FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz/PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan Hart for Wonderland.
Essential September Releases
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ALTHOUGH there are…
IN THIS PHOTO: Amyl and The Sniffers/PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Wdziekonski
quite a few good albums due next month, I am selecting the essential ones that you will want to own. There are two particularly stunning albums out on 3rd September. Wasting no time in getting the month off to a great start, Iron Maiden’s Senjutsu is one that you will want to get! Go and pre-order a copy, as this is primed to be a huge album from the legendary British Metal band! I am looking forward to listening to the album. The group’s first album since 2015’s The Book of Souls, Senjutsu is going to be cracking. On the official Iron Maiden website, we get a sense of what the album is about:
“For Senjutsu – loosely translated as ‘tactics & strategy’, the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Steve Harris. And with a running time of a little under 82 minutes, Senjutsu, like their previous record The Book Of Souls, will be a double CD album/triple vinyl album.
Steve says "We chose to record at Guillaume Tell Studio in France again as the place has such a relaxed vibe. The setup there is perfect for our needs; the building used to be a cinema and has a really high ceiling so there’s a great acoustic sound. We recorded this album in the same way we did The Book Of Souls in that we’d write a song, rehearse it and then put it down together straight away while it was all fresh in our minds.
There’s some very complex songs on this album which took a lot of hard work to get them exactly as we wanted them to sound, so the process was at times very challenging, but Kevin is great at capturing the essence of the band and I think it was worth the effort! I’m very proud of the result and can’t wait for fans to hear it."
Bruce Dickinson continues, "We’re all really excited about this album. We recorded it back in early 2019 during a break in the Legacy tour so we could maximize our touring yet still have a long set up period before release to prepare great album art and something special as a video. Of course the pandemic delayed things more - so much for the best laid plans – or should that be ‘strategies’!? The songs are very varied, and some of them are quite long. There’s also one or two songs which sound pretty different to our usual style, and I think Maiden fans will be surprised - in a good way, I hope!”.
I know that there will be a lot of love for Senjutsu. A fan has already given a track-by-track review that should get people excited. Do make sure that, even if you are a casual fan of Iron Maiden, you go and pre-order a copy.
A wonderful album slated for 3rd September is Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. This is an album that you are going to want to pre-order. The follow-up to the hugely acclaimed GREY Area (2019), there is a lot of buzz around the release of the London rapper’s upcoming fourth studio album. This is what Rough Trade say about Sometimes I Might Be Introvert:
“Over the course of her lush, expansive, defiantly sprawling new album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, released on Age 101, the Ivor Novello award-winning, Mercury nominated Little Simz delivers an undeniable modern classic, effortlessly condensing any number of disparate styles and genres into music which thrillingly broaches the gap between urgent modern treatise and hip hop. A bold, quantum leap forward from the critically beloved Grey Area, this is hardly music aiming simply for the pop charts; rather, it is turbo charged with the kind of fury and potency, confusion and anxiety that make up the modern experience of being Black, British and female at this particular point in time. This is no mere philosophical exercise, however - the result is her most ambitious and soaring body of work to date, one which operates at the very heights of what rap can be.
Without wasting any time at all, the album opens with the heart stopping clarion call of “Introvert”, a visceral essay about lives lived in the cross-hairs of society, fuelled by fear, exhaustion, frustration, but also a kind of white hot political awakening. It’s a full-bore, high-stakes, facing up to death riposte, as urgent as it is compelling, complete with a stunning video by Salomon Lightelm which is by turns majestic and terrifying, with a chopped up, collaged structure perfectly mirroring the landscape it maps; a place of beauty and danger, of violence and dogged resistance. The centre, Simz is keen to remind us, will not hold (“man it’s like they can’t sleep until our spirit is crushed”) – and here she is driven to document every unsparing detail.
