatly puts it, very much in “the banger range”. And post-jungle hardcore bangers he duly delivers, no matter what the speed.
The first of many sit-up-and-pay-attention moments comes in the shape of ‘Mercenary’ which stars newcomer Mez whose rapid-fire flow adds a musicality to the off-kilter grime beats The way Conway weaves vocal tracks (Killa P, Emz and Candence Weapon also appear) between the instrumental cuts ensures the whole thing to hold together as an album made to be listened to from start to finish. The spooky dub of ‘Pseudopolis’ and the melodic sweeping sub, rich chords and handclaps of ‘Cold’ are a treat, while ‘Bodysnatchers’, a track that builds into a wonky rave anthem, has been on rewind round here for days.
There’s a reason Conway’s Sneaker Social Club label finds itself at the forefront of the UK’s experimental bass music scene and ‘Hostile Utopia’ will surely stand as a glistening showcase.
NM
Where does braindance go when the original pioneering sound becomes another area for retro-fetishist repetition? After the elegant twist ups of Disturb Roqe last year, FFT is one artist presenting some valid ideas for how that idea of rave-rooted electronica can evolve from the warbling 101 lines and gurgling 303s over snappy electro beats we all know and love. Josh Thompson’s outlook has always been cutting edge, even when he first struck out circa 2014 as Alma Construct. Those mutant productions felt like a reaction to the dubstep years, but they were more tweaked than any anodyne ‘future garage’ you might care to think of.
By way of comparison, these latest works as FFT certainly chime with a more Aphexian school of thought. In the mind-flaying synth acrobatics of ‘Clear’ you can hear the kind of harmonic extravagance and tonal, textural complexity which can be associated with some of Richard D. James’ finest post-millennial work. But where so much braindance falls into a certain degree of homage to one artist’s overbearing influence, Thompson’s approach only briefly nods to familiar reference points.
More indicative of the FFT style is a track like ‘Heal’, which plunges down meandering narrative lines spelt out by dense thickets of slippery hiss, square wave buzz and an entirely fluid approach to drums. By rights it should be a complete mess, but there’s a sense of order in the midst of the chaos, if that makes any sense. Much of Clear is presented as work carried out in custom Max MSP patches, which might well imply Thompson was steering his system in dialogue with it, able to wrestle certain shifts and progressions while also being somewhat at the mercy of the machine logic. That’s certainly the impression that comes across on the album, and there are plenty of moments of human beauty to match the futuristic engineering feats, and in essence that’s what braindance has always been about.
OW
London Odense Ensemble – Jaiyede Sessions Vol.1 (El Paraiso)
El Paraiso Records was set up by Jonas Munk and Jakob Skøtt to carry their work in Causa Sui. The Odense, Denmark-based trippers deal in a heady brew of psych rock, but their musical chops go beyond Sabbath riffs and squalling feedback. The Causa Sui catalogue alone demonstrates this, but over time Munk and Skøtt have expanded their reach, most notably with the Chicago Odense Ensemble project they released in 2019. Linking up with key Chicago jazz players Jeff Parker and Rob Mazurek, they grew their sound into a heady brew of psych jazz and set the wheels in motion for another dimension to their artistry.
That new dimension expands with purpose on this new record from London Odense Ensemble. This time Munk and Skøtt have turned to the thriving scene in the UK capital, finding incredible collaborators in Tamar Osborn and Al MacSween. Osborn is a saxophonist and composer primarily linked to Collocutor, Dele Sosimi’s Afrobeat Orchestra and Ill Considered. MacSween is the keyboardist and founding member of Kefaya, but he’s also worked with legends like Gary Bartz. Completing the set is Martin Rude from El Paraiso outfit Sun River, who sometimes moonlights on bass for Causa Sui.
Between them, this outfit embarks on an adventure which feels less explicitly jazzy than the last Odense Ensemble effort, and more tipped towards a kind of heavy jamming psych. Skøtt’s drums fall in big, fluid arcs of expression on the two-part ‘Jaiyede Suite’, while MacSween’s keys and synths swirl as a bed for Osborn’s patient, sultry sax tones. It’s a slow and swaying groove, but there are discernible peaks such as MacSweeny’s synth bug-out two-thirds into part one. The snappier second part gives Osborn some space to let her flutes take flight, colliding with a light touch of dubby post-production from Munk to add a kosmische edge to proceedings.
With the pastoral lilt guiding ‘Sojourner’ and the expressive mysticism of ‘Enter Momentum’, Jaiyede Sessions Vol.1 feels more in line with the jazzier end of krautrock as you might hear from Kollektiv, suggesting the roots of Munk and Skøtt’s work came through stronger on this project. The results in this space between psych rock and jazz are absolutely fascinating, not to mention absolutely killer – long may they continue.
