An Acute Case: 21 October 2022
The classic rock RENAISSANCE, the actual RENAISSANCE, squeezed lemons and incurable humanists
Avalanche Kaito: Avalanche Kaito
Low-key crazy collab between Burkinabe griot and European Dadaists marked on one hand by tonal ambition and on the other by a hollowness that sounds as if Kaito Winse's vocals were recorded in a shipping container. I'm sure their file-sharing was more sophisticated than that. * (“Sunguru” “Lebere” “Toulele”)
Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Love For Sale
It’s de-lightful. It’s de-lovely. It's de rigeur. Well, almost. But who amongst us can begrudge this cute and cuddly pairing from taking a cute and cuddly turn round the Cole Porter songbook? If there’s a stumble or slump, I haven’t heard it. Yet mature-beyond-her-thirty-six-years Gaga's voice only exceeds technical proficiency half the time, and while youthful-below-his-ninety-six-years Bennett's still sparkles with wit and whimsy, it’s not enough to prevent the lively band from letting their well-intentioned idea of “classic” slide into genericism one too many times. B PLUS
Beyoncé: RENAISSANCE
Album, playlist, set? Songs, tracks, mixes? Distinctions that matter little in theory and not remotely across sixteen whatever-they-ares that inject, re-inject and re-re-inject their whatever-it-is with an energy you thought was maxed out at “COZY” only for it to keep going for fourteen more. Depth charges propel stomping anthems from the club to the bedroom. Combative declarations mutate into honey-coated seductions. Beginnings and endings are treated as clutter that’ll only get in the way of the irresistible groove. Through sheer range of samples adduced and styles assayed, Beyoncé and her legion of collaborators create the world-historic illusion of compressing the history of dance music into a single hour. As her generation’s pre-eminent pop curator, that includes representing dance audiences, Black and queer chief among them. For a lockdown-weary world surrounded on all sides by existential threat, her sonic messages are a re-education in the power of unadulterated fun that go deeper than words—though, global brand that she is, she still tags them with potent slogans: “Comfortable in my skin.” “You won't break my soul.” Er, “Ass getting bigger.” By my count, she only lies once: “Nasty is my guilty pleasure.” Nuh-uh. This pleasure is entirely guiltless. A PLUS
Bright Dog Red: Under The Porch
Matt Coonan’s freestyles add structure to free-form dad-funk in which the best bits are the least cool: squeaky horns, video game riffs, ba-dump-a-dump beats. Exception to the rule: when he rhymes “pardon me”, “part the sea” and “Cardi B”. That’s just plain cool. * (“On The Avenue” “Pardon Me” “Matter You Can’t Feel”)
Craig Finn: A Legacy of Rentals
No one's calling this logorrheic fifty-one-year-old with a voice like a squeezed lemon funky, but give him his due, he knows where the down beat is. Along with his sentimentalist’s feel for minor to major, and plusher arrangements than he’s allowed himself in a while, this is his most listenable collection in years. Songs are still his way of humanising a white underclass for whom “the numbers never lie but they also never tell the whole truth.” On half of them, he practices such restraint with his word count that when his mouth gets carried away it almost feels novel. All his outcasts are in roughly the same position as his opening narrator’s drinking buddy, who philosophises that “this probably isn't where I see myself forever, but for now it's where we are.” She’s followed by the Amarillo Kid, who provides one way you might wind up in the middle of nowhere: “I was born down in the Handle / I was brought up by the strap / When the devil starts to show up in your dreams / It's hard to get your dreams back.” Heart still hungry, Finn finds a few glimmers of hope for his down-and-outs. For one thing: “It’s always someone’s birthday in your building.” For another: “When we get up on the table, you shouldn’t look so startled / This is what it looks like when we’re joyful.” A MINUS
Hickeys: Fragile Structure
Dance-oriented Madridista punks whose structural guitar work isn’t as fragile as advertised. Unless the title refers to our social stability, in which case they may be guilty of undersellling. * (“Motherlode” “Material Weight” “The Mill”)
The Paranoid Style: For Executive Meeting
For the last decade, civil servant, music critic and human song generator Elizabeth Nelson has led the hyper-literate meta-rock races with her brainy and brackish classic rock-inflected pop tunes. So spare a thought for whoever the competition is now that she’s got better. With her melodies referencing Brain Wilson whimsy and her rhythms Skynyrd boogie as ably as her mouth does Lou Reed and, well, Shakespeare, this is where her musical impulses pull level with her penchant for cracking wise. The result is a photo finish. All damaged reputations and forgotten men, half these songs report on the artistic fallout of changing fashions when the fashion sucks: overlooked Velvet Underground bassist Doug Yule gets a belated share of the limelight; co-writer of “In The Midnight Hour” and “(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay” Steve Cropper his encomium; graphic designer and tragic suicide Barney Bubbles his eulogy. No hero worshiper, Nelson discharges her duty to Kll Yr Idols without flinching. Her target: the soft spot between an execution and a compliment. Her aim: true. Chauvinists Hemingway and Roth get a caustic fillip; Wodehouse a jolly minute-and-a-half chapter on his time broadcasting for the Nazis. And on the closer, she presents Rosanne Cash’s “Seven Year Ache”. An example of artistry unspoilt, and a perfect finale. A
The Regrettes: Further Joy
In which Lydia Night spritzes up her wan voice with la-di-da tunes to overcome obstacles set to roughly the same difficulty level as walking up the down escalator. “Gotta get the fuck out of L.A.”? Sounds eminently do-able. ** ( “That's What Makes Me Love You” “La Di Da” “You're So Fucking Pretty”)
The Smile: A Light For Attracting Attention
In which Radiohead (for it is they) substitute received fatalism for forced optimism and still produce corporate rock. But this time it’s halfway enjoyable. * (“The Opposite” “The Smoke” “Thin Thing”)
Regina Spektor: Home, before and after
At forty-two, she’s got a mind full of melody and a heart full of woe, but as an incurable humanist she’s not ready to give up on hope. Though she starts by becoming all alone again and middles with dark parallels about a love that might’ve been (it’s not a happy mind that goes straight to “bombing and shelters” when thinking of things that go together) she finishes by telling herself home is where the light's on, no matter how long you’ve been gone. Still as musical theatre as when she emerged a less avant Fiona Apple, she’s advanced her whoops-I-was-fiddling-with-the-piano-and-a-song-fell-out bit by taking command of an orchestra that isn’t above a good beat—though admittedly they do prefer to swoop and sweep. They help her power through her woollier concepts, like the one about the nectar in the flowers in the garden in the forest on the mountain in the ocean. Least woolly concept: the loner who decides that if no girl will love him, he wants one beneath his feet. That's also her most sympathetic performance, which is every bit as unsettling as it should be. Throughout, vocals and sentiments pack tender power. Not to be underappreciated: in the age of garbled consonants and soupy vocal effects, a singer who doesn’t just pronounce her words but imbues them with colour. A MINUS