The ensuing tracks, produced by Inflo in LA and London, run into each other seamlessly and enlist the rapidly emergent likes of Cleo Sol, Obongjayar and even “The Crown” actress Emma Corrin, to create a kind of rangy, nimble storytelling which conjures up the febrile, strident world we live in with an unflinching energy and vividness. These songs are flash-lit Polaroids, ready framed and developing before our very eyes, and their creator is nowhere and everywhere, documenting a new natural history in which moments of tenderness (“Miss Understood”) coexist with shocking violence (“Little Q Pt 2”), and unabashed celebrations of femininity (“Woman”) sit alongside deeply personal glimpses of introspection (“I See You”).
Of the many voices in music today, Simz’ is among the most commanding, writing at a pitch of intensity and urgency that few can match. However, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is no diatribe. Instead, it is an intensely alive hybrid, a work of radical honesty that uses personal history as a means of magnifying and challenging the paradoxes we find ourselves in, both social and personal, macro and micro. Like some of the legendary musicians that came before her, Simz is looking at the chaos and disorder in the world right now with resourceful, refined eyes, and she sees the glorious opportunity and enormous responsibility that affords. This is the end result; listen on in wonder”.
The first album out on 10th September that you will want to grab is Manic Street Preachers’ The Ultra Vivid Lament. The new album from the Welsh legends is going to be another epic! They always produce the most interesting and repeatable albums. Go and pre-order the Manics’ upcoming treasure:
“The Ultra Vivid Lament is the 14th studio album from Manic Street Preachers. It is both reflection and reaction - a record that gazes in isolation across a cluttered room, fogged by often painful memories, to focus on an open window framing a gleaming vista of land melting into sea and endless sky.
Musically The Ultra Vivid Lament is inspired by a formative years record box (ABBA, post-Eno Roxy, the Bunnymen, Fables-era REM, Lodger) though the end result could only be the unique union of James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore, collectively one of the UK’s most consistently brilliant rock’n’roll bands for over three decades”.
We have heard a bit from The Ultra Vivid Lament, and it is sounding like it will be among the best albums from Manic Street Preachers. I have been a fan of the band since childhood, so I am really keen to see what their fourteenth studio album offers up. If you want to get an album that is guaranteed to provide huge satisfaction, then make sure that you pre-order The Ultra Vivid Lament.
There are quite a few other albums from 10th September that should be on the must-buy list. Amyl and The Sniffers’ second studio album, Comfort to Me, is going to be one of the best of the year! Do make sure that you pre-order an album that is going to massive, raw and utterly compelling:
“Already renowned for a ball-tearing live show, The Sniffers made their international debut as one of the hottest tipped acts at The Great Escape in 2018. Soon afterwards, they signed deals with both Rough Trade Records and ATO Records, made a massively hyped appearance at SXSW, and finally released their self-titled debut album in 2019, landing them an ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Award for Best Rock Album, capping off a wild year for the lunatic, likeable punks.
Late in 2020, Amyl and The Sniffers went into the studio with producer Dan Luscombe to record their sophomore album, Comfort To Me. Written over a long year of lockdown, the album was influenced by and expanded on a heavier pool of references - old-school rock’n’roll (AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Motörhead and Wendy O Williams), modern hardcore (Warthog and Power Trip) and the steady homeland heroes (Coloured Balls and Cosmic Psychos). Lyrically, the album was influenced by Taylor’s rap idols and countless garage bands and in her words ‘I had all this energy inside of me and nowhere to put it, because I couldn’t perform, and it had a hectic effect on my brain. My brain evolved and warped and my way of thinking about the world completely changed.’
Seventeen songs were recorded in the Comfort to Me sessions and the top 13 made the cut. They were mixed long-distance by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, IDLES, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and mastered by Bernie Grundman (Michael Jackson, Prince, Dr Dre).
Comfort To Me demonstrates the same irrepressible smarts, integrity and fearless candour as their debut but as you’d expect of any young band five years on, their sound has evolved, in Amy’s words it’s ‘raw self expression, defiant energy and unapologetic vulnerability’”.
You can also check out the Melbourne Punk/Pub Rock band’s official website for more details. After the success of their eponymous debut, there will be a lot of eyes their way on 10th September.
