ALEV AND JAS
Bring Your Friends
SELF-RELEASED
8/10
Simian Mobile Disco co-founder unwinds with Turkish-German singer producer
Like his 2019 solo debut, Exquisite Cops, Jas Shaw’s first, too-brief mini-album with Alev Lenz (who’s also collaborated with Volker ‘Hauschka’ Bertelmann and Anoushka Shankar) finds him forsaking the dancefloor following his bout with amyloidosis in favour of more contemplative practices. Friends for a decade – Shaw mixed Lenz’ second album, 2016’s Two-Headed Girl – they spin a fine mesh of sublime, multi-tracked vocals and delicate, dusky electronica, with “Between Two Breaths” and “Overstrung But Underdamped” not unlike some of Hania Rani’s recent Ghosts. If “Dandelion” is a blissful lament, moreover, “All Of The Weeds” boasts a winsome, effervescently folkish spirit.
WYNDHAM WALLACE
ERIKA ANGELL
The Obsession With Her Voice
CONSTELLATION
7/10
Commanding solo debut from Thus Owls founder
The title speaks to Angell’s earliest singing memory – letting rip on a hilltop in her native Sweden when she was four years old. That wildness remains, which is not to say her voice is untutored – she was taught lieder and opera as a child – but its rich vivacity courses through every one of these 10 tracks. Thanks to an adroit mix of synthesisers, electroacoustics and processed samples, there’s an unforced drama in play that often borders on the ominous, recalling Jenny Hval (on “German Singer”), a less doomily stifling Swans (“Let Your Hair Down”) and with “Good And Bad”, another standout, Laurie Anderson as produced by Arca.
SHARON O’CONNELL
PETE ASTOR
Tall Stories & New Religions
TAPETE
6/10
Creation stalwart reconsiders his career
The Loft’s indie jangle was an early Creation lodestar, with Alan McGee even pushing Astor’s next band The Weather Prophets onto a major. Forty years into an otherwise underground career, Astor reworks neglected songs with spare country strums and rockabilly twangs. The reformed Loft’s 2006 “Model Village” recalls The Kinks’ “Celluloid Heroes” in envying the titular attraction’s painless permanence (“The children learn in a tiny school/And no-one drowns in the swimming pool…”). Other songs address showbiz decline and psychogeography, while the stiff electro-pulse of “Chinese Cadillac” usefully jolts an album of sometimes too sober craft.
NICK HASTED
THE BEVIS FROND
Focus On Nature
FIRE
8/10
Superior psychedelic rock from an English institution
A new Bevis Frond album arrives every few years, and it’s to Nick Saloman’s credit that they never sound tired, or as though he’s short on ideas or, God forbid, songs. Saloman’s always been able to wrest new inspiration from a field that might, at first, seem overplayed – psych-rock with folksy touches – partly due to his superior melodic facility, partly down to the depth of the writing: here, the fragile “Brocandine” is just as compelling as the fierce “Gods’ Gift”. And he’s one of the few guitarists around who can make a guitar solo an article of faith.
JON DALE
BLEACHERS
Bleachers
DIRTY HIT
5/10
Fourth effort from New Jersey sextet
Jack Antonoff has been pretty busy since Bleachers’ last album, 2021’s Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night, co-writing and producing for regular collaborators Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey, plus overseeing releases by Florence And The Machine and his new labelmates The 1975. Del Rey returns the favour by appearing on “Alma Mater”, a low-key electro ballad symptomatic of the bruised romanticism that Bleachers pins to its sleeve. Moody shades of The National and Tunnel Of Love-era Springsteen abound (especially “Self Respect” and “Me Before You”), though the whole thing never quite manages to fully convince.
ROB HUGHES
THE BREEZE
Thin Ground
STYLE
7/10
Debut of country-ish project from Malojian mainman and friends
The Breeze are a supergroup of sorts: the Northern Irish trio comprises Stevie Scullion, acclaimed for his work as Malojian, plus Chris Coll of Lost In The Fog and Decky McManus of The Basement. The sum of is a gruff, lo-fi Americana which occasionally recalls the likes of Old 97s at more upbeat moments, Uncle Tupelo at their more careworn. There is plenty of reason to hope there’ll be more where this came from, notably the T.Rex-goes-country shuffle “Offer It Up To The Lord” and the twang-heavy swagger “The Whores Of Life”.
