LIELA MOSS

Internal Working Model (Bella Union)

There’s one word that echoes deliberately throughout Liela Moss’ third LP: empathy. On ominous St Vincent-esque opening track Empathy Files (“Empathy files / We’ve got empathy files / We’ve got data for miles – on you”), the capacity for fellow feeling is a weakness to be targeted, exploited and denigrated – but references recur elsewhere in more positive contexts. As Moss has said, “It cannot be kept down, no matter the weight.”

And make no mistake – Internal Working Model carries considerable weight, performing synthpop manoeuvres in the dark and conveying what novel blurb writers label the modern condition, from anxious paranoia to utter discombobulation (“I can’t tell the wall from the floor”) to hopeful yearning.

That goth-electro godfather Gary Numan crops up, on Vanishing Shadows, comes as little surprise. But his guest appearance is trumped by that of Jehnny Beth, formerly of Savages, on the record’s literal and metaphorical centrepiece, a smudged-eyeliner duet called Ache In The Middle (appropriately enough) that’s haunted by the spirit of Kate Bush. 

words BEN WOOLHEAD