Beyoncé
BEYONCÉ
[Columbia]
You have to love it when bona fide pop giants go off the script. Often when this happens, it usually a signal that they’ve gone stir crazy from all the attention, but occasionally, as on BEYONCÉ, they are brave enough to throw out the rulebook without with also jettisoning their sanity.
Beyoncé’s surprise, eponymous record is, to someone not au fait with Bey deep cuts, a surprisingly consistent record rather than one dominated by a few hook-filled whoppers and chock full of back-end duds. Instead BEYONCÉ is assured and mature while still helping to define relevancy (***Flawless, in particular) in a way that it is very difficult for out-of-touch pop behemoths to do.
This record is also a “visual record” (think Moonwalker, not ODDSAC) packed with full-blown ridiculousness in which the epicness and sassiness every aspect of Knowles-Carter’s existence artfully rendered in slo-mo underboob and balaclava combos in (on Superpower) and raunchy arse-grinds (throughout). The upshot of this is that Beyoncé has avoided going prog by lumbering the album with unnecessary characters and conceptual baggage, but similarly, as great as she looks, the visual element of album comes of as not particularly essential, something of an afterthought.
The most fun moments on this record are Blow and bonus track Grown Woman. The former is a mid-point between Kelis’ Millionaire and the more electronic elements of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, replete with Nile Rodgersy guitar flicks, while the latter is raucous fizzling electro-craic – a declaration of independence (we’ve been here before right?) but done with a knowing smile – and it also has by far the most enjoyable video. – IL
Nils Frahm
Spaces
[Erased Tapes]
Spaces suggest an update on the solo work of Keith Jarrett where Berliner Frahm’s jams on Junos as well as the old Joanna. This collection of live performances occupies a space in between minimalist composition and improvisation. Frahm’s chops are super-smart if occasionally featuring some slightly cloying, “sentimental moment in a film” harmonic shifts, however its peaks, such as the suitable pounded Hammers are exhilarating, particularly when the rapt audience bursts into appreciation and you remember he’s doing it all by hand. – IL
Séan Carpio
WOWOS
[Self-released/Bandcamp]
Despite his bona fides as a jazzer of local and international renown, drummer Séan Carpio’s WOWOS is a lot more straitlaced than expected, bereft of any oblique angularism. Where in previous live incarnations linear brass parts had been woven over the rhythm section, here the titular, vocal “woahs” provide the unifying theme. Gorgeously recorded and performed, WOWOS flows with the elegance of Grizzly Bear, particularly on the fabulous opening pair, only towards the back of the record does overuse of the ubiquitous phoneme leave the listener a little woebegone. – IL
James Vincent McMorrow
Post Tropical
[Vagrant Records]
There’s a danger, found in the music of Bon Iver too, of mistaking pitch for soulfulness, and the same issues which plagued Bon Iver’s eponymous record plague *Post Tropical* in that sense: the unending weightlessness of JVMcM’s falsetto. While the addition of more swoony nu-R’n’B is a delightful on-trend move, there’s something inherently less satisfying about a dude howling “I remember my first love!” from the back of his nose instead bellowing it from the bottom of his lungs. – IL
Denmark Vessey
Cult Classic
[Dirty Science]
Certain cities incubate snapshot styles of rap and Detroit, notwithstanding Danny Brown’s discovery of Fact magazine, has retained its affinity with the vinyl-digging school. That’s not to say Denmark Vessey can’t throw shapes: on They Schweepy, as scratchy as they come, there’s a defiant, mischievous swing in Vessey’s voice as he shouts “I’m working on my rich white guy voice right now”. He works through church tropes in hip hop from amen ad-libs to thanking Based God, and remains sharp and interesting throughout. – KMcD
Snoop Dogg & Dâm-Funk
7 Days of Funk
[Stones Throw]
If this doesn’t strike you as a fantastic idea on paper, you’re missing skills of lateral thought. Dâm Funk, the reigning king of shuffling, neck-snapping modern funk music – the type you smoke to, rather than do rails and put on jewellery to – teams up with Snoop Dogg, who has done nothing over the past decade apart from imply that he’d love to whisper throwback slogans over some space-funk. It works out exactly as you’d expect if you know both, although it does lack a true marquee track to join the canon belatedly. – KMcD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc8rACvIx9U
Roc Marciano
Marci Beaucoup
[Man Bites Dog]
Simultaneously the most relaxed and the angriest MC on earth, Roc Marciano lights up his largely one-chord beats with profound skill, all straightfaced punchlines and fizzing, quiet aggression. “You a social network n*****,” he threatens on Drug Lords: “I’m gonna put my foot on your neck.” If Marci was a wrestler, with his worldly experience, his full confidence in his own impressive talent, his air of legitimacy and his unwillingness to be a cartoon to make money, he’d be Chris Benoit. – KMcD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAH7C0BUKik
In the Company of Serpents
Of the Flock
[Self-released]
In the Company of Serpents conjure and impressively hefty sound for a two-piece, rivalling their UK brethren Electric Wizard for sheer skull-crushing heaviness. *Of the Flock* very occasionally shows hardcore inflections but is generally content to crawl along, propelled by gurgling, sandpapery vocals and monumental riffs (particularly Blood from Stone) which reference the requisite touchstones of doom metal while still managing to have a unique aura about them. – ID
No Monster Club
Foie Gras
[Self-released]
Foie Gras is the second full-length from the full band line-up of prolific Dublin popster Bobby Aherne’s No Monster Club. The usual preoccupations with summertime, youthfulness and urban existentialism are present and correct. While it’s still charmingly rough around the edges, the presence of Paddy Hanna and Mark Chester is a boon to the sonic delivery of the songs and they add character of their own to the proceedings. – ID
Egyptrixx
A/B ‘til Infinity
[Night Slugs]
While on general release now, writing about Egyptrixx’s second album is a little cart-before-horse. However, while these compositions form the A part of an A/V set which will tour later in the year, the V part seems to be implied by the dystopian sci-fi soundtrack influences within. Science fiction has informed techno since its very inception and, while never quite floating into pastiche like Space Dimension Controller, Infinity suffers from over-familiar subject material, relying on the inherited rather than the imagined. The production itself, at least, is planetary. – DG
Britney Spears
Britney Jean
[RCA]
Spring Breakers’ genuflection to the legacy of Britney was evidence that her legend has passed into the next generation. Her canon status allows Spears to sing unholy clunkers like “You’re my light when it gets dark/You are always in my heart” and release wholly inconsequential albums like this. That Britney Jean is billed as her ‘most personal album to date’ makes sense: this is almost entirely bereft of style and emotion, high on double entendres and two-years-out-of-date production. A couple of bangers means this format usually works for her, but here only Alien and Work Bitch approach the waterline. – DG
