Published on
October 20, 2023
Category
Features
Essential weekend listening.
This week’s rundown is by VF’s Kelly Doherty and Becky Rogers, alongside contributors Annabelle Van Dort, Emily Hill and James Hammond.
Valentina Magaletti
La Tempesta Colorata
(A Colourful Storm)
Recorded live at Cafe Oto in October 2021, La Temepsta Colorata showcases Valentina Magaletti’s expressive and highly inventive percussion. Hitting a rhythmic flow that’s tirelessly expanded on for 46 minutes, the unceasing creativity and improvisational flair on display here is a point in case for Magaletti’s rhythmic vision and the musical spaces she opens up when playing. Working an electroacoustic dimension into the performance with elements such as a well-primed delay pedal that shadows the intricate percussion, this one’s a worthy live document of a unique artist.–JH
Barry Can’t Swim
When Will We Land?
(Ninja Tune)
Scottish producer and multi-faceted artist Barry Can’t Swim’s Ninja Tune debut When Will We Land? blends digital productions and organic instruments. The album is versatile yet has a running cohesive narrative that embraces the sonic atmosphere of the club whilst retaining a complex emotional grasp on reality. The sound moves between jazz and afrobeat through to the corners of deep house and the more ambient sections of his palette.–EH
Sampha
Lahai
(Young)
Despite commanding a relatively lowkey profile, Sampha has steadily established himself as a core part of the British landscape. Having already worked with Frank Ocean and Solange by the time he released his debut album Process, the South Londoner had honed a distinctly melancholic voice, one that bagged him the Mercury Prize. Following a six-year break from his solo work–characteristically, in that period he collaborated with the likes of Kendrick and Stormzy–Sampha returns with more heartfelt, thoughtful experimental pop music. The production throughout is glossy and contemporary, yet explorative and unattached to trends. Lahai retains Sampha’s warm and reassuring vocal presence and pairs it with an anxious, somewhat skittish throughline. Beautiful and uneasy.–KD
Pip Blom
Bobbie
(Heavenly)
Once purveyors of indie-grunge, Dutch trio Pip Bom switch their guitars for synths and computers on their new album Bobbie, a move the band’s namesake Pip Blom had wanted for a while. As a result, Bobbie is packed with disco-drenched hits and overwhelming poptimism. Funky earworm “Is This Love?” sees them join forces with Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos for an all-out eighties synth-wave throwback. “Tiger” glistens with shimmering electronica and closer “7 Weeks” offers one last party with its R&B-led outlook. Bobbie is a lesson on how to change your sound and do it right.–BR
Ellen Arkbro
Sounds While Waiting
(W.25TH)
A new set of transfixing tones from Swedish composer Ellen Arkbro finds her exploring the power of sustained sound, texture and resonant space. Featuring organs that were recorded in a church in Sweden’s Unnaryd, Sounds While Waiting sets up its sustained chords as complex textural objects. Playing with Arkbro’s approach of letting sounds unfold, she moves through the space looking for points of focus. No rushing here with this beautiful work that calls out for deeper listening.–JH
Lee Gamble
Models
(Hyperdub)
On his latest record for Hyperdub, Lee Gamble once again embraces a high-concept approach, this time utilising synthetic voices in his deconstruction of ‘earworms’. Models is a haunting listen, full of disembodied voices and spectral choirs that sing in some indecipherable language—human enough to be emotionally engaging but with an underlying otherness that unnerves, like a sonic uncanny valley effect. Gamble created this cybernetic chorus by feeding phrases into a neural network that would attempt to sing them back, producing this phantasmagoria of pop music, familiar but just out of reach.–AVD
Bombay Bicycle Club
My Big Day
(Mmm… Records)
Bombay Bicycle Club return with their most joyous release yet, My Big Day. Packed with pure elation from start to end, the North London group are back to their indie-rock ways across 11 tracks of summer throwbacks, swaggering electro-pop and horn-led grandeur. And even six albums in, they’re still full of surprises with guest features from Chaka Khan (yes, really), Damon Albarn, Nilufer Yanya and more levelling up their nostalgia-filled pop. Elsewhere, “Rural Radio Predicts The Rapture” leans into frontman Jack Steadman’s crate-digging tendencies as fanfare breaks into crisscrossing samples, while their earlier fuzz-rock emerges in “I Want To Be Your Only Pet”. For a band once ready to pack it in, Bombay Bicycle Club have brought their genre-switching career full circle with My Big Day. It bridges the indie-rock, folk and electronic experimentation that once built their sound, making the familiar exciting once again.–BR
A.S.O.
A.S.O. Remixed
(Low Lying Records)
A.S.O. are an illusive duo that crafts sensual yet moody dream pop meets trip-hop hits from the depths of the Berlin underground. The brainchild of Lew E (Tornado Wallace) and Alia Seror-O’Neil, A.S.O. originally self-released a self-titled album back in June 2023 and their new EP takes shape as a remix 12″ featuring reworks by Maara, Cousin and the Lew E moniker. A gem that shifts between hypnotic trance through to energised breakbeat.–EH
Bex Burch
There is Only Love and Fear
(International Anthem)
On her transformative debut album, Berlin-based composer and percussionist Bex Burch infuses avant-garde minimalism with earthy resonances, crafting organic grooves alive with the unpredictable rhythms of the natural world. Verdant with blissful harmonics and pastoral field recordings, There is Only Love and Fear drifts and shifts with the serenity of a dream. Recorded across a series of improvisational sessions over a month-long stint in Chicago, Burch is joined by the crème de la crème of Chicago’s experimental music scene, featuring appearances from Ben LaMar Gay, Macie Stewart and Tortoise’s Dan Bitney.–AVD
Emma Anderson
Pearlies
(Sonic Cathedral)
Lush co-founder Emma Anderson releases her debut solo album. While the band she’s best known for dealt in the scuzz of shoegaze, Pearlies offers a looser path for Anderson to follow–one steeped in whimsy, twinkles and foreboding unease. It’s a pleasure hearing Anderson lean into her own sound. Pearlies might not be in an entirely different category to Lush, but it feels unique in its dream pop meets horror approach. Don’t call it nostalgia, here’s hoping for more to come from Anderson–KD
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