“That’s what we fucking do!” So says Maxim at the concert’s very end, surveying the sweating, raving carnage of 4,500 souls before him. One of The Prodigy’s two frontman, he stands still finally, after spending the rest of the gig pacing and rushing up and down the lip of the stage like a caged panther. We all know what he means. He means that his band have wrung us out, taken us to a fervour of devil-may-care limb-swinging derangement.

One of the major abiding musical memories of the late 1990s for many wasn’t so much five Mancunians ripping off Beatles’ songs, but Keith Flint of The Prodigy, growling “I’m a Firestarter/Twisted Firestarter” while all kinds of electronic battery was let loose.

Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.

Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small but perfectly sleazy work of sweary, cynical brilliance

Ex Mykah is a multi-instrumentalist and producer on the LA music scene who’s worked with the names such as Mark Ronson and Miike Snow. His own debut album sounds very far from either of those. Instead it comes from the warped, alt-hip hop end of the pop spectrum, while also recalling that brief Noughties blog flourish “chillwave” (the likes of Neon Indian and Washed Out).

Collaboration clearly suits Neneh Cherry. From co-writing with husband Cameron McVey, to projects with Youssou N’Dour, her band cirKus, The Thing and RocketNumberNine, the give-and-take of partnership has produced some stunning work that has always seen the singer give as much as she has taken. 

Cherry is an honest, open performer and that translates to her vocal style. Much attention has been focused on the involvement of Keiron “Four Tet” Hebden as producer on this project, and his trademark sparkle is much in evidence with carefully controlled clatter and subtle rewinds sitting behind sparkles and fizz, but perhaps the deftest touch is giving Cherry’s voice the space to shine. 

Her tonal signature is so identifiable, so incredibly attractive, that it needs to dominate, and that’s exactly what it does, Cherry’s trademark vibrato riding the wave. It remains impressively raw and honest throughout, never imperious, never showy. It’s a voice that needs to be heard rather than demanding it. 

Eschewing shrieking acrobatics in favour of subtler signifiers of emotion, Cherry’s voice is perfectly suited to Hebden’s production, which is every bit as nuanced and makes for an impressive continuity through a range of diverse tempos and hues. At one end of the spectrum sits “Synchronised Devotion”, the delicate sound of history quietly colliding. The gentle piano lines come clouded in the sitting-room echo of nostalgia, while a vibraphone and Cherry’s voice are right up in the mix, front and centre. Its neighbour, “Deep Vein Thrombosis”, follows a similar pace but with a darker, more sombre intent, something of a recurring theme in a thoughtful, reflective collection. 

At the other end, “Natural Skin Deep” is a ferociously funk-driven stormer, the rolling skate of the steel band sample helping to keep a sense of momentum and purpose before everything collapses through the doors of a jazz club at the signal of an air horn. It’s only a brief respite, the song sprinting off as soon as it hears its cue again. 

In between these points lie some of Cherry’s most satisfying songs to date, including the static-soaked skank of recent single “Kong”, all buoyed by sympathetic and symbiotic production. It all adds up to a completely satisfying synthesis.

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@jahshabby 

Overleaf: watch the video for "Kong"