THIS WEEK’S NEW ALBUMS REVIEWED | FEATURE
Let’s Skip To The Wedding (Lex)
Filipino-born, USA-raised Idris Vicuña [above] was in Manila-based surf-rock band Bee Eyes before taking advantage of a hiatus to go solo as Eyedress. The singer/musician/producer employs plenty of early 80s goth tropes across 19 tracks about modern love on his fourth LP, sung with a seemingly heavy dose of darkwave irony. With the majority of tunes climaxing in under two minutes, love comes in spurts all over this album. The quick knee-tremblers here are the title track, with its Cure bassline and Neon Indian synths, which are again employed successfully on X-Girl; 4AD pastiche Jealous and the earthbound Cocteau Twins of Kiss Me Like It’s The First Time.
Funk blends in on the vocoder-led Mystical Creature Best Friend, like Zapp canoodling with Connan Mockasin, and the ode to Shuggie Otis’ Strawberry Letter that is My Girl The Finest, with questionable Tinder-bio couplet “Respect my lady, ain’t got nothing shady going on”. While premature ejaculations include Skateboarding Day, which is like Darwin Deez gargling listerine; the sinister nursery rhyme of Never Want To Be Apart, akin to being stuck on lockdown with an unwelcome Facebook stalker; and Romantic Lover – “She’s a killer / Romantic lover / There is no other”. With a lo-fi to no-fi approach, this is more a chiller from Manila than a thriller.
words CHRIS SEAL
At Home (Soul Kitchen)
Born out of a pandemic, and with almost all tracks written and recorded in Georgie’s home studio, At Home showcases a kind of easy listening pop not seen in the UK since SOAK. Seeking solace during these everchanging months, Georgie has created an album fuelled by honesty and a need to face uncertainty in this new post-lockdown world.
Mixing rich, soulful vocals with drum machines and choir-inspired harmonies, Georgie presents more than a mere breakup album. Injected with a distinct indie vibe and bursts of Motown influence, At Home is deeply personal and yet completely relatable to those of us who have had our hearts broken. Hidden between the chaos and confusion of modern relationships and the devastation of lost love, are glimpses of hope so bright that you can’t help but dance. With strong themes of redemption and reflection throughout, these eight tracks are enough to satisfy the Adele-shaped hole in anyone’s life.
words BECKY ADDIS
Dreamland (Polydor)
Dogged by turbulence and near tragedy, a road accident seeing drummer Joe Seaward almost paralysed, the last two years in the life of this Oxford quartet have proved anything but plain sailing. Dreamland represents a comeback from the brink, of sorts, for Glass Animals, the outfit continuing to serve up a heady mix of indie-tinged trip-hop, sticking to the tried and tested – playing it safe rather than issuing out of left field.
Picking up where How To Be A Human Being left off, the band double down on the latter’s more r’n’b-geared confections; particularly the case with Hot Sugar’s drowsy languor and the homage to 90s life navigated on Space Ghost Coast To Coast, where references to Quake, Doom and Dunkaroos abound. Despite its rather deceptive vaporwave-indebted artwork, this third album reliably meets expectation – simmering summer beats that will appease the fanbase and casual listeners.
words CHRIS HAMILTON-PEACH
Who The Power (Bella Union)
With The Duke Spirit on hold, Liela Moss is back with her second solo album to follow her intense 2018 debut My Name Is Safe In Your Mouth. After spending some time at a meditation centre, Moss went through a period of deep self-analysis and whatever she created next would have to have a damn good reason to exist, rather than just being a vanity project for self-validation.
Who The Power has a no-bullshit ethos to the subject matter of the songs. Politicians, consumerism and climate change are all in Moss’ sights and she does indeed pull the trigger, good examples of this including Atoms At Me and Watching The Wolf. Moss’ voice is upfront throughout Who The Power, with Toby Butler of the relatively new darkwave remix team IYEARA adding a slick multi-layered Violator or Power, Corruption And Lies-like synth groove, which lies somewhere between Batcave and Studio 54. With Who The Power, Moss proves that she is still a force to be reckoned with outside of her collaborations with UNKLE and Nick Cave.
words DAVID NOBAKHT
VARIOUS
Musik Music Musique: 1980 – The Dawn Of Synth Pop (Cherry Red)
Featuring The Human League, OMD, Japan, Ultravox, Visage and Spandau Ballet, on the surface Cherry Red’s dip back into the early 80s would seem to cover fairly well-trodden New Romantic-ish territory. But for this 58-track set, the compilers dive deep into the archives to tell a different story, and demonstrate how those acts’ early trials led to a new pop aesthetic.
Many of the artists here fuse the earlier European experiments of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Giorgio Moroder with an increasingly sophisticated post-punk experimentalism. Some, like Toyah and Pauline Murray, along with Caerphilly’s Steve Strange and his Visage cohorts, were former punks eager to redirect the genre’s energy and ditch its three-chord restrictions, while others, such as The Korgis and Buggles, were established musos with the resources to embrace costly new technology.
Selecting lesser-known cuts from better-known acts (B-sides, rarities, early tunes) alongside some serious obscurities, Musik… makes for a fascinating, eye-opening journey. Although there are several selections you probably won’t return to again in a hurry (Henriette Coulouvrat’s Can’t Take A Joke, for example), and some that don’t show the acts at their best (ie. Eyeless In Gaza’s wobbly China Blue Vision), there’s plenty to enjoy, including Gina X Performance, Switzerland’s Yello, the underrated DAF, and Liverpool’s Dalek I. And why Our Daughter’s Wedding weren’t as big as Depeche Mode, who can say?
What came next – Soft Cell, Yazoo, Duran Duran, Heaven 17 et al – was massive, but here’s synthpop’s ground zero, in all its messy, brilliant, patch lead-infested glory.
words DAVE FREAK