TONY ALLEN & ADRIAN YOUNGE
JID018
JAZZ IS DEAD RECORDS
7/10
Posthumous release from the legendary Nigerian drummer
In August 2018, around 18 months before his death, Afrobeat titan Tony Allen entered an LA studio with producer/multi-instrumentalist Adrian Younge to record a series of jam sessions. “Give me something that you think is really hard for me to follow,” instructs Younge at one point; Allen responds with a particularly lopsided Afrobeat groove that mutates into a track called “No Beginning”, completed by Younge’s syncopated bassline and some woozy, beautifully arranged horns. Elsewhere, Younge (multitasking on wonderfully filthy, distorted keyboards and wah-wah-heavy guitars) and his horn octet create some fine pastiches of Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 band around Allen’s beats.JOHN LEWIS
ANOHNI AND THE JOHNSONS
My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross
ROUGH TRADE
9/10
The English émigré’s first album in eight years is worth the wait
Moving away from the politicised avant-pop of Hopelessness and back towards the intimate gestures of I Am A Bird Now, Anohni’s anguish and determination to forge a better world remains keenly felt from the album’s very first line (“It must change…”). If pop-soul songwriter Jimmy Hogarth initially seems like a surprise choice of foil, the arrangements are classy but not overtly slick, allowing room for the occasional noisy incursion. Hogarth’s warm electric guitar tone sets the mood, nodding to both Coney Island Baby and the kind of stripped-back gospel recently compiled on The Time For Peace Is Now. A stunning record. SAM RICHARDS
BAND OF HOLY JOY
Fated Beautiful Mistakes
TINY GLOBAL PRODUCTIONS
8/10
Still manic, magic and majestic, the eternal romantics stagger on
Four decades on from their self-released debut cassette, Johny Brown’s perpetually undervalued, proudly indie collective continue to chronicle troubled souls and kitchen sink drama. Always captivating, his distinctive vocals lurch from a distraught warble to a strangulated wail, “composed of many humours”, as he sings on “New York Romantic”, and “vulnerable to pernicious tumours”. His band, meanwhile, welcome Terry Edwards, who blows up a storm on that same Sea Power-esque tune, while the incredulously starry-eyed “Our Flighty Season In The Dirty Sun” is full of cheerful shalalas and “City People” apes Bowie’s “Heroes” on a shoestring budget. WYNDHAM WALLACE
CATERINA BARBIERI
Myuthafoo
LIGHT YEARS
8/10
Italian synthesist doubles up
Catarina Barbieri’s 2019 albumEcstatic Computationis one of the most striking electronic sets in recent memory, an alien panoply of Bach-like fugues and creamy modular melody. She took a more abstract turn for last year’s follow-upSpirit Exit but here, happily, unveils a sister toEC, tracks recorded at the same time and in the same spirit of mischievous experimentation. There’s a sense these weren’t quite good enough for the main event – alternate versions – but even off-cuts “Memory Leak” and “Math Of You” swirl and swoon with a euphoric giddiness that comes with discovering new zones of pleasure. PIERS MARTIN
KYLE BATES & LULA ASPLUND
A Matinee
WHITENED SEPULCHRE
7/10
Lovely, unpredictable debut from Mills College graduates
This first collaboration between Bates (of Drowse) and Asplund is a curious confection. “Brocken Spectre” begins in elegant, droney territory, not entirely dissimilar to recent music from folks like Sarah Davachi, but Bates and Asplund are less patient, perhaps, building the track into a rattling mantra that recalls the kind of DIY minimalism of Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham-Smith. “Visitor” sets reels of fuzzed-out, blurry tones against euphonious glockenspiel, before it resolves into an intimate, late-night song, their whispered voices sighing over an aching acoustic guitar – it reminds, a little, of Grouper, or ’90s indie-folk like John Davis.JON DALE
BDRMM
I Don’t Know
ROCK ACTION
8/10
Strong second album from young Yorkshire shoegazers
Three years after their excellent debut Bedroom, Hull’s bdrmm have expanded their sound, retaining that youthful energy and combining it with ambition and impressive marshalling of dynamics that creates a strangely serene album. The band play with the atmosphere and guitar effects of shoegaze/dreampop but also draw on dance and pop. “Pulling Stitches” is one of the heavier numbers, but the highlights are the gargantuan, streamlined beauty of “We Fall Apart” and “Hidden Cinema”, with melodies and arrangements that glide through a sea of synths and guitars with the grace of an art deco ocean liner. PETER WATTS
BENEFITS
Nails INVADA
8/10
Ferocious electro-punk poets rage against the obscene
A howling gale-force blast of political polemic, caustic humour, richly”, ranting frontman Kingsley Hall spews howling disgust over pulverising hardcore rackets like“Marlboro Hundreds”and the surprisingly funky “Shit Britain”. But behind these ferocious diatribes lie tender emotions and subtle depths, from brooding electro-sermon“Mindset” to the sublime angry-sad elegy to English decline, “Council Rust”.Endorsed by famous fans including Steve Albini, Geoff Barrow and Sleaford Mods themselves, these 21st-century agit-punks have made a bracingly extreme but exhilarating debut.
