Sweet confection
Teaming light, feathery R&B with millennial self-care lyrics, Ariana Grande’s new album goes down like candyfloss, writes Fiona Shepherd
POP
Ariana Grande: eternal sunshine Republic Records ★★★
Marti Pellow: PISO Live self-released ★★★★
Sarah Jane Morris: The Sisterhood
Weatherbox ★★★★
Siobhan Wilson: Flowercore Vol.1
Sufrecs/olive Grove Records ★★★★
Restoration poetry rocks, as Ariana Grande’s seventh album, eternal sunshine, makes reference to Alexander Pope’s Eloisa To Abelard – or more likely Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry’s 2004 film on memory, relationships and second chances. She also references, quite blatantly, Madonna’s Vogue on lead single Yes, And? which might explain why it is a clear highlight on a generally mid-paced album which teams light, feathery, retro pop R&B with millennial self-care lyrics and a touch of autobiographical sauce (“this is a true story about all the lies”).
Working again with superproducer Max Martin, there is a delicacy to the arrangements and Grande’s delivery from the eddying strings of We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) to the twinkling synth arpeggios on I Wish I Hated You which ensures that this album goes down like candyfloss.
For those not down with the WWW (Wet Wet Wet) acronyms, PISO refers to their five times platinum debut album Popped In Souled Out, which their former frontman Marti Pellow performed live last year with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to such acclaim that the collaboration has spawned an entire tour and this album document of the original show at Glasgow’s Armadillo, which opens with debut hit single Wishing I Was Lucky, a timeless appeal for soul not dole.
The band’s love of Philly soul is captured in the soaring string arrangements, while the orchestra provides a cinematic swell to the Angel Eyes intro. Sure, Pellow chews the scenery on occasion, but it remains a pleasure to revisit album tracks such as the ecstastic soul catharsis of I Remember and to appreciate the maturity of the original songwriting from a bunch of Clydebank teenagers.
Erstwhile Communards frontwoman Sarah Jane Morris is also full of retro soul spirit on her lockdown project, a musical tribute to the female vocal and songwriting giants on whose shoulders she stands. The Sisterhood is, by no coincidence, released on International Women’s Day.
Working again with her wingman Tony Rémy, Morris has penned original songs paying tribute to the life and legacy of artists such as Bessie Smith, Janis Joplin and Annie Lennox without pastiche, though she can’t resist a touch of testifying on the title track, dedicated to Aretha Franklin who “socked it to them good”.
Elsewhere, she hails Rickie Lee Jones’ “storyteller’s cool” with the southern soul slow jam of Jazz Side of the Road, dubs Kate Bush the Rimbaud of Suburbia for her precocious talent with a bit of that sonic je ne sais quoi and enlists the Soweto Gospel Choir to
The band’s love of Philly soul is captured in the soaring strings
celebrate Mama Africa on Miss Makeba.
There is more graceful conceptualising from the Borders-based singer/ songwriter Siobhan Wilson who presents a flower diary in musical form on Flowercore Vol.1, the first of three EPS inspired by her rural home. Embellished by strings and birdsong, her arrangements are simple and mostly sparse, keeping attention on the delicate bloom of Wilson’s voice.
The breathy folk wishfulness of Snowdrop’s Tune features hypnotically picked acoustic guitar and double bass from SCO principal Nikita Naumov, while she sounds at her prettiest on Floors o’ the Forest, with a soulful coda from piper Ross Ainslie.
But it’s not all trembling in the presence of daffodils as the EP rounds off with the more impressionistic haunting ululation and chiming percussion of Ghost Pipe Flowers and the wordless invocation and classical harmonies of Fern Flowers.