The question of personality in abstract and ambient music has always been a fascinating one. Without conventional signifiers of expressiveness, and especially in the age of AI, it’s easy for people to think “a computer could have done that”. Indeed, there’ve been plenty of musicians from Brian Eno levels of prominence on down who have played with this, using algorithmic generation, anonymity and so forth as part of the project.

This album is SHORT. At 27 minutes and just five tracks, one might wonder why Julienne Dessagne (this is a solo act) didn’t call it an EP. But maybe this is a good way to go in the trenches of the modern attention wars. It set me to thinking about two recent-ish albums that have become fabourites: Earl Sweatshirt’s 24 minutes of rap introspection SICK! from 2022, and last year’s Rosenhagtorn by Isabel Gustaffson-Ny, a sub-18 minute wisp of puzzling, barely there jazz-folk abstraction.

The exhortations don’t seem necessary as the audience is already letting off the steam which has built up in anticipation of a full-bore show. Nonetheless, The Courettes’ Flávia Couri knows higher levels of excitement are there to be tapped, that it’s possible to get the crowd to liberate themselves from any restraint they may have left. Limits are there to be pushed.

The Weeknd is a global megastar, one of the biggest music sensations of the age. Last year, his compilation, The Highlights, was the second best-selling album in the world, and he has 27 songs with over a billion streams on Spotify, which is a record. His latest album is the third part of a trilogy which started, back in 2020 with After Hours.

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Buñuel Mansuetude (Skin Graft/Overdrive)

It would be really easy to get hung up on the definition for this album. Is it a new sexuality term? A holiday genre of technopop? A planet that will align with the others on January 29^th?

English singer Tahliah Debrett Barnett, aka FKA Twig, describes via X, that "eusexua is a practice, eusexua is a state of being, eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience".

This is Tunng’s ninth album, their first in five years, and marks their 20^th anniversary by consciously going full circle to the gentle sound sculpture and folk melody of their earliest work. It is also thrown into fascinating relief by arriving just as the world is reeling from the loss of David Lynch.

Of the big UK indie bands of the 00s wave, Bloc Party were always the most austerely art-rockish. Where Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Franz Ferdinand all to some degree or other had a dose of the vaudevillian and a bit of party “woohoo!”, BP adhered way more to the seriousness, alienation and introspection of their post-punk inspirations.

Rooted in South African electronic styles such as kwaito, amapiano and gqom, the music of Moonchild Sanelly also shows a rich in awareness of US and European hip hop and pop.

Born Horses remains as inscrutable as it was when it was issued in the summer. While it is about the search for enlightenment through journeying into inner space, much of what’s described – the album’s words are largely spoken – is allegorical, coming across as beatnik-style reportage documenting a form of psychedelic experience.