LES AMAZONES D’AFRIQUE
Musow Danse
REAL WORLD
8/10
Third album from West African female collective
After two albums helmed by Congotronics producer Doctor L, Les Amazones here turn to Jacknife Lee to clothe their diverse voices in a thrilling soundbed of glitchy synths and hip-hop and trap influences. The latest iteration of the sorority includes six vocalists from five different countries, all singing in their native languages but lent a majestic cohesion by their militant themes of women’s rights and female power and Lee’s brilliantly inventive electronic production. The songs are rich in both melody and syncopation, with “Esperance”, featuring the wonderfully keening tones of Mali’s Mamani Keita, and the gritty “My Place”, sung by Cote d’Ivoire’s Dobet Gnahore, among the standouts.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
KARL BARTOS
The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari
TAPETE
6/10
Former Kraftwerker’s silent-film soundscape
The loss of Giuseppe Becce’s original score for Robert Wiene’s 1920 psychological thriller has prompted numerous soundtrack attempts, notably John Zorn’s for the 2014 restoration. Further digital restoration allows former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos to apply his psychological spanner to the expressionist imagery. Without pictures, it’s fragmented. Faint echoes of Kraftwerk (a waft of “Computer World” on the lyrical “Jane’s Theme”) are less obvious than Steve Reich-like motifs and woozy fairground sounds. “In Search of the Truth” achieves Bartos’s aim of rendering the dreamworld of Caligari’s mad protagonist “through kaleidoscopic ears”.
ALASTAIR McKAY
BLACKBERRY SMOKE
Be Right Here
LEGGED/THIRTY TIGERS
8/10
Southern rockers rock Southernly
The Atlanta group have always been content to operate in the middle of the Venn diagram of Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band and Charlie Daniels. However, Blackberry Smoke also carry off their bourbon-soused boogie with a swaggering panache comparable with that of any of their antecedents – and when approached on its own merits, the Dave Cobb-produced Be Right Here is a minor classic of the genre. “Hammer And The Nail” is a grinning working man’s lament, “Don’t Mind If I Do” a joyous stomp and holler rejoicing in the racket that carries it.
ANDREW MUELLER
JOHN BRAMWELL
The Light Fantastic
TOWNSEND MUSIC
7/10
Splendid solo set by former I Am Kloot frontman
As John Bramwell tells it, The Light Fantastic is – from the title downwards – a somewhat counterintuitive exercise in optimism despite it all: the songs were written in a bid to alleviate grief at the passing of both his parents. The result is a guileless yet poised series of statements of happiness to be here. The songs are set largely to sparse acoustic backings, the better to foreground the sumptuous vocal harmonies. The likes of “A World Full Of Flowers” and the especially pretty “A Sky Full Of Thunder And Lightning” suggest something of a lo-fi Gordon Lightfoot.
ANDREW MUELLER
ANNA CALVI/ANNA CALVI & NICK LAUNAY
Peaky Blinders: Season 5 & 6 (Original Score)
DOMINO SOUNDTRACKS
8/10
Mercury-shortlisted songwriter’s first score gets vinyl pressing
When first commissioned to score the penultimate season of the BBC’s Peaky Blinders, Calvi says she was drawn to the show’s “beauty and brutality”. This dichotomy is evident in what would become her two seasons’ worth of music for the show (the second in collaboration with Launay): industrial clangs and screaming guitars; barely-there piano and vocals; percussive breathwork creating an atmosphere as unsettling as the politics of the final season’s 1930s setting. Calvi’s take on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand” – the show’s theme song – is as good a jumping-in point as any: haunted and menacing, her breathy, dispassionate vocals the perfect foil.
LISA-MARIE FERLA
THE CHISEL
What A Fucking Nightmare
PURE NOISE
8/10
Oi! Full-tilt punk rock from London newcomers
From the same London punk demimonde that gave comes on like an update of a certain strain of ’70s UK street punk – that rowdy, proudly proletarian sound pedalled by the likes of The Exploited or Angelic Upstarts. Their best tracks have a celebratory tilt: see “Cry Your Eyes Out” or the gleefully vitrolic “Bloodsucker”. But frontman Cal Graham is a charismatic presence throughout, one minute delivering spittle-flecked denunciations, the next leading terrace choruses as bright as a buffed-up Dr Marten boot.
