CD: Alt-J - Relaxer

Cambridge art-rockers extend their ambitions, but can they maintain their winning formula?

Some say Alt-J represent a paradox, blending, as they do, consummate artsiness with some absurdly catchy tunes. It's precisely this combination of ambition and accessibility that's helped them become one of Britain's most universally acclaimed bands. Everyone, it seems, has a soft spot for them, except, possibly, hipster journalists who feel they've sold out. Relaxer is a slightly different proposition. It's more ambitious than ever, and in places sublimely pretty, just not as immediate.

The songs naturally divide into two groups. Firstly, there are a handful that still evoke the spirit of band's first album, An Awesome Wave - an indefinable melange of rhythmic folk, blues and electronica. But the dominant sound is closer to the slow atmospheric second album. Except now the songs are longer with added strings and delicate, open-tuned guitars: a kind of ambient indie-folk.

Don't let that description put you off. There's nothing whining, or excessively fey about songs like "3WW", and "Last Year". Quite the opposite. The latter, a break-up song featuring Marika Hackman, is achingly sad. By contrast "3WW" looks at the beginning of a relationship with choral melodies that give way to folk harmonies which then melt into Mexican guitars. Possibly more intriguing is the band's reworking of "House of the Rising Sun" complete with orchestra and 20 classical guitars. To some the idea might feel preposterous. But if you can get beyond the sense of indulgence the net effect is intense and satisfying. 

The mid- and up-tempo songs are more of a mixed bag. "In Cold Blood" possesses much of that infectious quirkiness that people loved about "Breezeblocks". But unfortunately the Graham Coxon-style garage rock of "Hit Me Like That Snare" just sounds odd. It's the album's only serious misfire and, ultimately, Relaxer's offbeat mix of styles and dogged self-belief manages, again, to speak fulfillingly to both heart and mind. 

@russcoffey 

Overleaf: watch Alt-J's video for "3WW"

CD: DJ Hell - Zukunftsmusik

Stunning electronic masterpiece from Bavarian techno don

Helmut Geir has been around the block multiple times but, like an electro-sonic Batman, always pops up just when he’s needed. Never much moved by fads, the Bavarian DJ-producer has always kept a foot in pre-house music styles, notably punk, Eighties synth-pop and Seventies electronica. His new album, only his fifth in a 25 year recording career, is, without doubt, his meisterwerk. Titled after the German for “Music of the Future”, a Wagnerian term, it’s actually retro-futurist in tone, yet so startlingly original and ambitious it posits directions for not only electronic music, but pop, rock, and anyone else listening.

If Kraftwerk were still in the business of creating music rather than laurel-resting, this might be where they'd choose to wander. Certainly “Car Car Car”, with its tick-tocking rhythm owes them a direct debt. “A car is a car/It drives you near or far/It transports us to all kinds of places,” run the heavily Vocodered lyrics. But that’s just the beginning of this tour de force. Two tunes later we hit “Army of Strangers” which comes on – convincingly - like an update of some offcut from one of Bowie’s Berlin albums. Then, later, “K House” appears to robot-channelling a film theme trapped in John Barry’s brainstem.

And what of the vocal sample-delic psychedelic Voodoo madness of “High Priestess of Hell”? Or the sitar techno with Albert Ayler-esque punk-bebop sax attack that is “Guede”? Or the ten minute bonus track, “Mantra”, which mutates the Buddhist “Om” into hypno-techno? Or "With u", a perfectly pared back electro-pop nugget featuring, of all people, The Stereo MCs? It’s an album that doesn’t quit for its 50 minutes-ish length, whether sleazing it up on the outright gay club whopper “I Want You” or recalling Bernard Herrmann’s “Taxi Driver” soundtrack on the slow, muzzy “2 Die 2 Sleep”.

Zukunftsmusik is utterly addictive. It does what a truly great album should: it astounds.

Overleaf: Watch the Video for "Car Car Car" by DJ Hell

theartsdesk on Vinyl 28: Manic Street Preachers, Joep Beving, Wreckless Eric, SWANS and more

THEARTSDESK ON VINYL 28 From Wreckless Eric to Afro-electronica

The most wide-ranging record reviews out there

While the 36 records reviewed below run the gamut of Wreckless Eric to Democratic Republic of the Congo Afro-electronica, this month there’s also a special, one-off section for modern classical. This is due to an ear-pleasing haul of releases reaching theartsdesk on Vinyl lately.

CD: Juana Molina - Halo

Career highlight from Argentina's musical witch

Flawlessly uniting atmosphere and melody is challenging. Especially so when creating music is approached unconventionally and with the desire to be individual. Having set her bar high, Juana Molina triumphs on all counts, again proving herself as a virtuoso artist who executes her vision with enviable assurance.

CD: Kasabian - For Crying Out Loud

★★★ CD: KASABIAN - FOR CRYING OUT LOUD The latest from Leicester's premier rock outfit will, as ever, divide listeners

The latest from Leicester's premier rock outfit will, as ever, divide listeners

Kasabian are more musically exciting than a multitude of bands taste-making hipsters thrust our way, yet they’re universally derided by those sorts. The reason is their blokeyness. And it’s true, even the light, lovely, strummed ballad “Wasted” from their new, sixth album has (quiet) terrace-chant backing vocals. And anything singer Tom Meighan touches musters a certain Liam Gallagher belligerence. That, however, isn’t a good enough reason to dismiss them. For Crying Out Loud is full of tasty bits.

For those familiar with Kasabian’s back catalogue, the album’s flavour is midway between 2006’s glam-stomping Empire and their last album, 48.13 (which was, in itself, a steroidal reimagining of their debut). The Seventies touch comes to the fore on numbers such as “Good Fight”, which sounds like a Britpop Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, while “Bless This Acid House” wants to be The Sweet. Those looking for dodgy cuts will find them – the single “You’re in Love With a Psycho” is an uncharacteristic disco-rock oddity, a miss rather than a hit, and there are a couple of other filler songs. But there’s also plenty to get your teeth into.

First and foremost, “Are You Looking For Action” is a !!!-style eight-minute-22-second stoned white funk thing, replete with a great sax solo at the end. Then there’s “Comeback Kid”, a brassed up, euphoric rampage midway between Primal Scream and Ian Brown, and the low-slung, spacious groove of “Sixteen Blocks” is a worthy addition to the band's catalogue, although they can’t help but give the latter a shout-along bit at the end. The slowies are effective too, the aforementioned “Wasted”, the floaty Sergio Pizzorno-sung “All Through the Night”, and closer “Put Your Life On It”, a campfire clap-along that recalls early-Seventies hits by the likes of George Harrison and Cat Stevens.

In the end, less is never more with Kasabian. More is more! And if you can’t go with that, they’ll remain an annoyance. For those ripe to be whipped up by their bullish desire for a communal rock’n’roll good time, their new album has some juicy songs and enough imagination to be a blast.

Overleaf: Watch the video for "You're in Love With a Psycho" by Kasabian

CD: Yasmine Hamdan - Al Jamilat

Globe-trotting electropop from Beirut's original underground icon

Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan founded Beirut’s groundbreaking 1990s electro-duo Soapkills with Zeid Hamdan – the first Middle Eastern electro band to garner a cult following across the Arab world. More recently she featured in Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 movie, Only Lovers Left Alive, the same year she released her debut album, Ya Nass, on the hip Berlin label Crammed. Her latest is a dreamy, lyrical foray into the shifting soundscapes of contemporary Arabic and Western music.

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