An Acute Case: 16 December 2022
This town (by which I mean Lindeville) ain't big enough for the both of us (by which I mean Pillbox Patti and Aaron Raitiere). Plus Tom Zé, Taylor Swift, and Dan Ex Machina.
The 1975: Being Funny In A Foreign Language
Matty’s boner jokes beat his masculinity critique, only his boner jokes aren't that good even if you hear them as an extension of the masculinity critique—which, by the way, is another boner joke. Musically, the sad Christmas vibe has a charm, but mostly sounds like an apology for a persona he doesn’t quite believe in. Nor do I. * (“The 1975” “Part Of The Band” “All I Need To Hear” “Wintering”)
Dan Ex Machina: All Is Ours, Nothing Is Theirs
Someone with more refined taste might call the vocals ropey or the musicianship sketchy. But refinement and pop—especially pop this viscerally punk-inflected—are rarely seen together in public without getting mauled in the red tops, and for good reason. So the rough edges here don’t bother me. Nor do they bother hopefully-only-on-hiatus ex-music critic Dan Weiss. A pop polymath who’s been writing, recording, and tinkering with these songs since he was nineteen eighteen years ago, he’s more interested in delineating his personal canon in such a way that the incendiary riff attacks of Sonic Youth and Sleater-Kinney are forced to cohabit with “fake piano” impressions of Steely Dan (Ex Machina), and the song writing dos and don’ts of Adam Schlesinger are relocated within Liz Phair’s DIY aesthetics. Even less refined are the scenarios he enacts from the first ten years of adult life as experienced by a principled but imperfect nonconformist. From "Please send a gorgeous woman to knife me in the throat / It's better than feigning interest in architecture" and "Sometimes you need a little kick / Some foreign clit an unknown prick / To put the things you know and love at risk" to “Waiting till you want something is the worst way to apologise” and “Please control everything", his emotional honesty is acid funny. Surprisingly sweet, too. A MINUS
Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott: N.K-Pop
Making songs because it's what they do, not because they have to, which doesn't diminish their impeccable craft but does limit them to some fairly tired table topics. On the other hand, now the red wall turned blue looks set to turn red again, “The key to real democracy's this Eton mob in jail” should keep the locals happy. ** (“I Ain’t Going Nowhere This Year” “Sunny Side Up” “My Mother's Womb” “His Master's Game”)
Nas: King's Disease III
Meticulous in every way, including in its extreme attentiveness. Aesthetically dazzling and technically spectacular, but there's a reason some people can't relax in five-star resorts and Instagram homes. *** (“Ghetto Reporter” “Thun” “Michael & Quincy” “30” “Recession Proof”)
Pillbox Patti: Florida
If this isn’t Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music Volume 3, it’s a worthy envoy for some of the genre’s snazziest recent advances. Equipped with an E-mu SP 1200 procured, to his astonishment, from Kid Rock, twelve-year veteran of the Nashville co-writing grind Nicolette Hayford makes an ambitious foray into the interstices between country and hip-hop. Her preference is for lots of things doing a little each—so while grotty basslines and woozy drums steady the ship, seductive keys, horns, tambourines, and guitar licks litter the tracks like the drug paraphernalia strewn across the mephitic swamp she calls home. With studied objectivity and, I assume, hard earned forgiveness, she dedicates herself to describing that place and its inhabitants—some of whom may do monstrous things, but that doesn’t make them monsters. Here’s the church. Here’s the steeple. Here’s Becky dropped out and graduated to the needle. Here are good people with bad habits, sixteen-year-olds living too fast to slow down, fifteen-year-olds getting Valentine’s Day abortions, and “grown-up idiots” raising their kids on candy cigarettes and just one sip. Over in 29:15, but that’s more than enough time to get you hooked. A MINUS
Aaron Raitiere: Single Wide Dreamer
