There’s long been a fascination with the death of busty, blonde, Marilyn-alike Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield. The fact that it supposedly resulted from a curse by the occult showman and head of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, builds in an element of preposterousness that’s proved irresistible to generations of conspiracy theorists.
Gota Fría, or “cold drop”, is a Spanish weather phenomenon associated with violent rainstorms, when high pressure has caused a pocket of cold air to dissociate itself from the warmer clouds. Meteorologists, please excuse my basic and probably erroneous interpretation; the point here is that any person who’s experienced mental ill-health will likely relate to the idea of a sudden dip in temperature, a torrential downpour, and the accompanying isolation.
When Ray Davies released his Americana LP last year, much was made of how the the ex-Kink's lyrical focus had shifted from English villages to the mid-western plains of the big old USA. Really, though, Davies was just looking back over his life. America had always loomed large in Kinks' songs - if only in the imagination of the English characters - and after their infamous touring ban, they played there relentlessly. Our Country - Americana Act II, completes the story.
As before, the album is largely inspired by Davies autobiography, Americana: The Kinks, the Road and the Perfect Riff. This time, though, the inspiration is more direct. Volume 1 took an oblique look at Davies' experiences, Volume 2 sounds more like an attempt to set the book to music.
The process moves the songwriter into new territory. In places, the feel is almost like Randy Newman– full of warmth, wit, spoken word, and musical digressions. We begin with Davies' early experiences as a rock'n'roll-obsessed teenager ("Back in the Day") and soon move to life as a successful rock star with his own fans ("The Take"). But it's not until we arrive in New Orleans, a city Davies called home for a while, that the LP really starts cooking. Davies and his backing band(s) kiss goodbye to rock'n'roll and Americana and get stuck into the blues. The musical styles move briskly from acoustic guitars ("Street Called Hope"), through laid-back reflections ("Louisiana Sky") and on to a full-on New Orleans' funeral march ("March of the Zombies").
Maybe, though, the best thing about Our Country isn't the music at all. It's Davies' wonderful-and-wise spoken word sections. For instance, on "The Big Guy" where Davies delivers a warm ode to the old security guards who protected him. He says he wouldn't have got shot in a New Orleans mugging if they'd been around.The song then morphs into one of the most beautiful melodies Davies has ever penned. On the last track, "Muswell Hillbillies", the American experience is over and Davies is back in North London. Davies' second musical journey around America may be substantially different from the first, but it's every bit as fun.
Overleaf: watch a short documentary on the making of Our Country
Norwich is remote, out near the Norfolk Broads, doing its own thing on Britain’s eastern-most edge. It’s not renowned as a place that’s contributed much to rock and pop. This may be about to change. The music of Let’s Eat Grandma, 19-year-old lifelong friends Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth from Norwich, could only have developed in isolation, cultivated unhindered by the taste-arbiters of the outside world. They’re a fascinating unit and, happily, also engagingly off-the-wall.
Un beau soleil intérieur, the film’s French title, is part of a piece of advice given by a clairvoyant (Gérard Depardieu, in a surprise 15-minute cameo at the end of the movie). Try to find the beautiful sun within, he tells Isabelle (a glowing Juliette Binoche) and be “open” (he uses the English word). His huge, dented face seems to take up most of the screen.
Concluding a trilogy of releases that began with the EPs Not the Actual Events (2016) and Add Violence (2017) – Bad Witch is being called an LP despite its six tracks clocking in at only 30 minutes, a discrepancy that reportedly led an exasperated Trent Reznor to sound out a pernickety fan in an online forum.
It would always be difficult to follow The Epic, the 2015 release which turned LA saxophonist Kamasi Washington from leader of the local scene to international star. So this musical and spiritual journey lifts off into the heavens, the 16 pieces divided equally into firstly Earth - the external world perceived by Kamasi - then Heaven, which Kamasi describes as the world he sees inwardly.
Force of Evil is much more than a stunning film noir classic: it’s first and foremost a film about money and power and their tragic power of attraction. Set in the world of the numbers racket in New York, where the big combinations, created by gangsters who've barely gone legit, are pitted against the smaller "banks", or players.
How great is Uniform Distortion? As great as Greg Sage’s Straight Ahead or Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s Ragged Glory or Dungen’s Ta det lugnt or Alex Chilton’s Like Flies On Sherbert. That’s how great Uniform Distortion is.
It took Soulwax 12 years to release 2017’s From Deewee, a triumphant one take clash of live drums and electronic wizardry. It’s taken less than 12 months for their follow-up; at their current rate, we can expect another release sometime next weekend. As described in an opening voice-over, this is an “essential mix” equivalent to a mixtape, originally created for a BBC Radio 1 session.