OW
Joyce Manor – 40 oz. to Fresno (Epitaph)
For over a decade, Joyce Manor have epitomised pop-punk’s cathartic power. Although they bear some of the genre’s conventions – namely their impassioned expression of suburban angst and songs that breeze by in one or two minutes – they don’t sit squarely within its walls. If you go back through their albums so far, you’ll find traces of Midwest emo, chugging power-pop and delicate, jangly indie rock. Their channelling of influences posits them as one of the most curious yet inventive bands of their ilk.
40 oz. to Fresno evokes the scrappiness of Joyce Manor’s early work but continues the arc they’ve been on since 2016’s Cody. It results in some of the catchiest songs in the band’s arsenal. Take ‘NBTSA’, a 2017 single given a fresh lick of paint. It’s the musical equivalent to dropping Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke; guitars fizz as Thaxton’s drums and Matt Ebert’s bass drive towards the eruptive chorus. As jubilant as the song is, it reflects Johnson’s bubbling anxiety, which intensifies at the titular refrain.
The dichotomy between fragility and buoyancy is well-trodden ground for Johnson. 40 oz. to Fresno is strewn with familiar weariness. On pop-punk throwback ‘Gotta Let It Go’, he reminisces about walking aimlessly at night and hitching a ride in his friend’s stolen car, ultimately coming to terms with his lost youth. He’s at his most direct on ‘Don’t Try’, where he achingly admits to his loneliness (“I feel so far away/I missed you so much today”).
It’s Joyce Manor’s ability to meld disparate styles that still sets them apart. Whether it’s the wistful ‘Reason to Believe’ with its chiming guitar, or the heartfelt Weezer soundalike ‘Secret Sisters’, every song is quintessentially them. While their pop-punk peers stagnate, Joyce Manor continue to take interesting and surprising shapes.
MDW
VA – Borga Revolution (Kalita)
Kalita Records dive head first into the kaleidoscopic world of burger-highlife, compiling 11 rare and wonderful tracks on the unmissable ‘Borga Revolution’ album. The hybrid sound represents a glorious fusion of West African flair, disco, funk and digital precision, having been birthed by Ghana’s musical diaspora throughout the ’80s and ’90s. Military dictatorship, curfews and economic hardship had inspired a wave of Ghanaian artists to seek their musical fortunes away from their homeland in and around the late ’70s. From around the turn of the century, there was a growing movement among those newly settled in Germany (as the rest of Europe and the US) to embrace western musical styles and modern technology, ushering in a digitally enhanced version of the traditional highlife sound that would, in turn, go on to take the Ghanaian airwaves by storm.
Kalita Records have cast the net far and wide to construct this collection, licensing work from some of the movement’s best-known artists alongside lesser-known (and nigh on impossible-to-find) musical pearls. Predictably, there’s an awful lot to purr over here, with each of the featured tracks entirely worthy of the investment. One of the scene’s undisputed standard-bearers, George Darko, makes a couple of appearances, with his magnificently textured vocals enlivening the intoxicating groove of ‘Medo Menuanom’ and the glistening call-and-response of ‘Obi Abeyewa’. Elsewhere, the heartfelt melodies of Thomas Frempong’s ‘Meda Meho So’ sees space-age synths dart across deeply-rooted bass and emotion-rich pads, and the lively synth work and spirited percussion of Wilson Boateng’s ‘Asew Watchmen’ prove an instant party starter. Gently wigged-out moments arrive too, nowhere more so than on Aban’s mesmerising ‘Effie Nnye’, while the George Benson-inspired licks in Uncle Joe’s Afri-Beat ‘Eshe Wo Kon Ho’ provide yet another memorable moment. There’s just so much to enjoy here, with life-affirming vocals, buoyant melodies and irresistible rhythms permeating the collection throughout, instantly invigorating the record collections of all those sensible enough to buy it.
PC
Now that the dust has settled, hip-hop icon/hero/villain/auteur/ego maniac/misunderstood genius (all of the above), Kanye West has finally managed to compile his ever changing, ludicrously lengthy, sprawling tenth album opus ‘Donda’ for a vinyl release.
At 31 tracks, over 2 hours in length and spread across four LPs, the project should be an incoherent mess, and in many ways, that’s precisely what it is, but it’s a mess of the most epic, grandiose, egotistical, and surprisingly touching variety.
Essentially encompassing every sonic era of his 20+ year career thus far, the production shifts at nauseating frequency from accessible to abstract, trap to gospel, and maximal to minimal. West himself is even more unpredictable than the accompanying sonics, espousing God complex rhetoric on one verse, then detailing his divorce with stark vulnerability on the next.
As is the case with practically all Ye releases, the roster of featuring artists is remarkably reflective of the modern hip-hop zeitgeist, with outstanding contributions from the likes of Playboi Carti, The Weeknd, and Kid Cudi. There’s also the more controversial inclusions of Marilyn Manson and DaBaby on the part two remix of ‘Jail’, which feels redundant and envelope pushing for nothing more than the sake of it.