You might wonder what dirt this long-time co-writer, first-time lead artist has on Miranda Lambert to get her producing for him—until you hear the songs, that is. Prine and proud (Miranda looks up), with deep wells of empathy (gives an approving if non-committal nod), and squalid outhouses of acrid humour (calls Aaron to say she's already in the studio with Natalie and Ashley and they've knocked out some sassy arrangements and where the hell is he anyway), Raitiere pitches a big song writing tent, accommodating luckless optimists, the happily hell-bound, hifalutin philosophers working extra hard to not work too hard, murderous fathers-in-law, and rough sleepers with only cold soup to look forward to. His penmanship is crisp and clear, each song arriving at your door with no baggage and its story straight. Vocally, he recalls Todd Snider but with the edges tucked in, so maybe make that Hayes Carll but in a sillier mood, which I suppose brings us back to Todd—though when he’s being mean I think of Patterson Hood on those methy dirt roads. Miranda and smaller draw Anderson East see that each song arrives somewhere new by its end, with novelty touches that also add depth of flavour. The brass on “Cold Soup” is musical caricature at its most piquant. The circus spirit on “For the Birds” and “You’re Crazy” accumulates staying power. While the licks at the end of “Your Daddy Hates Me” threaten to jump out the speakers and throttle you. A
Stormzy: This Is What I Mean
Sunday candy without enough candy or the Chance feature it’s crying out for. The collective spirituality feels rich and authentic and does nothing to harm his position as the UK’s most likeable entertainer (wait, does Matt Hancock count?), but after three let-downs in eight years I'm starting to question whether he’s the most gifted. ** (“Fire + Water” “This Is What I Mean” “My Presidents Are Black” “Bad Blood”)
Taylor Swift: Midnights
Even to listeners with limited interest in behind-the-scenes extras, her chart imperialism and back catalogue reclamation are relevant because of how craftily she enacts her powerplays in song. It’s like there’s substance to those rumours she’s a master storyteller. From “It's me hi I’m the problem it’s me” and “You're on your own kid you always have been” to “What's that that I heard? That you're still with her? That's nice I'm sure that's what's suitable” and “Fuckin politics and gender roles” she brings the sexual politics navigated by a fairly famous woman down to eye level. “You're On Your Own, Kid” is the self-help talk she learnt dealing with industry nasties; “Vigilante Shit” a continuation (and improvement—thanks Billie) of the Agatha Swiftie schtick on “no body, no crime”; “Bejewelled” a parting taunt; “Karma” a victory lap; “Mastermind” a final twist. Problem is, neither her song writing ambition or fact-or-fiction wiliness make up for the fact that it often sounds, well, dull. Too often the window dressing—the strangled bird cries and baby gurgles—pack more punch than the beats. B PLUS
Tove Lo: Dirt Femme
Fembots have feelings too. What they don’t always have is a sustained vision for the dance floor. * (“No One Dies From Love” “Suburbia” “2 Die 4” “How Long”)
Tom Zé: Lìngua Brasileira
No new tricks (what do you want from an octogenarian on his twenty-fourth album?) but the ones you’re familiar with are as sui generis as ever. What’s more, he’s never been so accessible—possibly because this doubles as a score to a play about the development of language in Brazil. The riffs are chunkier, the programmed drums funkier, the interactions with his female back-up chattier. Yoking his indelible melodicism to rhythms that know no place other than your hips, he gets up to his usual high jinks, with percussion that pokes and prods, guitars that squeal like the Psycho theme, and an imaginative array of parps, squidges, squeaks, and stridulations. Not always an easy singer, he throws down the gauntlet a few times with mad scientist vocals—yammering, hyperventilating, blowing at least one raspberry, and throwing vowel sounds around like language is nothing more than a series of grunts and… ah, I see. From what I’ve read, the lyrics tangle with linguistics, slavery, colonialism. But reading lyrics in English is bad enough, so I’ll have to just assume that, as a genius fluent in Brazilian culture, he acquits himself admirably, and settle for understanding the one where he recites phone numbers. A