The writers’ verdict
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Arp Frique – Analogue People Digital World (Colourful World)
No one could accuse Niels Nieuborg of holding anything back in terms of creative intention, his effervescent catalogue, after all, brims with inventiveness and colour. Even set against the rest of his work, there’s a palpable sense of abandon and release throughout his latest album recorded under the Arp Frique moniker, Analogue People Digital World. Expansive, freeform, elaborate and roundly off-kilter, he certainly appears to have been in an unabated mood when composing the music. An artist accustomed to dazzling listeners with his unique blend of universally-inspired fusion grooves, the sound of Arp Frique has been charming discerning music lovers since his brilliant ‘Nos Magia’ debut arrived on Rush Hour back in 2017. Now with three long-players under his belt, the last of which, The Seed featured an all-manner of pearls, arguably capped by the life-affirming wonder of lead single, ‘Nyame Ye’, which featured a searing lead vocal from singer, Mariseya. Though multi-instrumentalist Niels plays all of the parts on his studio recordings, such is the clarity of his creative vision, he certainly isn’t averse to collaborating when it comes to vocals, or indeed, when it comes to live performance (he couldn’t very well play all of the instrumentation at once, after all).
Mariseya once again features heavily on the new album, alongside guest appearances from Sumy and, frequent collaborator, Americo Brito. The music once again arrives via the Colourful World label Nieuborg runs alongside his homie Antal, the home of each of Arp Frique’s albums to date. While Afro flavours are a key component of much of the Arp Frique sound, all manner of disparate textures can be detected in his work, and this is certainly true of Analogue World Digital People. Vividly demonstrating this fusionist aesthetic is the first track, ‘Spiritual Masseuse’, where post-punk, disco, funk and ‘80s pop are among the many forms reimagined through the kaleidoscopic Arp Frique Lens. Loose, joyous, and equipped with just a little tongue-in-cheek swagger, it’s a powerful opening statement and expertly sets the tone for what follows. The high-life thrust of ‘Omampam’ bursts with energy, as Mariseya delivers a typically alluring vocal performance, albeit with a wonderfully unhinged edge, as she sings her heart out over oddball synths and rousing rhythms. Tripped-out reggae is next through Nieubourg’s glorious sonic mangle, the devotional vocal joined by wobbly synths as polyrhythmic beats flit between syncopation and four/four propulsion.
There’s unquestionably an aberrant thread coursing through the album, a feeling of unfettered freedom that endows the music with contiguous energy and boundless spirit. The freak funk of ‘Digital World’ is testament to this ethos, with hallucinatory shades of George Clinton and Prince gliding through waves of off-world synth solos and densely packed instrumentation. The same is true of ‘Go Now Wetiko’ featuring both Mariseya and Americo Brito, one of the most immediate of the collection, its catchy lead melodies helping to sear it into the memory banks after even the most cursory of listens. ‘Roi Salomon’ certainly challenges the former as single material, with gorgeous lead vocal and synth accompaniment overflowing with charisma as the deviant arrangement brilliantly unfolds. Finally, closing jam ‘Duncan Truffle’ leaves on a particularly high note, with psychedelic synth-funk taking centre stage as space-age pads drift over steady drum machine rhythms. There’s plenty to digest here, but suffice to say this is spectacular work from Arp, who, it has to be said, is surely one of the most imaginative musical mavericks lighting up the more cultured end of the greater dance spectrum in these most bewildering of times.
PC
Camille / Chez Damier / Nico Lahs / VA – Make Up The Edits 3 (Adeen)
Yet more imaginatively spun edits here from the Adeen Records camp, with label boss Camille joining forces with Chicago house hero Chez Damier and Italian producer Nico Lahs on the third instalment of Make Up The Edits. This is the second time this inspired ensemble have combined, having successfully curated a killer selection on volume two following Alkalino’s alluring series opener on volume one. In keeping with the funks-flecked sonics that preceded it, this chapter sees the protagonists take an especially deep dive into the soul-drenched corners of their combined record collections before lovingly repurposing their digs with today’s floors in mind. Presented with a deliciously gritty anti-gloss, the music bumps throughout, reframing free-flowing musicality via the trusty sampler as propulsive loops combine with expansive passages of generally feel-good vocals and instrumentation.
