BEST OF THE REST
Andy Gill gives a listen to Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit, Can, Songhoy Blues, and Floraleda
Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound
Download: Last Of My Kind; Cumberland Gap; If We Were Vampires; Anxiety
There’s nothing particularly Nashville about Jason Isbell’s new album – no cowboy hats or keening steel guitars – but it does possess, in spades, the kind of blue-collar concerns that have traditionally furnished country music’s backbone. Isbell’s recent rise is down to the gritty acuity of his songwriting, exemplified here by “Cumberland Gap”, a blue-collar rocker in Springsteen style about escaping the bonds of inherited
work traditions, and “Anxiety”, a grimly soulful account of depression which ends in clouds of guitar distortion. The latter is one of several songs, alongside “White Man’s World” and “Something To Love”, which reflect the worries brought by Isbell’s recent fatherhood, though he’s equally adept at giving voice to outsiders such as the wannabe-escapee to “Tupelo” and the misplaced rustic of “Last Of My Kind” (“Tried to go to college but I didn’t last long/Everything I said was either funny or wrong”). But the most touching song here is “If We Were Vampires”, a premature contemplation of the inevitable pain of bereavement.
Beth Ditto, Fake Sugar Download: Fire; Ooh La La; Savoir Faire
Beth Ditto’s debut album is a bit of a mixed bag – no great surprise, given her openness to temper her indie-punk roots through previous collaborations with Simian Mobile Disco and even pop thoroughbred Brian Higgins’ Xenomania production team. This time around, she relies mainly on Jennifer Decilveo to realise her ideas, with occasional input from the likes of Jacknife Lee, with whom she co-wrote the simple but effective glam stomp “Ooh La La”. Her roots are most rousingly recalled on the big, blowsy opener “Fire”, whose predatory throb explodes into a chugging fuzz-rock boogie streaked with squalling guitars. Sadly, it’s the best thing here: stylistic variations like the title-track, with its folksy, pop-reggae twitch, and the routine Scandi-pop soundalike “Do You Want Me To?”, aren’t quite as capably handled, while the impassioned rocker “We Could Run” comes across as a wannabe-U2 mash of Edge-style guitar, dynamic build-up and windily meaningless sloganeering.
Royal Blood, How Did We Get So Dark?
Download: How Did We Get So Dark?; She’s Creeping
The most successful second albums tend to reveal an artist’s broader strengths, whether it’s Led Zep stirring folk into the heavy rock of Led Zeppelin II, or The Band inventing Americana with The Band. Sadly, despite the occasional addition of elements such as the plodding piano on “Hole In Your Heart”, there’s little such development on How Did We Get So Dark?. Royal Blood’s energies here are expended not on expansive outreach but intensive simplicity: any added layers simply buttress the basic riffs of tracks like “Lights Out” and “Where Are You Now”, both of which ape Queens Of The Stone Age’s terse, robot-rock style. Even when they slip down a gear for the languid swagger of “She’s Creeping”, or attempt a more contemplative attitude on “Don’t Tell”, they’re still sculpted from the same small portfolio of sounds – basically, buzzing distorted guitar riffs and harmony chants borne along on pummelling drum barrages – which tends to impose too narrow an emotional range on the album. It’s like being hectored loudly by a bore.
Can, The Singles Download: Vitamin C; Moonshake; Dizzy Dizzy; Vernal Equinox; I Want More
Though more renowned for the out-there, cauldron-like intensity of their collective improvisations, Can were also the most humorous of the ‘70s Krautrock bands and, along with Kraftwerk, able to apply their
idiosyncratic skills to create the occasional hit single, most notably with the neo-psychedelic brio of “I Want More”. Their trademark formula of infectious, jazz-tinged cyclical rhythms, wry melodic charm and instrumental exploration was established a few years earlier on cuts like “Vitamin C”, which epitomises Can’s dialectic ability to embrace apparent opposites, being both open and stealthy, sinister yet alluring. “Moonshake” is another standout, its jaunty character encompassing an almost comical middle-eight montage of rhythmic noises guaranteed to raise a smile; while “Dizzy Dizzy” and “Vernal Equinox” flew off at contrasting tangents, the latter’s hurtling metal momentum shockingly at odds with the former’s whirligig alliance of violin and swirling keyboards. A late-career lapse into gimmicky covers of “Silent Night” and “Can Can” aside, this compilation is a marvellous confirmation of pop’s fringe possibilities.
Songhoy Blues, Resistance Download: Voter; Bamako; Sahara; Yersi Yadda
Perhaps reflecting the three years spent touring after their marvellous Music In Exile album, the excellent Resistance finds Malian desert-rockers Songhoy Blues forging firmer bonds between their native modes and Western styles. Opening track “Voter”, for example, yokes the nimble itchiness of their soukous-style guitars to a powerful rock riff, whilst the tribute to their homeland capital “Bamako” blends a Staple Singers guitar figure with a James Brown funk groove, over which vocals are bawled with punky intensity: a dizzying crossover of punch and power. Iggy Pop drops by on the desert-blues groove “Sahara” to cement the alliance, chipping in over the snaking, cyclical guitar interplay an amusing account of Western nations’ wariness about the region: “It seems unfriendly/There ain’t no condos, there ain’t no pizza/It’s a genuine culture, no Kentucky Fried Chicken”. Elsewhere, scuttling guitars predominate on tracks like “Badji” and “Ir Ma Sobay”, while Fela Kuti looms large over the Afrobeat drumming, burring brass and call-and-response vocal of “Yersi Yadda”.
Floraleda, #Darklight Download: Hammers; Silencio Du Park Guell; Antartica; The Beatitudes
Already renowned for her interpretations of John Cage and Philip Glass, on #Darklight Italian harpist Floraleda Sacchi explores the work of a younger generation of composers such as Olafur Arnalds, Max Richter and Nils Frahm. Working solo with acoustic and electric harps, electronic devices and ambient recordings, her compelling interpretations expose the enigmatic quality of the compositions. Max Richter’s “Andras”, for instance, emerges from a buzzing cloud into delicate clarity before slipping back into the fog; while for Nils Frahm’s “Hammers”, a rhythmic bass pulse carries the kind of intense fingerpicking employed on early Leonard Cohen tracks. Her ambient recordings are variable – the sounds made by icebergs shearing off from ice shelves, used in Roberto Cacciapaglia’s “Antartica” are less cliched than the showers used in Richter’s “Europe After The Rain” - but the only real misstep here comes with the oldest piece, DJ Tiesto’s dance remix of Barber’s “Adagio For Strings”, where the overly busy beat straps too tight a girdle around music which needs to be allowed to wilt.
These reviews first appeared in yesterday’s Independent Daily Edition