From Graham Brazier, Gorillaz and Blondie
The legendary Hello Sailor frontman gets a fitting send-off.
Almost two years after the death of Kiwi rock legend Graham Brazier, his crowdfunded last album, Left Turn at Midnite, has been stitched together.
Recorded in his final months with producer Alan Jansson, the 10 tracks are poignant and poetic, with lyrics about everything from his shed in the back of his mum’s house ( Shack), religion ( Storm Coming; the interestingly spelt Hossana), personal recollections ( University, Autumn, She and He) and the death of his Hello Sailor bandmate Dave McArtney ( Round the Bend).
The lyrics are pithy – one character has “lost more women than teeth” – and Brazier’s voice is at its powerful best over typically hooky tunes, but the production is the standout: Jansson brings in the last survivor of Sailor, Harry Lyon, to add guitar flourishes to outstanding centrepiece Autumn (“Do you remember when everything was truthful, innocent”) and to create a touching piano-andpercussion-based arrangement for Round the Bend. The album ends with Brazier’s beat poem White, with its memories of stage fright, childhood, rock’n’roll excess, marriage, “and after the rage, the empty stage”.
The title recalls Peter Pan’s directions to Neverland (“second star to the right, and straight on ’til morning”), and it’s a fitting send-off for one of New Zealand’s great lost boys.
LEFT TURN AT MIDNITE, Graham Brazier (Universal)
The idea that Gorillaz is a band of four cartoon characters and not simply another champion outfit from Damon Albarn’s stable of thoroughbred collaborations is fully detonated in fifth outing Humanz.
The marketing will no doubt emphasise the virtual pop stars, but the focus is on Albarn’s skills as a producer and his ability to milk genius from one of the mostthumbed little black books in music history.
The most striking thing about Humanz is its guest list. Albarn flies solo in only one of the 16 tracks – the beautiful and characteristically wistful Busted and Blue – while lending the limelight to superstars such as De La Soul, Grace Jones, Mavis Staples and Pusha T. The ex-Blur frontman even finds room for one-time Britpop sparring partner Noel Gallagher on rip-roaring closer, We Got the Power.
The cameos, though, cover the album’s apparently dystopian theme under a patchwork playlist, and although Vince Staples’ Ascension, Danny Brown and Kelela’s Submission and Jamie Principle and Zebra Katz’s Sex Murder Party are great examples of electronic arrangement, there’s little to rival Gorillaz super-singles such as Clint Eastwood and Kids with Guns.
Albarn doesn’t chase hits any more.
The perennial collaborator is busy on a Malian musical and another the Good, the Bad and the Queen album and Humanz seems to be a clever cross-pollination of some of the most inventive soul, hip-hop and R&B from the past 40 years.
HUMANZ, Gorillaz (Warner)
Although late 70s and early 80s Blondie still provide a magnificent sound-snap of New York punk’s voyage into New Wave, their post-1999 resurrection has been chaotic and often ill-judged. Pollinator, though, mixes the perfect ingredients of talented friends and willing fans to create a surprisingly fun fulllengther with a single vision.
From the pell-mell punk clatter intro of the Joan Jett-featuring Doom or Destiny to the New Wave synths on the Johnny Marr-penned My Monster, there are plenty of references to Debbie Harry’s heyday, while shared credits with Sia, TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, Charli XCX and the Strokes’ Nick Valensi give the oldsters some currency.
POLLINATOR, Blondie (Liberator)