CDS of the week: three new releases
The Proclaimers: Angry Cyclist Cooking Vinyl £10
Angry Cyclist isn’t just the “best album title of the year” so far, said Lisa Verrico in The Sunday Times. It is also one of the Reid brothers’ finest songs yet: a “furious polemic on prejudice, ignorance and fascism that starts out sweetly, set to strings, and explodes to pounding piano and thunderous drums”. And if the title track doesn’t convert those who find The Proclaimers too strident, then Streets of Edinburgh – a “laid-back ode to their hometown” – might well, while You Make Me Happy is a “simple, shouty love song” that will prove “perfect for festivals”.
You won’t find the “sonic fizz” of musical innovation here, said Thomas H. Green on The Arts Desk. But if you’re after “cleverly crafted songs with brotherly harmonies to spare”, then Angry Cyclist is a “one-stop shop”. This 11th Proclaimers album showcases their talent as musical poets in the style of the young Paul Weller, with “snappy couplet after pithy one-liner”. And that opening title track is a “two-and-ahalf-minute classic”.
Travis Scott: Astroworld Epic £10
Even in a summer crowded with “marquee” hip-hop releases, Travis Scott’s
Astroworld – the third full album from the 26-year-old Texan rapper – stands out, said Andrew Barker in Variety. This extraordinary record is a “druggy kaleidoscope of textures and techniques” – encompassing psychedelic guitars, trap drums, hazy synths, haunted house piano, Enya-esque vocal swells and all manner of “futuristic baubles”. It also boasts a “Met Gala guest list” of collaborators, from Frank Ocean and Drake to James Blake, Pharrell and even Stevie Wonder. Lyrically, “hedonistic contentment” appears to be the main, rather undynamic, theme. But musically it’s a feast: there are at least a dozen tracks here that will be dominating dance floors and airwaves for months.
Six years into his career, this album marks the first time that Scott’s music has “actually matched the aspirations of his art-crunk bluster, rock-star stage dives” and trainer-flogging business brain, said Christopher R. Weingarten in Rolling Stone.
Hindemith: Das Marienleben, Juliane Banse/ Martin Helmchen Alpha Classics £17
Paul Hindemith’s 1922-23 setting of Rilke’s cycle of poems The Life of Mary (about the mother of Christ) is one of the “most substantial song collections” since Schubert’s Winterreise or Mahler’s Des
Knaben Wunderhorn, and “one of the most significant 20th century contributions to the genre”, said Hugh Canning in The Sunday Times. On disc it hasn’t been neglected (there are fine earlier versions available), but this “complete and compelling” rendering from soprano Juliane Banse and pianist Martin Helmchen is nevertheless thoroughly to be welcomed.
Banse has a “wonderful pedigree” in 20th century song, and “every recording she makes seems to reveal an ever-greater range and authority”, said Andrew Clements in The Guardian. On this “glorious” record, she makes light work of the “enormous demands” Hindemith places on his interpreters, whether it’s the “dramatic intensity and almost mezzo-like richness” needed for some of the songs, or the “shining, soaring lyricism” of others.