The sleeve splices Little Richard and Sam Cooke in an archaic, explosive burst of ecstasy. Neo-soul star Leon Bridges’ third album doesn’t settle in the past, though.
For 25 years now, LA label Stones Throw records has become one of the most reliable brands in music. It began with, and has always been associated with, the leftfield hip hop of founder George “Peanut Butter Wolf” Manak, and regular contributors Madlib and J Dilla.
Chet Faker is Melbourne-born musician Nick Murphy’s alter ego, an avatar he has stepped in and out of with gentle grace over more than a decade of finding a voice that's very much his own. Once described in The Guardian as a purveyor of “mellow-electronic-pop”, he is actually something else, closer to the sensuality and slow drag of soul, lilting along to very relaxed beats that have an almost trip-hop feel.
It’s kind of surprising Jimmy “Jam” Harris and Terry Lewis have never made an album as Jam & Lewis per se before now. The two have conquered the world, more or less: their band The Time was Prince’s regular support act in his breakthrough years, as a star production / songwriting duo they’ve written 41 US Top 10 hits over the years, and they have 27 Grammy nominations and five wins.
Album number three from Ivor Novello-winning singer-songwriter Laura Mvula sees her paying singularly personal homage to the music of the 1980s.
Hailing from Benin and based in Paris since she was 23, Angélique Kidjo can sing in five languages, has collaborated with an A-list festival line-up of global stars ranging from Alicia Keys and Philip Glass to Herbie Hancock and Peter Gabriel, and had her first albums released by Island, after being spotted by label head Chris Blackwell.
Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep has been five years coming. It’s only a mini-album but is spiced with a range of guests, and offers an array of musical styles, the whole sound ably built with alt-tronic producer FaltyDL. The press release tells us Blanco has recently come out of a calming three year relationship, but the album is neither morose nor studiedly reflective. It feels more like a sequel to the playful 2016 debut Mykki.
Greentea Peng is a south Londoner, heavily tattooed, heavily spiritual, heavily anti-establishment, and very, very heavily into basslines.
INTERLUDE 1: INVALID CODE-AGEDDON
6.45 PM on Saturday 22nd May and all is well. Like tens of thousands of others across the UK (or maybe even more?) my wall flatscreen is tuned to Glastonbury’s livestream. Prior to the event itself promos for Water Aid and the like roll by, the kind usually on the huge screens beside the Pyramid Stage at the festival.
Back in the mid-Eighties, BBC television started broadcasting The Rock'n' Roll Years, one of the first rock music retrospectives. Each half-hour episode focused on a year, with news reports and music intermixed to give a revealing look at the development of rock culture against the context of current affairs.