There isn’t a dull moment in sight, as the collection burst from the blocks with the rolling bass, granny strings and seductive vocals of Wayne Ford’s ‘Dance To The Beat Freakout’ edit. Next, the rousing strings and slap bass of Sherman Hunter’s ‘Dance To The Freedom’ respectful tweak, before the boogie flex of The Limit’s ‘She’s So Divine’ is given an enlivening house injection. ‘African Bump’ sees undulating guitars combine with rousing horns as walking bass powers the groove, while the good time flex of ‘Sunny’ flips the script on the Yambu classic with some nimble cut-and-paste flourishes. ‘Happy Music’ breathes new life into the already loveable Mastermind track, with careful splicing adding energy to the hyper-positive music as the beefed-up bottom end promises to ignite the dance, while the powerfully energetic ‘Yes’ threatens to tear the roof all the way off. Finally, completing an entirely effective selection is ‘Changes’, where sultry vocals glide over an intoxicating bed of full-bodied bass and percussive rhythms.
PC
Frightened Rabbit – Pedestrian Verse (10th Anniversary Edition) (Atlantic)
It’s been almost half a decade since the tragic, untimely passing of Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison, while his band’s seminal fourth full-length Pedestrian Verse semi-celebrates its ten-year anniversary. Battling feelings of mental instability, alcohol and substance abuse as well as cataloguing the bruised emotions that come from failed relationships, Hutchison’s poetic and brutal earnestness resonated with listeners across the globe who found contemplative solace in the songsmith’s hopeful weariness.
While The Midnight Organ Fight is often heralded as the high watermark of their discography, Pedestrian Verse struck a chord with its fully realised sound that showcased the most communally crafted work they had amassed up until that point. From the slow churning piano lilt of opener ‘Acts Of Man’ which begins with the inebriated self-deprecating admission – “I am that dickhead in the kitchen giving wine to your best girl’s glass”, a subdued tapestry of late night after parties, drunken flirtations and endless regret is spun through fractured tales, some hopeful like on the triumphant clamour for true connection with ‘The Woodpile’.
Others such as the sobering narrative of ‘State Hospital’, which details a woman born into abuse and poverty only to find herself another judged statistic by adulthood, or the literal suicide ode ‘Nitrous Gas’, have only grown more challenging and intense due to the upsetting circumstances around Hutchison’s passing.
The psych-folk twang that gives way to cathartic redemption on the immensely powerful closer ‘The Oil Slick’, features one of the late writer’s most positive pleas for peace and acceptance, again simultaneously elevated and shadowed by the knowledge of what transpired five years on.
Featuring the original three bonus tracks from the deluxe edition, as well as several previously unreleased B-sides and alternate takes, this definitive anniversary collection offers a chance to revisit and dissect further a work that has not only aged gracefully, but sadly become another troubling artifact of a creative’s genuine struggles, masked by their resoundingly effective ability to turn pain into processing and healing for all but themselves.
ZB
Angel Bat Dawid – Requiem For Jazz (International Anthem)
Angel Bat Dawid wants us to talk. The subject will make some less comfortable than others, but the message isn’t the shame of privilege, but getting the privileged to understand, as far as possible, African American experiences from the early-mid-20th Century to today. And learn how intrinsic jazz is to that identity.
If that sounds deep, you should hear the album. Inspired by, and at times directly referencing, Edward O. Bland’s landmark 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, Dawid’s 22-track odyssey is less an album and more mood board of ideas, sentiments, sounds and excepts. Just as the movie interspersed archival footage of Black neighbourhoods in Chicago with performances from legends like Sun Ra and his Arkestra, making a narrative from juxtaposition and collage, here we have what can only be described as a dramatic performance piece on record.
