Paul Weller
Fat Pop (Volume 1) POLYDOR
Modfather-turned-stylistic polymath surveys his broad new sonic lands.
It’s testament to the invention and variety of his recent work that you fire up a new Paul Weller record in 2021 with absolutely no idea what you’ll be faced with. Of late there have been outings into motorik psychedelia (on 2012’s Sonik Kicks), sprawling textural soundscapes (2015’s Saturns Pattern), stripped-back folk rock (2018’s True Meanings) and musique concrete montages (2020’s In Another Room EP). Following the thread of amalgamation records from 2008’s experimental breakthrough 22 Dreams through 2017’s A Kind Revolution to last year’s On Sunset – which combined his latest avant-garde leanings with his core soul, folk, mod and funk roots – his fifteenth solo album, Fat Pop (Volume 1), further explores the territories he’s claimed as his own.
‘,’ Weller declares on opener , a catchy concoction of krautrock synth-pop and industrial art rock, and there he remains for the first third of , elaborating on the album’s title with the cocky enthusiasm of a laptop prodigy. The marvellous, uplifting finds him lacing Ziggy’s more soulful’, but the new downbeat disco king ‘’
