Metronomy have gone all out to knock off their quirky corners here, and goodness, it’s worked.
The ECM label has been welcoming British and UK-based musicians to its roster for more than half a century. The very first were a group consisting of Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and Hugh Davies. Then came a bassist who, back in 1971, was called “David Holland”. Then Azimuth (Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, John Taylor) and many more. The story of Manfred Eicher’s label could, in theory, have happened without musicians from these islands, but it would have been a different story.
In 1957, popular music was given a jolt when the first electronic pop record was recorded. “Song of the Second Moon” was created and composed by the Dutch musician Dick Raaijmakers who was working at NatLab, the research laboratory of the electronics company Philips.
Combining ancestral music with electronic sounds has become so widespread that it’s almost a cliché. Dance floors now pulsate with sounds from around the globe, adding a welcome warmth and heart to the tropes of techno, house and trance. Malian singer Rokia Koné with producer Jacknife Lee stand miles above the rest, and offers an object lesson in working so subtly with the original that the richness of African music isn't colonised by technology but miraculously enhanced.
Mary J Blige is a monumental musical power. 30+ years, 14 albums, various labels and untold collaborations into her career, she still has the ability to deliver records that push everything else aside, existing entirely on their own terms and forcing other cultural forces to rearrange around them.
The former British Sea Power’s seventh album draws on deep reserves of melancholy and ecstasy. Several songs sound like elegies for Yan and Neil Wilkinson’s recently deceased parents. The band’s emotional heart – sometimes missed beneath the perceived eccentricities of their semi-pagan, mythos-building stage-show – beats hard, even as songs reliably surge with pop power.
A decade since they picked up the Mercury prize for An Awesome Wave, Alt-J’s latest creation is highly likely to do the double. This is phenomenal work (but one hell of a challenge to describe). Those familiar with the band’s evocative, unclassifiable sound will understand. But if you’ve never come across their work – lucky you, you’ve got a treat in store. Distinctively idiosyncratic, this isn’t just more of the same. It’s Alt-J max.
Around 2017, Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, known professionally as Earl Sweatshirt, said he wanted to push his music in a more experimental direction, to do “riskier shit” to be precise. This need to venture out after being released contractually from Colombia Records resulted in the landmark 2018 album Some Rap Songs and the 2019 EP Feet of Clay some of the most daring and brilliant rap music in recent memory.
“I didn’t even know what I was writing about. It was just sent to me”, John Mellencamp has said of Strictly A One-Eyed Jack, his first album in five years.