THIS WEEK’S NEW ALBUMS REVIEWED | FEATURE
L.I.S.T.E.N. (Unique)
Over two decades and counting, Andy Cooper has honed his craft and made himself known – initially with Ugly Duckling, and more recently as part of The Allergies – with a flow that is so unique and natural, and a perfect fit for L.I.S.T.E.N. Cooper’s third solo album offers fresh old-school hip-hop with bells and whistles to brighten the mood.
The refrain “You know what I want to do… strut!” on Struttin’, with its disco backdrop and classy rhymes, is a notable standout joy, but this entire album is a thing of beauty/booty with soul, funk and rock’n’roll are also on show across these 10 tracks. It’s a success all round. GET THIS ALBUM!
words JUSTIN EVANS
A Very Chilly Christmas (Gentle Threat)
A Very Chilly Mixtape (self-released)
A big round of applause from your over-washed and disinfected hands please, for Berlin’s premier vaudevillian Entertainer Chilly Gonzales [top], a truly welcome Christmas presence at the U-bend of this stupid year. From Take Me To Broadway to online pop deconstruction classes, to a book about frigging Enya (not literally), Chilly lives to please, even on album number one here, a mostly solo, fairly downbeat instrumental collection of festive standards, played simply on piano.
Despite occasionally veering towards schmaltz (Last Christmas leans into John Lewis ad bleurgh a little too much for comfort), there’s a nice leavening of off kilter spritzes and tinkles, that conjure slightly drunk drawing room music. Feist and Jarvis Cocker turn up too, in unison on a lovely cover of Snow Is Falling In Manhattan – already filled with pathos and regret by its stellar writer, David Berman of Silver Jews and Purple Mountains – and in solo doses, in less satisfactory takes on minor classics. But it’s all a gift, so be nice about it.
But if parties were allowed this year, you’d want it soundtracked by the Chilly Mixtape, where crackshot producer Toddla T samples, loops and glosses Gonzales’ ivories, then gets various grime youngsters to banter over it all. It’s ludicrous, boistrous, annoyingly short aceness, pure quotable nonsense bouncing on Baileys.
Highlights are many: Coco and Deli Onefourz barrelling through the last 12 months, swapping lines about haircuts and Katie Hopkins; Nadia Rose’s ribald take on what really matters at Christmas (banging, essentially); Chilly in the background after Serocee’s “naughty or nice” line: “I been great!” Chilly also gets his own rap spotlight tune, his Christmas Business typically loveable bollocks mixing bragadoccio, puns and sensible social distancing advice. It all, er, sleighs, and we should all be thankful.
words WILL STEEN
Muscle Memory (The State 51 Conspiracy)
Muscle Memory is, surprisingly, the ex-10cc, Godley & Creme, and maverick video director’s debut solo album. “Write and record with me,” Godley posted on the PledgeMusic website in 2017, receiving 286 instrumentals from people looking to have their musical sketches turned into full songs. With Pledgemusic later going bankrupt, though, all was lost until The State51 Conspiracy saved the project.
Although Muscle Memory is a graphically dark and humorous album, reflecting on a search for utopia when stuck in dystopia, Expecting A Message and One Day are slices of electropop genius. Cut To The Cat is a humorous swipe at the contradiction of grim news and cheesy adverts colliding on a newsfeed, and the conceit of the sombre Hit The Street finds Chet Baker serenaded by his drug of choice.
Important, topical subjects including gun control, social unrest and racism are wrapped in a sophisticated and experimental pop sheen, with Godley’s voice coming through as crystal clear as his defining moments from the 1970s and 80s. Hopefully there will be more to come.
words DAVID NOBAKHT
Little Bastards (Domino)
The musical career of Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince began as a transatlantic correspondence in mixtapes back in 2000. Since then, the Anglo-American duo has delivered an impressive amount of material, Little Bastards being a compilation of B-sides and ‘rarities’ produced between 2002 and 2009 and amounting to 20 tracks of remastered rocky-poppy-punky ditties that I liked more than I thought I was going to.
This album will be mean different things to different people. There’s something X-Ray Spex-ish about songs like Passion Is Accurate, but just as you think you have the genre pinned, up come a few surprises such as the bluegrass Magazine. There are a few choice covers here, too, including Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ I Put A Spell On You. The drum machine that prompted the album’s title is like an extra band member, and for better or worse it’s often hard to tune out it its robotic beat; it’s the songs, though, that stick in your head and I found myself with earworms long after I’d switched off.
words LYNDA NASH
The Realist EP (Bella Union)
When Lanterns On The Lake found themselves on the shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize for Spook The Herd, who could blame them for daring to dream? As Hazel Wilde told the Guardian’s Dave Simpson, “If we win, it would be for all the artists who have been plugging away for ages without recognition. And we’re in unprecedented times, so for an unknown, long-serving indie band to win it with their fourth album might actually happen.”
It didn’t, of course, and it’s tempting to read the title of this new release as a self-flagellating reminder of the dangers of getting your hopes up. The EP is, nevertheless, an understandable attempt to strike while the iron’s hot and capitalise on the fact that a few more people know who they are.
Not that it’s a hasty, cynical cash-in, far from it. An alternative version of Spook The Herd single Baddies is arguably the least essential cut here, the other four previously unreleased songs blowing it away – from the orchestral drama of the title track and its heavy truth “Every moth needs a flame”, to the wordless, immersive soundscape of Model City. Here’s hoping that someday they’re rewarded for their modest, persistent brilliance.
words BEN WOOLHEAD