There are a couple of solid albums from 10th September I will pass by, as I am trying to narrow down to the very best. One that is worth investigation is Diana Ross’ Thank You. She is such a legend, one cannot ignore anything she put out. The fact that the album is going to promote something positive and inclusive means you will certainly want to pre-order it:
“Diana Ross sings “Thank You” to the world. “This collection of songs is my gift to you with appreciation and love. I am eternally grateful that I had the opportunity to record this glorious music at this time,” said Ms. Ross. Her new album, Thank You is released through Decca Records / Universal Music Group.
Recorded in her home studio, Thank You offers a powerful, inclusive musical message of love and togetherness. With its songs of happiness, appreciation and joy, it wholeheartedly acknowledges that we are in this all together. Her family, friends and loyal and loving audiences all around the globe have been an integral part of her wonderful life’s story. In this special moment, it is time to step into the light.
Ms. Ross co-wrote and collaborated on the 13 songs along with award-winning songwriters and producers including: Jack Antonoff, Troy Miller, Triangle Park, Spike Stent, Prince Charlez, Amy Wadge, Neff-U, Freddie Wexler, Jimmy Napes, Tayla Parx, Fred White, and Nathanial Ledgewick”.
There are four more albums from 10th September that you will want to get – I told you that it was a busy week! Matthew E. White’s K Bay is one I am looking forward to. The follow-up to 2015’s Fresh Blood, K Bay is going to be a gold album from the Virginia songwriter. Go and pre-order your copy:
“New, long-awaited solo album, K Bay, via Domino. It features Spacebomb’s trusted house band (bassist Cameron Ralston, drummer Pinson Chanselle, and orchestral arranger Trey Pollard), along with multi-instrumentalist Alan Parker, keyboardists Devonne Harris and Daniel Clarke, and engineer / mixer Adrian Olsen. The LP was produced by White and recorded between his beloved Kensington Avenue home studio (and album namesake) K Bay, Richmond’s Montrose Recording and his own local institution, Spacebomb Studio. K Bay finds the singer / songwriter, bandleader, and musical polymath expanding every facet of his creative process and harnessing the full power of his community, culminating in the best record of his career.
K Bay, White’s first solo album in six years, is the astounding record he has forever aspired to make. A bold reclamation of independence and identity, K Bay establishes White as one of his era’s most imaginative artists. These 11 pieces are retro-futurist magic tricks that feel instantly classic and contemporary, the product of a musical mind that has internalized the lessons of his idols and used them to build a brilliant world of his own.
A decade ago, Matthew E. White made a classic beauty no one expected; on K Bay, he has made a masterpiece by harnessing what he’s learned from that community and life itself in entirely unexpected, electrifying, and reaffirming ways”.
The upcoming tenth studio album from the brilliant Saint Etienne is one to pre-order. I’ve Been Trying To Tell You is looking like it will be among their best:
“Saint Etienne return with their 10th album and prove they are still utterly essential. Saint Etienne have always understood that pop music is the nearest thing we have to time travel, the closest we can get to breathing the air of a different time. On this album, they take that theory to its logical conclusion. I’ve Been Trying To Tell You uses sounds and samples from 1997 to 2001, evoking the folk memory of the period by using and twisting recordings from the time, re-working them into new songs. “They're all by people you'd have heard on daytime Radio 1 or 2 at the time,” Bob clarifies, “not Boards of Canada or anything.” Opening track “Music Again”, for example, begins with some gorgeously poignant electric harpsichord from a long-forgotten R&B hit.
For the first time, Saint Etienne didn't record together in a studio. The album was completed remotely, in Hove (Pete), Oxford (Sarah) and Bradford (Bob, in collaboration with film and TV composer Gus Bousfield, who contributes to a number of tracks). Communication was handled via Zoom meetings and emails.
I’ve Been Trying To Tell You has an internal unity, its heartbeat always at the low end of mid-tempo/high end of downtempo, landing at the approximate pace of Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension (an album released on the very cusp of the era in question). This helps sustain the dream-state.
PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Baker Ashton
That hypnagogic sensation is enhanced here and there by the eerie sound of seagulls and garden birds. It's like falling asleep listening to Minnie Riperton's “Lovin' You” and coming a-dreamwake in Kew. This, it turns out, is another turn-of-the-millennium reference. “In the early series of Big Brother,” Bob explains, “when Channel 4 used to broadcast live from the house in the daytime, they'd dip out the sound whenever the housemates talked about real life people, or swore or whatever, and they'd replace the sound with quite avant-sounding field recordings of birdsong.”
The lyrics, too, obey the fractured logic of dreams. Sarah Cracknell sings in short phrases - “here it comes again”, “never had a way to go”, “ruby dust”, “a love like this again” - looped and repeated, rather than a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure. “They are all snatched phrases that could have been used at the time,” Bob explains, “from news items, or songs, or magazines.” The album's centrepiece is arguably “Little K”, the fourth track of eight, a six-minute oneiric ocean which ends with the sound of lazily lapping waves. The words that filter through the haze are ones which define the album: “No reason to pretend. In my reverie, the mind will carry me...”
The reverie has interludes with no words at all, at least not sung. “Blue Kite”, made from backwards strings and synths and bassy beats from the room next door, is entirely instrumental, as is “I Remember It Well” apart from snatches of mysterious voices which evoke childhood holidays. Some tracks, like some dreams, are simply too strange for analysis: the inscrutably-titled “Penlop” (a Tibetan term which translates loosely as 'governor') has a refrain which appears to run “I don't really know you/But I'd like to show you/Chester town/We went all around...”
Low are a band who always produce exceptional albums. Following the amazing Double Negative of 2018, HEY WHAT is going to be another stunner from the Minnesota group. Even if you have never heard of Low, I guarantee that you will appreciate HEY WHAT. Low’s music is so accessible and memorable. You should pre-order HEY WHAT and discover a musical treat:
“Focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being alive, to turn the duality of existence into hymns we can share, Low present Hey What. These ten pieces—each built around their own instantaneous, undeniable hook—are turbocharged by the vivid textures that surround them. The ineffable, familiar harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker break through the chaos like a life raft. Layers of distorted sound accrete with each new verse - building, breaking, colossal then restrained, a solemn vow only whispered. There will be time to unravel and attribute meaning to the music and art of these times, but the creative moment looks Forward, with teeth”.
I am going to move to a different week soon enough. It is amazing how many great albums are out in September. 10th September is looking especially packed for albums that you will want to add to your collection!
The last album due on 10th September I will recommend comes in the form of The Stranglers’ Dark Matters. Following the sad death of their keyboard player Dave Greenfield last year, it is a combination of songs recorded with him and bits without. The iconic band have a load of fans who will want to pre-order their upcoming album. This is from the Rough Trade site:
“The Stranglers release the long-awaited new album Dark Matters. Surviving Stranglers band members, JJ Burnel, Baz Warne, and newest member Jim Macaulay completed Dark Matters remotely during lockdowns, making it their first album since 2012. The album features the single 'And If You Should See Dave...', an honest tribute to their much-missed keyboard player Dave Greenfield who tragically passed away a year ago from Covid-19.
“A year ago, on May 3rd my great friend and colleague of 45 years, Dave Greenfield, passed away, another victim of the pandemic.” says JJ Burnel. “We had already recorded most of the album with him and during the lockdowns our only wish was to complete it as a fitting tribute to his life and work. I consider this to be one of our finest recordings.”
Greenfield himself features on 8 of the 11 tracks, which were made over the course of two years at the band’s studios in the rural idylls of Somerset, and in Southern France, produced by long-time collaborator Louie Nicastro”.
There are two albums from 17th September that are worth checking out. Lindsey Buckingham, the eponymous album from the former Fleetwood Mac lead, is one to pre-order. Buckingham was fired from Fleetwood Mac back in 2018. As we discover in a recent interview from Uncut, that forms some of the inspiration behind his eponymous album:
“In fact, the subject of Buckingham’s departure from the group in 2018 – after he requested a delay to their upcoming tour so he could release his own album – comes up early in our conversation, after Buckingham himself raises it. It is, he explains, inexorably tied in with the origins of this new album.
