THIS WEEK’S NEW ALBUMS REVIEWED | FEATURE
DAMON LOCKS & THE BLACK MONUMENT ENSEMBLE
NOW (International Anthem)
In the wake of last summer’s broiling mix of pandemic confusion, political chaos and global protests against racial injustice, Damon Locks gathered a group of musicians together in Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studios. This collaboration resulted in NOW, a jazz/sound collage mashup that transcends its boundaries to become a poignant statement on our era.
Locks’ rich, textured electronica forms the beating heart of the six tracks, intuitively intertwining with the funky yet melancholic jazz. Samples of voices that cry out for freedom and liberation appear and disappear like ghosts. Movement And You uses a brilliant clip of a female voice urging to “push the torso right, as if pushing an imaginary wall”, while epic closer The Body Is Electric opens with the simple but piercing words “time is running out”.
Mention also deserves to be given to Locks’ full ensemble, including Angel Bat Dawid’s incendiary clarinet and Arif Smith’s ever-present percussion. The whole experience of listening to NOW is one defined by collaboration, the sense of people coming together to create something disparate yet beautiful. It’s a joy to behold, and an early contender for most singular jazz release of the year.
words TOM MORGAN
Caveman Logic (Svart)
Without attempting the full maths here, I’m guessing the combined age of this five-piece band is pushing 300. If we measured years in terms of activity packed in, it might as well be a million. The Limit is legit fantasy lineup biz for lovers of a certain kind of hard rock glorious loserdom: vocalist Bobby Liebling has sung in metal pioneers Pentagram for half a century, admittedly with some sinkhole-sized gaps throughout, and was the subject of a compelling documentary which makes you marvel at his continued living status.
Caveman Logic, The Limit’s debut album, is probably the punkiest-sounding thing Liebling’s ever put his voice to – thanks chiefly to guitarist and main songwriter Sonny Vincent, onetime Testors singer and undersung NYC rock gadfly. Vincent sports the kinda connections that get an ex-Stooges bassist on board – OK, Jimmy Recca wasn’t in anyone’s classic lineup, but I bet he’s got a few stories to tell – and two fellas from Portuguese doom metal band Dawnrider complete the quintet.
The 12-song result is a total blast: whooping, wheedling guitar solos and nonstop energy, assembled fractiously according to Vincent but sounding purely like five-pronged frolics. The evidence of The Limit’s other bands is clear, perfectly reasonably, but if you dig anyone from the Dead Boys to Mudhoney to The Obsessed Caveman Logic is a party banger in waiting. Also features, at one point, a spirited defence by Liebling of the Samsung Galaxy over the iPhone.
words NOEL GARDNER
QUIET MARAUDER FEAT. KADESHA DRIJA
The Gift (Bubblewrap)
The Gift, folk-pop group Quiet Marauder’s [pictured, top] second vinyl release for Cardiff’s Bubblewrap Collective label, is a concept album that follows the narrative of a girl in the foster care system who is plagued by the imaginings/remembrances of a house fire. Its grand presentation, on purple coloured vinyl, chimes well with the breadth of the dreamscape storytelling.
The vignettes are varied yet connected in theme, with the central character musing on the power of memory on single Will I Remember To Remember and how the past informs the future on Infinite Versions Of Myself, Same Old House Fire. Most of the 14 tracks are sung by Kadesha Drija, previously a QM backing singer and whose pretty yet knowing tones bring the tales to life over gentle backings that owe as much to Americana as modern folk styles.
Quiet Marauder seem at their best when being playful: on Domestic Appliances and others, they brilliantly walk the line between humour and tragedy. Elsewhere, these brief songs are, perhaps, too similar to create real contrast within the storytelling. Yet there is real charm and wit to this modern take on the concept album, and its simple yet tasteful musical presentation is immersive and quietly compelling.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES
Entertainment, Death (Saddle Creek)
Philadelphia’s Spirit Of The Beehive are certainly abuzz with ideas. Their fourth full-length Entertainment, Death is brimming with different styles, drifting from detuned dreampop to white noise to occasional, jarringly explosive moments that bring to mind early Nine Inch Nails. Ethereal, fever dream vocals weave their way between computer bleeps, static blasts and smatterings of off-kilter guitar and synths across 11 tracks that never feel like they gel into a single, comprehensible body of work.
For all the band’s creativity, they demonstrate a desperate lack of coherence round a single shared artistic expression. Unlike the more focussed work of apparent influences like Animal Collective, Entertainment, Death feels like the work of a group of wilful artists, each pulling in different directions. The result is a deliberately discordant, messy collection of songs, which is at times genuinely hard to sit through without reaching for the skip button.
words HUGH RUSSELL
Stay Odd (Handsome Tramp)
More than six years after the release of their last album, Scottish hip-hop collective Stanley Odd return with their most accomplished work yet. Stay Odd is a glorious mesh of the real and the otherworldly, set against an eclectic canvas of electric noise.
FUSWH gets things off to a strong start, an acerbic chestbeater that lets frontman Dave Hook, aka Solareye, loose over an off-kilter, creeping instrumental. Other highlights include Champion? Sound, She’s A Wee Witch, The Invisible Woman, Undo Redo and the lovely Best Pals, all of which are as good as anything Stanley Odd have released previously; Night Rip is the album’s only dud, in fact.
An accompanying 56-page book of notes, artwork, lyrics, and photos adds to the immersive experience of the record. This is quirky, forward-thinking hip hop from a group with plenty to say about the modern world: let’s hope they remain Odd for a long time to come.
words JOSHUA REES