Requiem is listless and varied, giving you the feeling of being built from movements and moments rather than tracks per se. Of course, there are songs here, but the records rich evolutionary structure means we’re less likely to remember them in silos. Not that the theatrical brass, wind, keys and choruses of ‘Joy N’ Suff’rin’ and ‘Chain Around the Spirit’, the looped, hip-hop-infused ‘Jazz Is The Musical Expression of The Triumph of the Negroes Spirit’ and ‘The Negro Transforms America’s Image of Him Into A Transport of Joy’, or late-night strings of downtempo gem ‘The Negro Experiences the Endless Daily Humiliation of American Life Which Bequeaths Him a Futureless Future’, don’t make lasting individual impressions. Nevertheless, when you have a celebrated composer, musician, singer, and educator leading a four piece choir and 15-strong orchestra in musical and artistic conversations around race, racism, prejudice, and the spirit to overcome those structural injustices, it’s about something much bigger than the parts.
MH
Gamut Inc – Sum To Infinity (Morphine)
Morphine Records are a rebellious label, rejecting some of the many faces of platform capitalism to favour their own space to release (their own website). That being said, they’ve also granted us permission to share and distribute their music. This time around comes an EP from Gamut Inc, who (we can’t resist) run the gamut of computer-controlled music machines to produce something of an electroacoustic firework display, Sum To Infinity.
Gamut Inc consist of Marion Worle and Maciej Sledziecki, two composers and local scenesters of the Cologne art curatorial world who like to tinker around with electroacoustic instruments on the side. Their practice differs from most musicians: most of the instruments they use are autonomous, self-made electroacoustic contraptions. They hook these up to generative pre-written compositions made on their laptops, creating physical analogies for gamelan, mallet and glockenspiel (and in the past, there have been other instruments, like church organs). These are then often synced with 4×4 beat structures – just in case these non-schizophonic gizmos need whipping out at the club.
In contrast to 2014’s stunning, pipe-organic ‘Ex Machina’ – which sounds like the virtuosic fluttering of a multicellular woodwind god – Sum To Infinity focuses almost entirely on mallets. Six ‘Series’, A through F, tear through the fabric of danceable and undanceable space. It’s as if indie-famous producer De Leon broke free of his DAW grid and gave over to the presumably infinite possibilities of acoustic music. ‘Series A’ immediately whacks us round the head with the notion of the Risset rhythm, a central concept to the album; these are essentially hazily overlaid rhythms of different tempi and phase, producing an effect of seemingly endless rhythmic ‘shifting’. From there, we must indulge our favouritism: ‘Series C’ is a sinister loomer, with its up-close, windchimey clunks sounding like the internal machinations of an evil Ghibli moving castle. ‘Series E’, too, more or less sounds like what sonic arts masters students might call heaven, but everyone else would call a cacophonous hell of bangs, whistles and matracas. Jokes aside: it’s a great release.
JIJ
Stanislav Karpenkov – Evpatrans (Gost Zvuk)
You’d have to have been paying close attention to hidden corners of Russia’s electronic underground to have picked up on Stas Karpenkov’s work in the past. Such practices are not exactly getting any more straight-forward under the shadow of war and geo-political tension, but he was made a little more visible by linking up with the internationally renowned Gost Zvuk label out of Moscow and making a couple of well received mixtapes for NTS Radio. Now he returns with a full-length album of grainy ambient-not-ambient which feels like it has emerged from the oily moss in which Gost Zvuk’s output resides.
Somewhere between the mechanical zeal of industry and the rounded fluctuations of organic matter, manipulated by technology and jagged like a cliff face, Evpatrans moves through beatless soundscapes still punctuated by prominent rhythms and revels in beauty and ugliness to provide something much more compelling than wallpaper music. Admittedly there are some snatches of fragmented drums to be heard, such as when Kuzma Palkin pops up on ‘Jet Ski Max’, but primarily this is a space in which the synthetic voices are given prominence, passing through modulation to parts unknown. It’s a surprise to catch Terrence Dixon popping up as a collaborator on ‘Background Data’, but the microtonal unease of this formless, droney piece certainly has his discordant hallmark on it, and it slots into the complex folds of Karpenkov’s work as a naturally alien bedfellow.
OW
Intertoto – Thermal Shadow (Intertoto)
Music and graphic design go together like droids in escape pods, so it’s no wonder the work of Jamie Coull has made it onto our radar. Thermal Shadow is the first ever release by the UK musician and designer, flaunting his chops under the name and outlet of Intertoto.