“Once I’d been ousted from the band – which in itself was just so absurd after all the troubles we’d been through and managed to overcome for 40-plus years – I was poised to put the album out. Then I ended up having a bypass operation, so we had to kick it down the road a little further. And then the pandemic hit. So it’s been a sort of running gag, to have so many false starts.”
Here at last, post-Macxit, the Lindsey Buckingham album has many highlights – including the chiming, propulsive I Don’t Mind and the striking and experimental Power Down – that bring into focus Buckingham’s melodic gifts as well as his hunger for unconventional thinking”.
Before moving along, I want to direct people to José González’s Local Valley. His songwriting is among the most affecting and moving of any artist out there! Pre-order this beautiful album from González:
“Few people have managed to become quite so celebrated worldwide, quite as quietly as Jose Gonzalez has. Local Valley, his long awaited fourth album, serves as a relieving reminder that you don’t have to be loud to be heard.
Since his debut single ‘Crosses’ back in 2003, both he and his music have remained dependably quiet and unassuming. Local Valley calmly exhibits his singular ability to communicate with such modesty and power.
Beginning with the sun-dappled ‘El Invento’, the first song he’s recorded in Spanish (the native tongue of his Argentinian heritage), and ending with the intimate yet rhapsodic ‘Honey Honey’. Along the way it engages in his signature melodic and metrical hypnotism, showcasing his remarkable fingerpicking skills, while there’s further evidence of his love for music from around the world (he references an inspiring jam session in Gothenburg with Niger artist Bombino) and for the first time, the introduction of a drum machine on a few songs, further widening José´s musical spectrum.
The record, full of his trademark bittersweet pastoralism, includes what Gonzalez considers “my most accomplished songs to date”. While continuing his tradition of reinterpreting songs by other artists, with ‘Line Of Fire' he picks one written for Junip, the band he formed with friends in 1998. That the original version has now been streamed some 60 million times suggest it, like other songs he’s covered, is now part of the songwriting canon”.
Moving onto the albums due on 24th September. You might have to look around or go local to get a copy of Brittany Howard’s Jaime Reimagined. I have heard a couple of the songs from the album. It sounds incredible! It has already been released digitally. I feel a vinyl copy is the way to go with this album. This is what Pitchfork wrote back in June:
“Brittany Howard has announced Jaime Reimagined, a record featuring new versions of songs from her solo debut Jaime. The album includes previously shared remixes from Bon Iver, Michael Kiwanuka, Fred again..,and EarthGang. Reimagined also features Childish Gambino’s interpretation of “Stay High,” as well as new guest contributions from Common, Emily King, and the Internet’s Syd. Below, hear Little Dragon’s remix of “Presence” and BadBadNotGood’s remix of “Tomorrow.”
“Making Jaime was so much fun for me because I was able to explore so many different genres of music,” Brittany Howard said in a statement. “There were no rules. This reimagination project has been no different. I have been honored to have so many incredible artists from all musical worlds interpret my songs in such interesting and different ways”.
I love the idea of reworking a studio album and having remixes, reversions and other artists interpreting its tracks. I feel this is something that we will see a lot more of in years to come. The wonderful Brittany Howard is someone who so many people want to work with and pay their respect to.
There are four more albums from 24th September that you will want to pre-order. One comes in the form of Nao’s And Then Life Was Beautiful. Go and pre-order this album now. The London Soul/R&B artist is one of our finest young talents. This is what we can expect from her new album:
“After her most recent hit Messy Love, which received huge praise from tastemakers, NAO finally releases her highly anticipated, third studio album And Then Life Was Beautiful, the follow-up from her critically acclaimed, Mercury Prize and Grammy-nominated album Saturn. While her previous project propelled the singer-songwriter into a new stratosphere with its cosmic, coming-of-age themes, the songstress is now entering a brand new chapter with And Then Life Was Beautiful - where ‘Saturn’ untangled the knots of late twenties soul-searching, And Then Life Was Beautiful goes a step further by setting out a clarified sense of purpose.
