SOUND JUDGEMENT
THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED
ANGELIQUE KIDJO – REMAIN IN LIGHT ★★★★★ TALKING Heads’ 1980 classic Remain In Light was a vibrant collage of synths, post-punk vocals and most importantly African polyrhythms – so when Angelique Kidjo performed the album live in Carnegie Hall last year, the audacity made perfect sense. On record, the vitality is amplified. Lines in Fon and Yoruba give a different kind of velocity to familiar grooves; Crosseyed and Painless outstrips the original with ebullient Afrobeat, punchy production and Kidjo’s humanity (a quality David Byrne often seemed to shed) highlighting the song’s relevance.
JORJA SMITH – LOST & FOUND ★★★★★ SMITH’S rich, soulful voice shows an artist who, despite being just 20 and on her debut album, has honed her craft over multiple singles and collaborations with the likes of Drake and Stormzy – even if the giggle at the end of Teenage Fantasy is a reminder of her tender age.
Smith, who won the Critics’ Choice Award at this year’s Brits, featured on last year’s Artists For Grenfell charity single and her political conscience brings out the best in her. Her 2016 debut single Blue Lights remains a standout here and is followed up by Lifeboats (Freestyle), a powerful attack on greed culture and the chasm between rich and poor.
LYKKE LI – SO SAD SO SEXY ★★★★★ IN So Sad So Sexy, Swedish singersongwriter Lykke Li presents a musical appraisal of modern pop, hitting all the hallmarks of modern chart music without compromising her identity as a musician.
Opener, Hard Rain, starts on familiar ground with sparse vocals over an electro-pop backing, and it soon shows the fruits of this album’s collaboration with American hip-hop producers, with trap beats and darkly distorted vocals.
The effect is striking, with Lykke Li’s startling, moving vocals interplaying beautifully with the familiarly poppy production. But as the album progresses, we are reminded of the darkness in her music. Though she borrows the sexy aesthetic of chart music, Lykke Li has cleverly countered it with her moving and challenging lyrical themes.