Named after West’s mother, ‘Donda’, doesn’t necessarily centre around her tragic passing as much as one might readily assume, but the project utilises her impact on the artist (so much so, that there’s even audio clips of the woman dispersed throughout) to paint a scatter-brained, tunnel vision analysis of fame, fortune, familial strife, racism, poverty, excess, ego, religion, politics, and acceptance.
Be it the best banger West has written in nearly a decade (‘Off The Grid’), lush, gospel atmospherics (Hurricane), or a frankly touching and devastating ode to his estranged wife and family members (Come To Life), ‘Donda’ is easily the most dynamic, rewarding, complex and exploratory work from the artist since 2016’s, ‘The Life Of Pablo’, and while it may initially appear a muddled, overblown hip-hop answer to a Jackson Pollock painting, the more time spent unpacking the project, the more the conflicting pieces coalesce into one fractured yet simultaneously cohesive experience.
ZB
Don Carlos / Various- ‘Paradise House Volume 2′ (Irma)
Dream house pioneer Don Carlos returns to Irma with a scintillating follow-up to 2018’s expansive ‘Paradise House’ compilation with a roundly enjoyable second instalment. Known and loved for his indelible contribution to the Italo house movement, Carlo ‘Don Carlos’ Troja’s name will forever be associated with the floating dream house sound he helped ignite with his seminal 1991 release, ‘Alone (Paradise)’. Overflowing with emotion but endowed with full-bodied dancefloor bump, the evocative sound returns to the spotlight here, with eight hand-picked tracks presented across two slabs of vinyl.
Though a little less densely populated than its predecessor (which clocked in at a whopping 22 tracks), there’s still much to enjoy on ‘Paradise House Volume 2’. Don Carlos takes the controls on each entry here, having either composed or edited every featured track. His ‘Purple Day’ opener makes an impactful start, with its jazzy synth leads darting over meditative pads and pounding four/four rhythm, while the snappy snares and feel-good vocals of Be Noir’s ‘It’s Gonna Be Alright’ prove a guaranteed spirit-lifter. Elsewhere, More Heavy Soul’s ‘Magic Tonight’ benefits from a gentle Don Carlos edit touch, and the same can be said for Outdance’s ever so saucy ‘Pump The Jump In’.
PC
Deathwhite – Grey Everlasting (Season Of Mist)
Pennsylvania gothic-doomsters, Deathwhite, mark their decade long tenure with a desolate, devastating, yet disturbingly vindicating collection on ‘Grey Everlasting.’
Following on from 2020’s grandiose, ‘Grave Image’, the atmospheric, near-tranquil bombast of their compositions has been placed even further underneath a microscope, in the group’s own terms, in order to search for the muted beauty within their cacophony.
Tackling ever-present themes of political corruption, the failings of the human condition as well as toying with the prospect of ensuing extinction, might seem like weighty, difficult material to process, but the ethereal clean vocals, balanced against malodorous walls of trudging venom, conjure aural depictions that hit home far more than any listener will care to admit.
From the thundering, distant malice of ‘Earthtomb’, to more despondent fare such as standout track, ‘Formless’, a notable lack of reference grants the material a sense of uncertainty and loss throughout.
With blistering production presided over by Erik Rutan, whose credentials boast the likes of Cannibal Corpse and Hate Eternal, it’s hard to ignore the seal of approval subconsciously granted. Continuing down their own carved out path where gloom and revery intertwine with no clear consequence or closure, ‘Gray Everlasting’, is the epitome of a metal group with absolutely no concern for reception, or reservation, just conception in all of its valiant, triumphant, bleak glory.
ZB
Razen – Regression (Marionette)
Razen are a Brussels-based collective founded in 2010 by Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour. Between them, they’ve cut a curious course through varying projects in which they bring select players into their collaborative circle. The focus is on obscure wind and percussion instruments, with measured performance practice seeking to hone the particular tones emitting from each part of any one ensemble. Their records can vary quite widely depending on any particular idea or configuration that inspires them into the creative process, but they’re always bound together by a sense of deep-rooted earthiness which is unafraid to look skywards and imagine what lies beyond. It’s spiritual in nature, largely minimal but never feeling too academic. Rather, it has a bohemian, in-the-room quality which makes it easy to connect with, whether studying each element with rigour or simply drifting in the soft-shaped ambience they create.
After previous outings on Meakusma, (K-RAA-K) and Hands In The Dark, Razen come to Marionette, a label more than ready to carry such meditative, hand and breath-wrought tones. Regression is a relatively focused 35 minutes which takes in pure tonal work such as Paul Garriau’s Hurdy Gurdy driving ‘Regression Aether’ and Will Guthrie’s snaking drum mantras on ‘Regression Wood’. Delcour’s winds and reeds provide a constant figure dancing in the foreground of the album, often bringing a melodious foil to harmonic dissonance and slowly rising overtones in the background. Even if the overall impression is one of pastoral calm, there is tension and dynamism at work through Regression.
OW
This week’s reviewers:: Neil Mason, Zach Buggy, Patrizio Caliere, Oli Warwick, Matthew D Watkin.