Now a mother of a young daughter, NAO is more confident in herself and her voice than ever. A pandemic album, written and recorded throughout never-ending lockdowns, the project celebrates life’s ups and downs, reaching out a hand to guide listeners through what hurdles may confront them next. It includes previously released tracks Antidode, featuring Nigerian superstar Adekunle Gold, Woman, featuring Lianne La Havas, which she recorded with her new-born daughter strapped lovingly to her chest, as well as Messy Love, a stunning offering loaded with strummed guitar grooves and drum rhythms rooted in 90s R&B.
Other notable stand-out tracks include Wait, a stripped-back track which takes an intimate look at how you make mistakes to develop a relationship, and ‘Postcards’, highlighting a gorgeous vocal interplay of NAO and serpentwithfeet, who features alongside her on the track. For Good Luck, R&B crooner Lucky Daye jumped on board.
She says: “Life isn’t perfect; we still go through ups and downs, but it can be beautiful as a whole. I do think it’s a hopeful album, in an honest way – it’s not shiny or all ‘isn’t this great!’ and ‘party party party.’ But it’s hopeful in that through every rough patch, every dark patch or struggle we always come out again. That’s what life is. You keep going. But most of all you try and step into a place of gratitude so that you can see life in all of its beauty”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Frank W Ockenfels III for The Forty-Five
Poppy’s Flux is an album to pre-order when you can. Following her third studio album, I Disagree (2020), this is going to be another huge and impressive release. I am keen to bring in part of an interview that she was part of for The Forty-Five for their July edition:
“It has always been hard to tell where the persona of Poppy stops, and the thoughts of her creator, Moriah Rose Pereira, begin. In her earliest appearances, Poppy was undoubtedly an artistic creation – her soft, high-pitched voice sounded like a soothing and slightly unsettling ASMR video distilled into a vial of sleeping potion, and her music both celebrated and satirised pop music. When interviewers asked personal questions, Poppy skillfully dodged them – whenever she was asked where she grew up, she would reply: “the internet”. Looking back, the whole thing felt like a pointed comment on both privacy, and the parts of us we choose not to share.
This act has gradually softened over the years, but still, following Poppy’s every move, you’ll find swathes of listeners speculating about whether the musician is still in character. When she answers the phone today with a hint of Tennessee twang, she certainly doesn’t seem to be – there’s no hint of the hypnotic voice present in the star’s early YouTube videos, which showed her holding court with a basil plant and satirising predictable interviewers in saccharine monotone. “The hint of my accent hasn’t subsided entirely,” she quips, describing her memories of growing up in Nashville. We speak about Poppy’s family, her childhood passion for dance and roller-skating, and the video games she’s been playing with her fiance Eric – who makes music as Ghostemane – during lockdown. Her openness catches me off guard. Has the real Poppy finally come to the phone?
“I never really think of it as a persona,” Poppy shrugs, reflecting on her past iterations. “People are wearing a mask no matter what.”
Persona or not, we’re certainly in a very different era of Poppy these days – last month saw the release of a grunge-flecked new single. While previous releases toyed playfully with rock influences and set them against crisp, glimmering pop melodies, ‘Her’ goes full pelt, and wouldn’t sound out of place on a Hole record. Produced by Justin Meldal-Johnsen – known for his work with Paramore, Wolf Alice and Nine Inch Nails, among others – the spiky comeback moment is accompanied by a dystopian stop-motion video in which robotic singers are cranked out of a production line and forced to perform. It’s the first glimpse of a forthcoming new album which takes influence from the heavier end of the sonic spectrum, and explores the idea of “accepting uncertainty in your life and not being afraid of the unknown.” Though there are no featured collaborations “there are people who have lent their skills to making some of the album,” Poppy hints cryptically.
For her next record, Poppy has also recruited a live band – who she’ll also be taking out on tour – and in comparison to her robotic beginnings, it’s set to be an album centred around “real humans playing human music”.
“It was Justin’s idea to have the band all record together in a room,” she says. “I was driving in my car with my cat around LA, and he called me and was like: ‘What do you think about this idea?’. It had this warmth and togetherness and live element,” she enthuses. “It was a pretty wonderful feeling to be by the mixing board with Justin and Mike, the engineer, and hear it happening. I was getting chills, this is exciting”.