The eight-track project weaves through dubbed-out flitters and post-techno humus, with about just as much texture and as the two abstract, dancing (or warring) figures conveyed on its front cover. Mastered by the inimitable Special Guest DJ, you can be sure that this is a quality project by proxy just as much as it is innately so. Most things Shy touch turn to gold, and most of them already are. But that shouldn’t mean this project’s master chain is indistinguishable from its mix; it’s epecially true in this case, since Intertoto’s mixes are wilfully dubious, described as being made using “weirdo routing setups” to produce a muted, club-exterior pulse.
Our choice bits are ‘Couchlock HEX’ – which sounds something like a giant pool of mana sputtering and humming, half-alive, when not in use by the master wizard that conjured it – and ‘Gandahar’ – a stereo-swamping dub techno bit named after the lesser-known anime film of the same name. Act fast, cos this one only exists as 50 tape copies.
JIJ
Negative Blast – Echo Planet (Quiet Panic)
Newly founded retro-fitted hardcore supergroup Negative Blast boast a line-up that includes members of Lewd Acts, Hour of the Wolf, and most recently the addition of veteran drummer Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From the Crypt, Hot Snakes, Earthless, OFF!), yet in spite of their impressive pedigree, the band opt to not simply rest on their laurels, but smash them open in order to re-structure their more tenable genre components in a most vibrant, pummelling form.
At eight tracks and 19 minutes, Echo Planet simply does not have the time to idle, similar to ourselves as a species. In one ear a surging bombast of old school hardcore with frenetic angular riffage and breakneck pace, displayed as such on the trudging bedlam of ‘Trauma Bond’ or the skull-caving fury of ‘Bad Trip’, with vocalist Rainier Pesebre elaborating on the former detailing “the human machine that trades life for profit through control, trauma and warfare. The words explore what fuels the parasitic nature that compels those to hold power and subjugate others into a life of violence and suffering”.
In the other ear, you’ll notice moments of desert stoner rock veering towards sludge on the fuzzed-out title-track or the grooving penultimate anthem ‘The King In Vancouver’, which flaunts a swaggy, southern-tinted hook and playful bravado echoing the likes of Every Time I Die or Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster.
Brimming with seething anger and advanced dexterity, Echo Planet can’t help but feel purposefully restrained, as if the members of Negative Blast want listeners to familiarise themselves with the brevity of their chaotic approach, while dipping a toe into the waters of their more leftfield inspirations. With a blink and you’ll miss it level of energy, bile-spewing rage and surprisingly broad sonic palette, this is a hardcore debut done right, and does its utmost to stand out in an ever-growing sea of would-be imitators.
ZB
Debby Friday – GOOD LUCK (Sub Pop)
Synth punk seductress. Mutated electro madame. Distorted dominatrix. And a beautiful voice. There are many things that spring to mind while navigating the corridors of Debby Friday’s mind, as presented on her debut album. At times she’s vicious and visceral, dropping guttural, gritty, nervous tension all over the place. In other moments, she’s so sweet it’s hard not to stick to the speakers. Later, she might take us close to a warehouse rave, only with enough chart-friendly nuances to grab radio play. Elsewhere, it’s wonky glitch hop. Then shimmering ambient.
Multifaceted barely comes close, and the Toronto-based, Nigeria-born artist makes no secret of that — delivering a record on which every track sounds autonomous, without forsaking overall cohesion, and introducing herself on breakneck driver ‘I GOT IT’ as “Debbie Friday… Debbie Doomsday…” before telling us about her “big ol ego”. It’s at this point you realise GOOD LUCK marks the arrival of a hugely talented enigma. The likes of which are all too often missing from contemporary pop culture, and the release schedule. Somehow invoking everyone from Coco Rosie (‘SO HARD TO TELL’), to Nadine Shah (‘WHAT A MAN’), while predominantly focusing on in industrial-ended electronic pop, you need to buckle up.
MH
This week’s reviewers: Zach Buggy, Patrizio Cavaliere, Jude Iago James, Oli Warwick, Martin Hewitt.