This month…
AMBER ARCADES
Barefoot On Diamond Road FIRE
7/10
Panoramic third from alt.pop Netherlander
Having assessed the state of Europe on her second album, Annelotte de Graaf has now turned to more intimate matters – namely, personal relationships and her connection to music. “Big atmosphere” was her aim, and she’s hit that mark in a set full of dynamic nuance with a filmic scope. Again, she cuts sonic muzziness with muscularity: on the gorgeous “Contain” she softly gushes, “I love how you smile like a boy” over a blown-out bass crackle, while the wintry “Life Is Coming Home” suggests folk round singing with My Bloody Valentine. Churning, slow-build epic “I’m Not There” sees her adding a Phil Spector boom to Sharon Van Etten’s do-or-die intensity, and is a standout.
SHARON O’CONNELL
ACID ARAB
Trois CRAMMED DISCS
8/10
Pulsating electronica put through an Arabic folk filter
There are moments where this French-Algerian collective truly get deep into “acid house” – on the pulsating “Rachid Trip” (featuring a sample of the late, great Rachid Taha) and on the Frankie Knuckles-goes-schaffel gallop of the closing track, “Sayarat 303”. Elsewhere, three decades of Western club culture are put through the prism of North African music. “Acid Chawi” places a twitchy 303 bassline under a Saharan chaoui flute and vocal riff; “Gouloulou” is synth-heavy gangster hip-hop featuring the ululating vocals of Fella Soltana; best of all is the galloping afro-house of “Habaytak”, featuring the haunting voice of Ghizlane Melih.
JOHN LEWIS
THE ARCS
Electrophonic Chronic EASY EYE SOUND
8/10
All-star side-project gets a belated, freighted second volume
In 2021, The Arcs’ frontman Dan Auerbach and keyboardist Leon Michels assembled an LP from the scores of unreleased songs the band had tracked following the release of 2015’s Yours, Dreamily, in tribute to their late bandmate, musician/producer Richard Swift. The songs they selected eschew the lysergic and garage-y extremes Swift had brought to the group in favour of smouldering soul ballads including “Heaven Is A Place”, “Behind The Eyes”, “Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and a cover of Helene Smith’s 1967 ballad “A Man Will Do Wrong”. Auerbach’s stoic, close-mic’d vocals and gnarled tendrils of distorted guitar bring a devastating immediacy to an album that contemplates the death of love and, by extension, mortality itself, seeking closure.
BUD SCOPPA
AVEY TARE
7s DOMINO
8/10
Animal Collective co-founder’s fourth solo outing may be his most effervescent
While Animal Collective’s Time Skiffs felt like a warm, bright light in the dark when it arrived early last year, the latest product of Avey Tare’s ever-bustling imagination may be even more lustrous. Recorded in the winter of 2021, the songs on Tare’s fourth solo effort brims with joy, wonder and the sheer pleasure to be found in making sounds, the latter being the explicit subject of “The Musical” and an implicit one throughout. Though there’s plenty of the psych-pop shimmer and wobble that have been omnipresent in just about all the music to emerge from the Collective collective over the last 23 years, there’s also more space and delicacy in songs like the delightful “Lips At Night” than Tare’s maximalist sensibility often allows.
JASON ANDERSON
TRINA BASU & ARUN RAMAMURTHY
Nakshatra SPINSTER
8/10
Two violins melding musical traditions
South Indian ragas, Western chamber music, jazz and folk are transformed into a singular sonic conversation on Nakshatra, the debut album from Brooklyn-based husband-and-wife violin duo Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy. Though it consists only of the two violins, this music is remarkably exuberant, a curious mix of vulnerable and universal that makes the album hum with the ambient expressiveness of a film score. “Alterity” is enigmatic and contemplative, while “Tempest” is a brilliantly moody cosmic journey, melancholy yet bursting with life. Nakshatra resonates with the power of an ancient drone, revivified by fearless contemporary spirit.
ANA GAVRILOVSKA
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN
Late Developers MATADOR
8/10
Glasgow misfits’ surprise package
was recorded during the same pandemic sessions as last year’s and – rather like Spiritualized’s recent back-to-back – it’s by far the stronger set, unencumbered by the pressure to impress on the first instalment and full of unexpected moments that bring out their, pines eternal teen Stuart Murdoch. Add the Stonesy blues of “When You’re Not With Me” and loutish opener “Juliet Naked” for one of their more purely enjoyable albums.