I want to recommend people pre-order Natalie Imbruglia’s Firebird. The legendary Australian artist is someone I have been a fan of ever since the 1990s. Her music has evolved since then, though she remains an artist both celebrated and underrated. Firebird is one that I am definitely going to check out. Imbruglia is a remarkable artist who has this power and passion that draws you in! I am pleased that she has another album coming out. Every release offers something special and interesting. This is what Rough Trade say about Firebird:
“Natalie Imbruglia returns with her brand new album Firebird which marks the first new music from Natalie in almost a decade after choosing to remain out of the limelight following her monumental success in the nineties and early noughties. The new album was written and recorded between the UK, the US and her homeland of Australia, co-written with the likes of Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes, Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers, KT Tunstall, Eg White (Adele, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith), Luke Fitton (Little Mix, Girls Aloud), Fiona Bevan (One Direction, Ed Sheeran), Rachel Furner (Little Mix, Jason Derulo, Craig David) and more, and produced by Natalie and My Riot with additional production from Albert Hammond Jr, Gus Oberg and Romeo Stodart”.
The final album out next month (on 24th September) you will want to add to your collection is Public Service Broadcasting’s Bright Magic. Ensure that you pre-order the album if you are a fan of the band. It is an album that moves their sound forward:
“Public Service Broadcasting release their fourth album, Bright Magic, via Play It Again Sam. An album in three parts (Building A City / Building A Myth / Bright Magic), it is their most ambitious undertaking yet, bringing you to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Haupstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin.
Though PSB’s use of electronics and surging guitar rock remain familiar, Bright Magic uses samples, and the English language, sparingly. It differs from their previous albums in other ways: less linear and narrative, instead it’s an impressionistic portrait of a city from the ground up. A Eureka moment of sorts came in November 2018 when Willgoose heard Walter Ruttman’s radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (or Weekend), which is sampled on three of Bright Magic’s tracks. Created in 1928, the piece collaged speech, field recordings and music into a sonic evocation of the city. Resolving to integrate these long-gone fragments with new manipulated sound sources, he set about making his own Wochenende, a narrative drama for the ears which decodes and realises the dreams of Berlin he’d constructed in his mind. J.Willgoose, Esq moved to Berlin from April 2019 to January 2020. Combining sound archaeology and the flâneuring of the psychogeographer, one street-level pursuit of the city’s energy involved Willgoose walking the Leipzigerstrasse, site of the city’s first electric streetlight, using a wide-band electromagnetic receiver from Moscow’s Soma Laboratories.
He wrote and recorded in Kreuzberg’s famous Hansa Tonstudio recording complex. This brought closer several inescapable musical touchstones: Depeche Mode’s classic eighties triumvirate, U2’s Achtung Baby and, crucially, Bowie’s Heroes and Low. Indeed, the Warszawa-evoking “The Visitor” – whose designated colour is the particular Orange of that album’s sleeve – was initially intended to feature a sample of Bowie reflecting. As well as EERA, the album’s other guest voices include Blixa Bargeld, veteran of The Bad Seeds and Einstürzende Neubauten, who becomes the voice of Berlin’s industry on the robo-teknik “Der Rhythmus der Maschinen”. Andreya Casablanca of Berlin garageistes Gurr stands in for Marlene Dietrich in “My Blue Heaven”, an anthem of proud self-determination. A very pro-European record, Bright Magic is ultimately not just about one city, but all centres of human interaction and community which allow the free exchange and cross-pollination of ideas”.
Those are the treats due next month. Of course, like I say with every one of these features: new albums might come out of nowhere, and the ones I have listed above might get pushed back. We are still in the midst of the pandemic, so one can never predict how that will affect album release schedules and getting vinyl out there. September is gearing up to be a busy and great one for new albums! The ones I have recommended above are my suggestions. There are others that you might want to investigate. I hope that there are a couple of albums above that…
IN THIS PHOTO: Matthew E. White
STRIKE a chord.