An Acute Case: 9 March 2025

Indie rappers deserve government subsidies, dance music producers need swimming lessons

Barry Can’t Swim: When Will We Land? (‘23)
Barry can’t swim, Teddy can, and if you want to know what that means for contemporary pop you’ll have to ask Fred again.. But if the nomenclature’s a mystery, Edinburgh-born, Mercury Prize-nominated Joshua Mainnie’s music isn’t. Without abandoning his duty to provide four on the floor euphoria, this is accessible multi-functional dance music—elegant rather than precious, blissful rather than chilled, textured rather than dense. If there’s a USP, it’s Mainnie’s trained piano, which never fails to provide melodic grace notes. His cushioned drum beds still haven’t been stripped of Moby’s sheets, with whom he shares an interest in vocals that go beyond whatever’s expedient for a floor-filling hook. Whether sampled, field-recorded, distorted, collaged, or untampered with—from the over-the-phone poetry of uni pal somedeadbeat to Falle Nioke’s dignified lament—they reorient songs around the human element often missing from electronic music. My favourite is the chorus of what could be one or many voices on “Sunsleeper”, though I might respond as positively to the similar effect on “Sonder” if I could only place whichever late-‘90s dance song that was popular enough to get played in my primary school assembly it reminds me of. Suggestions welcome. A MINUS

Doseone, Steel Tipped Dove: All Portrait, No Chorus
“Being the best and being a success are not the same metric”. And a dogmatic stance against the catchiness that success accrues to is self-defeating. * (“Ta Da" “No Cops")

Fontaines D.C.: Romance
Turns out I was a patsy for taking this band’s image switcheroo seriously back in the summer, because the only thing it presaged about their fourth album is that they’re having fun—a good tactic for a band dogged by claims of importance. While that means they’ve had to sacrifice their class politics, those weren’t all that cogent to begin with. If it also means Grian Chatten’s lyrics have become less comprehensible, impressionism suits a man who has Joyce as a hero and loves stretching his words from LA to Dublin. But what gets this blatant holding move over is its music. Combining grand gestures fitted for arenas with precise studio craft and unexpected forays into the baroque, its slipperiness is its point. While they retain their gift for fitting all that foreplay into songs where the moodiness accrues real drama and the choruses make sense because you want to sing along with them, I don't care that they’re not going to become Oasis or U2 or Radiohead, much less Korn, and I'm in no rush for them to figure it out. A MINUS

Gossip: Real Power
If you’re after catchy songs with a good beat, you could do worse. Though in the same way Beth Ditto doesn't have a big voice even though her voice dominates, her band doesn’t have a big beat even though the beat is their driving force. So, while I agree that “Every beat of my heart is a merciful act of god” is something to rejoice, I’m pleased they have enough confidence in restraint to accommodate softer edges than those implied by their tough punk image. They’ve grown up, got married, got divorced, and in the case of Nathan Howdeshell got born again, so it’s fitting that not only tenderness but domesticity feature here. “You've met someone, and if that is true / I'm happy for you,” Ditto coos. Which doesn’t mean she’s moved on: “The next time I see your face will be too soon.” Likewise: “Don't invite me home / I'm fragile at the moment.” But at what cost? “I like peace and quiet / But the silence is killing me.” B PLUS

Lola Kirke: Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?
A sassed-up Paula Cole cover and four originals, all sung with sweetness and a smirk. With Elle King producing, someone thinks Kirke’s a good investment. With Elle King producing, the songs could also be rowdier. * (“All My Exes Live in L.A.” “My House”)

MC5: Heavy Lifting
As an artistic entity, the Motor City 5 crashed and burned a whole half-century ago. In the intervening decades, three of the original members died (Rob Tyner and Fred Smith in the ‘90s—both of heart attacks, both aged 46; bassist Michael Davis in 2012—liver failure, 64) while the two members involved in this final hurrah didn’t even make it to the October release date (pancreatic cancer killing driving force Wayne Kramer in February, with Dennis Thomspon following him in May—both aged 75). So part of me wants to suggest you play “The Last Post” before listening to this. But another part says it doesn’t matter, because there’s no trace of morbidity here. Instead, bolstered by the youthful exuberance of such left-leaning rock luminaries as Slash (59), Tom Morello (60), and Vernon Reid (66), its throwback boogie rock is abundantly a good time, taking on greater power by combining its hip-shaking spiritedness with its political animus against the forces of evil currently at play in America. Though Kramer and Thompson didn’t make it to the sorry end of the election cycle, may their spirit of resistance live on. A MINUS

Open Mike Eagle: Sir Rockabye
To my knowledge, the two concept songs about high school picture day and middling insults for middling people are new to the rap canon. In my opinion, they deserve music less timid than this. * (“Degrassi Picture Day (Hellfyre Jackets)” “middling” “Password (tiny man raps)”)

Previous Industries: Service Merchandise
A debut of sorts from three been-around rappers connected by Open Mike Eagle, who knows Still Rift from Whitney Young High School in Chicago and Video Dave from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. All three are smart, funny, and a little sad. All rap steadily at mid-tempo, with complementary differences in timbre and style. Rift has the rigidest flow and the knottiest rhymes. Dave is avuncular with a soothing baritone. Mike is the self-deprecating conversationalist. Ostensibly, the 35-minute product of their compatability is a concept album inspired by defunct retail chains. And while that’s funny, it doesn’t go beyond a few passing references and a schema for the song titles. But it also doesn’t matter, because no rubric is required to parse this level of wittiness or ingenuity. There are more quotables here than I have space for, so you’ll have to make do with one apiece: the Paranoid Stylish “I'm sitting on the dock of the bay checking my twitter feed” from Mike; the wittier-every-time “My vices love it when I grip them and I know because they hold me back” from Rift; the casually slapstick “I threw my caution to the wind and it came right back” from Dave. Over beats more kinetic than energetic, they’ve captured something bordering on fresh: the transition point from stoner rap to whiskey rap, at the meeting place between daisy age and middle age. A