From the heart and the mind

An album that redefines genre

Drake — More Life: Mixtape (Young Money)

Rich with detail and subtle excellence, you could make a case for More Life being Drake’s best full length project since Take Care. Drake’s steady use of global beats and international artists carry the bulk of the weight throughout More Life. Clocking in at a hefty 22 tracks, the project is packed with features from a selection of the Toronto rapper’s favourite artists of the moment. He employs his buddies Kanye West, 2 Chainz, Young Thug, Travis Scott and Sampha, along with lesser known artists like Jorja Smith and DJ Black Coffee. Get It Together is a dazzling gem with the rising British singer Jorja Smith, set against the backdrop of Black Coffee’s South African house. Drake battles off his competitors in the Caribbean-flavoured Fake Love: “Look like you hidin’ your problems/ Really you never was solid.” Lyrically, Drake indulges in some of his favourite topics here. “I cannot tell who is my friend/ I need distance between me and them,” he croons over a jaunty guitar line in Madiba Riddim. More Life offers a varied palate of influences — from the old-school Passionfruit to the spring break mood on Teenage Fever, to the new-age Glow featuring Kanye West. Sampha takes centrestage in the atmospheric 4422 as does Skepta on Skepta Interlude. On the playlist’s closing track, Do Not Disturb, we get the classic Drake outro, reminiscing about the days when he first started rapping and how far he’s come. Some of his toughest raps lay rooted in the threatening Southern catch of Gyalchester: “They want me gone, wait for the kicker/ Bury me now and I only get bigger.” 

Essential tracks: Get It Together, Glow, Nothings Into Somethings, Madiba Riddim

Rating ****

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A well-crafted indie-rock gem

Spoon — Hot Thoughts (Matador)

Since 1996, Austin rock band Spoon has experimented with their music across eight albums. After releasing their predictably rock-solid album They Want My Soul in 2014, the band is back with the much more adventurous and playful Hot Thoughts. On their ninth studio album, the band continues building upon a synth-driven textured production. WhisperIllistentohearit blends a combination of dream pop elements, Eno’s vivacious drum beats, post-punk bass lines and textures of keyboard and tambourines in the backdrop. The album’s title track kicks things off with an up-tempo beat and features some great sonic atmosphere and explosive dynamics. I Ain’t the One is perhaps their harshest song ever and easily their saddest since Everything Hits at Once. Do I Have to Talk You Into It is a traditional Spoon jam with weighty crashing symbols that recall Kill the Moonlight, Spoon’s magnificent 2002 breakthrough album. The album highlight, First Caress, offers a gushing piano run that comes in right after the chorus and then vanishes just as quickly as it appears. Pink Up is a free-flowing experimental jam that clocks in at nearly six minutes, one of the band’s longest songs to date, and almost sounds like a warm-up for the album’s closer, the jazz-centric instrumental Us. With radiant effects and futuristic jazz elements, the five-minute finale ends the album on a beautiful and melodic note.

Essential tracks: First Caress, Pink Up, Hot Thoughts, Do I Have to Talk You Into It

Rating ***

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As ever, Marling takes vast steps forward

Laura Marling — Semper Femina (MA Records)

While we heard all that rhetoric on International Women’s Day last month, this is an album that explores ideas about female gender and individuality from a successful spokeswoman. And that makes it even more meaningful. Musically, this sixth album is a mix of Marling’s traits but incorporates a West Coast vibe with a laid back attitude, dotted with light strings and flowing guitar lines. The album is an oeuvre of influences and layers, blending elements of soul, jazz, pop and even trip-hop. Compared to her previous albums this one is notably far less temperamental, calm yet immensely engaging. The opener, Soothing, creates a sensuality with a menacing bass line and strings section that melts into her soft storyline. The throbbing deep chimes see Laura Marling at her creatively best, providing a sound that’s completely a new territory. The beautifully delicate Next Time lends as much influence from poetry and baroque music as folk and storytelling. In The Valley, her most graceful work to date, she sighs: “I know she stayed in town last night / Didn’t get in touch / I know she has my number right / She can’t face seeing us.” Wild Fire brings to mind Patti Smith’s Gloria, another stern and sensual track about a woman. The summit of the album is its finale, Nothing Not Nearly. Strumming her guitar with an enduring passion and chanting, “We’ve not got long, you know, to bask in the afterglow, once it’s gone it’s gone, love waits for no one,” it concludes with Marling counseling herself

Essential tracks: Soothing, The Valley, Nothing Not Nearly, Nouel

Rating **

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Chaos, love and anxiety set to gorgeous melodies

Jens Lekman — Life Will See You Now (Secretly Canadian)

The fourth full-length album by Swedish musician Jens Lekman is a pleasingly appealing collection of indie pop, drawing from a varied range of influences and styles. Life Will See You Now, as the name suggests, is an album about people at the peak of adulthood. It’s an album of sweeping gestures and high romance. Postcard #17 is a highlight of the album. It glows along beautifully while recurring piano, electric claps and bare percussion fuse into an expansive musical performance. Hotwire the Ferris Wheel starts with some amazingly vigorous beats before growing into an extensive odyssey of love. In What’s That Perfume That You Wear?, Lekman reminisces about an old love thanks to a whiff of passing perfume. “It’s got a sadness to it/ Knowing how it ended,” he laments. Lekman’s notable passion for storytelling continues here from previous records, although the subjects have shifted to darker terrain. To Know Your Mission is a story of a Mormon missionary in Gothenburg set at the time when Princess Diana died: “He listened to the tragic news/ Followed by the top ten tunes/ Will Smith, Puff Daddy, Chumbawamba.” Evening Prayer is one of the album’s more up-tempo tracks with lyrics that narrate the relationship between Jens and a friend who survived cancer. But his friend comforts him, “It helps me a lot to have a friend like you/When I saw how worried you were, I knew I had to be strong.” The instrumentation is balmy and danceable, but with a minor sense of melancholy. The laid back closer Dandelion Seed knits together every theme Lekman touches upon in Life Will See You Now. Every song carries a touch of magical realism, smudging the line between life and art 

Essential tracks: Dandelion Seed, How We Met: The Long Version, Postcard #17

Rating ***

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Top 10 Singles

Shape Of You..........................................................................Ed Sheeran (NM)

That’s What I Like.................................................................... Bruno Mars (CU)

Humble............................................................................ Kendrick Lamar (CU)

Sign of the Times................................................................... Harry Styles (NM)

Something Just Like This...............................The Chainsmokers & Coldplay (CU)

iSpy........................................................................... KYLE feat. Lil Yatchy (FD)

Mask Off......................................................................................... Future (CU)

Issues................................................................................. Julia Michaels (NE) 

Body Like A Back Road.............................................................. Sam Hunt (NM)

It Ain’t Me................................................................ Kygo x Selena Gomez (CU)

Legend: CU: Climbing Up; FD: Falling Down; NM: Non-mover ; NE: New Entry