The Single Life: Florence + The Machine, Kendrick Lamar & More

12 February 2015 | 3:59 pm | Ross Clelland

The good, the bitter and the odd.

And welcome to promotion and release cycle for 2015, as artists and their handlers get around to putting out that next thing you’ve been waiting for. But first, they to prove to you, dear consumer, as to how much the music of your chosen purveyor has stayed the same, or changed for the better - or worse.

For their part, Florence + The Machine appear to be trying to pique curiosity rather than reveal too much of their upcoming album. How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (Island) is an odd enterprise. That so-identifiable voice – and major selling point – of Ms Welch’s is present for a couple of snippets early on, before fading away leaving blasts of baroque brass to ebb and flow for the rest. It could be almost an overture to the record rather than a full-scale song offering, with the bonus of a suitably enigmatic video to puzzle on and talk to other interested parties about.

Kendrick Lamar is probably first among equals of those that could be described as alt.Kanyes. The original continuing his crusade to be considered a complete dick when overlooked at award shows, any freedom of choice is to be encouraged. This does not mean that Kendrick isn’t going to get up in your grill. The Blacker The Berry (Top Dawg) isn’t a hymn in praise of an all-but-defunct phone manufacturer, but a truly fearsome howl of black identity. Through ominous treated vocals, the bitterness is real – but then it sets itself apart and above from so much prideful hip-hop crotch grabbing by admitting some of the hypocrisy in its own stance. Musically, politically, intellectually this is quite something.

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One absolutely and admittedly changing her musical approach is Laura Marling. Her plaintive folk purity will now be augmented by a band, and even some (gasp!) electric guitar – insert potential calls of ‘Judas!’ from the crustys. The upcoming album, and its previewing single False Hope (Virgin/Caroline), perhaps reference her unsettled life of the past few years, as she pinballed between leaving her safe European home, moving to Los Angeles, an ill-starred relationship with a Mumford or one of his accursed offspring, before eventually returning to the comparative security of England and family. The voice is still a thing of odd strength and fragility, whether a denser backing will obscure that remains to be seen or, erm, heard.

One who can pick the right voice – and often a female one – to go with his songs is the redoubtable Paul Mac. Ten years on from the last project under his own name, and with a long list of collaborations, production, and other musical duties in the interim announces his return to the ‘here’s me with a guest vocalist’ style with State Of War (Eleven). Main voice in question here is the soul-ish tones of Kiri Puru, with further rhythmic interjections from Goodwill. This clatters and bangs as you’d expect, with the forthcoming full-length project having others aboard to say the words of the calibre of Megan Washington, The Reels’ Dave Mason, and Ngaiire among others.

Something akin to that, but likely with a somewhat lower budget and less bulky address book, the name-slightly-altered-due-to-threat-of-being-sued-by-a-community-event t:dy t:wns. Peter Joseph Head makes sometimes wistful, often breezy, op-shop pop - sometimes with a dark core, as here on Bare Chested Boys (Airpunch). Elizabeth Mitchell of Totally Mild is the distracted voice. Sui Zhen and Pikelet’s Evelyn are among those taking the lead on the tracks of Sistercity album, which will find friends at community radio, just like it’s designed to.

Oh, you still want to talk extraordinary female voices? Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes has to be right up there. It’s getting on to three years since their debut, Boy & Girls, with its individual mix of country roots, soul, blues, all played while listening to old Led Zep records in the other room. Don’t Wanna Fight (Rough Trade/Remote Control) is full of the piss, vinegar, and slightly cracked heart that’d be familiar.

Meantime, Alabama gents know that southern men tell the best jokes. Being one of them – although having now moved to Nashville – Jason Isbell went on to make one of the great albums of the last decade with Southeastern, a thing of such honesty and grace that just absolutely lodged in your head and your heart. He’s getting around to recording its follow-up, but to tide us over, releases as duet single with his equally sincere and pure-voiced wife, Amanda Shires. Sea Songs (Southeastern) features two perfectly-suited covers in Mutineer by Warren Zevon – yes, the Werewolves Of London guy who had so much more, so much better, in his own canon – a longtime live favourite, and the perhaps slightly more unexpected I Follow Rivers from Lykke Li, its slightly electronic European atmospheres here given an acoustic beauty. Both are little glories.

And a long way from any of that, the return of Hot Chip’s uncomfortable awkward dance is represented with Huarache Lights (Domino). It is pop music, sort of. You sing along, until you realise what you’re singing. It feels good, sort of. But there remains something about them – perhaps in the care taken in the construction of what they do – that is compelling and distancing all at once. It’s clever, but maybe is just that little bit too aware of it. Doesn’t stop you from liking it though.

Not short of a vision, local chamberpop combo Piperlain preview a concept album centring on the delicate, difficult, and painful time of caring for a parent in decline. You congratulate their courage on wanting to share the experience – it may even be a form of self-therapy to create something from the struggle. Embrace (Audiofunk) obviously cares, but maybe the personal discomfort for them us illustrated in a slightly stilted feeling in offering an intimacy which thankfully only a few will fully empathise.