An Acute Case: 24 February 2023

Country conventions from a speech therapist, uncompromising raps from a British figurehead, modern blues from an anus king, and two African odysseys get the Paris treatment

Kimberley Kelly: “I’ll Tell You What’s Gonna Happen”
Returning from a hiatus during which she retrained as a speech therapist and left the music chores to husband and producer/co-writer Brett Tyler, Kelly’s second debut, this time on Toby Keith’s Show Dog label, set puritan hearts in the country press aflutter. How much non-ideologues enjoy it depends on their stomach for boldface conventionality—not a sin, and in Kelly’s hands mostly a virtue. Her drinking pun song beats her honky tonk and greener pastures songs, while her divorce song, courtesy of marriage song specialist Lori McKenna, beats them all. A confident if unspectacular singer, she provides service with a smile, happy to be in the company of musicians capable of delivering the studio pro manoeuvres she dreamt of while watching people pucker their lips and stick out their tongues. All in all, a minor but warming comeback. Not that she believes in those, of course: “Goodbye to me don't mean I need a little space and I might be comin' back.” Except when it does. B PLUS

Little Simz: NO THANK YOU
Where Sometimes I Might Be Introvert meandered, this is more straightforward: uncompromising raps and unfussy production plus nominatively determined Cleo Soul for decoration. Listeners with a severe orchestra intolerance may complain Inflo’s beats are still too middlebrow, but I say this is his most focussed selection to date—a feat Simz appears to have managed by paying him in codas, all of which earn their place. As for her, whether she’s emboldened by her economy or economical because she’s feeling bold, she lives up to her Jay-Z brag. Leaning hard into her MLE monotone, she invites you to explore the contours of her voice, and if you’re inclined to accept, you’ll find plenty. Her words are precise, her delivery intent. From “Respectfully you ain’t got a cheque for me” on, it hardly seems like rumour mongering to suggest her ire is directed at her recently dumped manager. In between those grievance-driven verses, she completes the portrait of a 28-year-old figurehead whose “only goal was to uplift the women.” What she’s not here to do is send someone else’s kids through private school. Having used up all her kindness for weakness, she’s ready to become all that she believes in. Now pipe down, she’s got tennis in the morning. A MINUS

Rhett Miller: The Misfit
Title concept’s as pertinent to his place in the alt-pop/alt-country landscape as the knotty relationships he so deftly details, but the former is too reliant on woozy textures and too little on rhythm. *** (“Heart Attack Days” “Just When It Gets Good” “You'll Be Glad”)

Montparnasse Musique: Archeology
Limpopo-born/Jo’burg-raised Chobolo Manyelo and French-Algerian producer Nadjib Ben Bella are collaborators to pan-Africans from Les Amazones d’Afrique to Idris Elba. When Manyelo heard Bella playing a street piano in a Paris train station, they hooked up, drew a line between their home-away-from-homelands, and settled on the midpoint—District Republic of Congo—as the focus of their African music software upgrade. Observing the pots and pans fundamentals of congotronics, they combine the genre’s sinewy rhythms and controlled clamour with beat-making nous. The latter is all theirs, the former provided by a handful of Kasai Allstars and Mbongwana just plain Stars. The result is something like magic; an ineluctable synthesis of organic and inorganic musical matter handled with such care and coherence that its accessibility belies its density. Not-quite house thrum adjoins not-quite soukous, while hortatory chants marshal pulsing four-fours. A quest of curiosity never intended as a thesis on the future of African music, it packs the agglomerative power of argument nonetheless. One that has me totally convinced. A

Margo Price: Strays
Elizabeth Undercooked if not exactly Margo Overpriced. ** (“Radio” “Change of Heart” “Time Machine”)

Sowal Diabi: De Kaboul á Bamako
Assembled in Paris by world music bigwig Said Assadi and representing the approximately 10,000 miles’ between the edges of West Africa and Central Asia, all eleven musicians featured here have been exiled in some way, so this is a record with its fair share of conflicts to resolve. With a handful of scholars and ethnomusicology docs on board, their method for doing so is more polite than rock audiences might prefer. So be grateful for sextet Arat Kilo, whose bedrock of Ethio-jazz is derived from bar music, meaning at least half the group observes the pleasure principle at any time. They keep the funk coming and the ideas from getting too high-minded, especially on a second half where the variations on a theme get thinner. To their credit, none of the players waste time noodling. They’ve figured out how to make this thing work and cut straight to the action. If the result is a little obvious—and certainly a fair chunk of this could soundtrack exotic establishing shots—obviousness is still valuable pop currency. As is their unerring ear for beauty. As are ululator-in-chief Mamani Keita’s pipes. A MINUS

Sunny War: Anarchist Gospel
Anything calling itself gospel might be assumed to have lyrics that go deep, and while that isn’t a complete misapprehension here, War’s modern blues take is more aural poultice than all-out sermon: crisp but not pristine, delicate but not precious, understated if a little tasteful. Given the old Alabama Shake by Andrija Tokic, it’s a major label debut that fills out a sound without filling it in. For their part, the words do a job: manmade masterpieces are imperfect; the earth has no lips to say it’s withering away; love is like magic and that can be tragic when you’re an addict with a habit, which you’d know if you’d ever had it. A recovered meth and heroin user, LA-born/Nashville-based War does know it, which lends legitimacy to her darker themes. It also makes her singing easier to take. As befits the frontwoman of a punk band named Anus Kings, her voice is naturally rough and low, but she forces it out in feathery breaths. Though as she believes everyone is a beast trying their hardest to be good, I expect her choice is aspirational. B PLUS

SZA: SOS
”My pussy precedes me"—and how! Nakedly honest, wildly inventive, and “horny like suck these”, her lyrics would rank among the best in any year. But as a complete package, too breezy to make the dent it deserves. *** (“SOS” “Kill Bill” “Special”)

Yonic South: Devo Challenge Cup
Thirteen-minute song cycle that appears to be just one guitar line and drum pattern repeating and on closer inspection, um, probably is. But the iterations brim with scrappy energy, and though their short attention spans don't produce another elegy to box-to-box midfield heroes (Lampard’s managerial failings presumably ruling him out) it does give us a version of “All The Small Things”. Last time the cover spot went to Oasis. So not a complete de-evolution. ** (“Drums Hero” “Mark Mothersbaugh Alter Ego” “All The Small Twix”)