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A C Newman — Shut
Down the Streets
Best track: Encyclopedia
of Classic Takedowns Beth Orton —
Sugaring Season
Best track: Call
Me the Breeze Kendrick Lamar —
Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City
Best track: Poetic
Justice
Lux is Brian Eno’s first solo album since 2005. Consisting of one 76-minute composition in 12 sections, the album is divided into four tracks. Lux might as well be viewed as a single composition, one that evolves at a subdued pace, with various elements repeating or dissolving under Eno’s tranquil guidance. The piece was created as a commission to be heard in the Great Gallery at the Palace of Venaria, in Turin, Italy. The beautiful, haunting ambience of the album justifies confidence to a good degree, though the airy synths and strings that surround the piece are likely better suited for calmer environments. Rating ** Top 10 Singles Diamonds Rihanna (CU) One More Night Maroon 5 (FD) Die Young Ke$ha (CU) Locked Out of Heaven Bruno Mars (CU) Some Nights Fun (FD) Let Me Love You Ne-Yo (NM) Gangnam Style PSY (FD) Ho Hey The Lumineers (NE) We Are Never Ever Getting Back Taylor Swift (FD) I Cry Flo Rida (CU) Legend: (CU): Climbing
Up (FD): Falling Down
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A C Newman, leader of
TNP, brings us his third solo album. Teaming up with Neko Case here,
he offers a soother chronicle and a placid, very pleasing shift
towards folk, which lets us know where he stands spiritually and
melodically. Newman wrote the album after his mother’s death and
before his son’s birth, and as open and fresh as these songs sound,
they are also anchored by weighty lyrics about indecisiveness and
uncertainty. Case makes a cameo on Encyclopedia of Classic
Takedowns, adding her trademark howl to the sing-along chorus that
so often works its way into Newman’s songs. On the standout You
Could Get Lost, a repeated cliché attains splendid significance,
proving that simplicity is often a musician's best weapon. Hostages
is another good one, riding a sharp, snapping rhythm over
meticulously constructed melody. On I’m Not Talking and Do
Your Own Time Newman experiments with electronic elements to
maximum effect, while on the self-explanatory There’s Money In
New Wave, he changes role and becomes an advisor to his son. The
album really peaks at the end with a pair of downcast slow-builders
which strike just the right balance of melancholy and melody. Closer
Shut Down the Streets, which addresses the solitude of the
mourning process, is a worthy complement. "They should have
shut down all the streets," the song begins, before slipping
in to a dream sequence, "The roads we drove down all
lined/lined with people cap in hand/and crying/that went on for miles
and miles and miles." The metaphor extends through the song,
closing the album with solace and celebration.
Sugaring Season,
Orton’s sixth full-length and first since 2006, is her most
consistent and straightforward listen that isn’t cluttered by the
distractions of celebrity DJ remixes and electro beats. First single Magpie
is a gentle reminder of how much we’ve missed Beth Orton’s
voice, while Dawn Chorus is a quietly relaxed affair of
strummed guitars. Call Me the Breeze manages to be both gently
lilting and a terrific dance, while Orton's husband, US folk singer
Sam Amidon, adds a new dimension to her band with some excellent banjo
playing. Each song melts into the next, yet each has a very different
style, from the brooding and breathy Candles, the angst film
score of Something More Beautiful to the waltz ditty of See
Through Blue, Orton's tribute to her daughter. Most remarkable are
the moments when Orton allows her songs to creep slowly and carefully
from darkly ominous folk tunes into the works of obsessed majesty,
most prominent among them being Candles. Even though the
electronic textures of her early work have been dropped, there are
strange echoes of them floating within the organic accompaniment,
particularly at places where Jazz drummer Brian Blade’s beats urge
the rest of the band to rise above generic folk patterns. The album’s
most striking guest, folk singer Sam Amidon, supplies backing vocals
on an ambitious rewrite of William Blake’s Poison Tree.
Kendrick Lamar’s
long-awaited major label debut is a breakthrough, as he both
resurrects and reinvents West Coast hip-hop music. On his last two
independent albums, Overly Dedicated and # Section 80,
he showed an ability to dive into abstraction without ever losing his
grip on reality. On Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, the
instrumentals are expansive and brooding, and Lamar injects subtle
dashes of gentlemanly charm into each song. He tells stories of his
own perseverance, playing the role of a good kid in a mad city. All of
the guest appearances on the project assist as cameos with fitting
roles. Drake on the suave, love crooner Poetic Justice, Jay
Rock on the tale of never-ending ambitions in Money Trees, MC
Eiht spreading his knowledge on M.A.A.D City, and Dr Dre passing the
torch to Kendrick on Compton, all serve a thematic purpose. As the
spectre of violence and paranoia soars ubiquitously, we bear witness
to a narrative detailing Lamar’s transformation from a boisterous
teenager to more spiritual adulthood, shaped by his neighbourhood and
familial bonds of his insecure environment. Hit single Swimming
Pools is a party song that talks about the perils of alcoholism,
and is immediately followed by a 12-minute soulful reflection on
regional responsibility and senseless violence (Sing About Me, I'm
Dying Of Thirst). Then onward to Real, where he doubts the
lessons he’s learned in Compton are true, and the Dr Dre closer
Compton, where he pays dues to the world that made him ready for the
world despite all the tragedy he’s witnessed.
Brian Eno — Lux