The Single Life: Prince, Chvrches & More

23 July 2015 | 10:50 am | Ross Clelland

Perhaps it’s just the headlines scrolling by, but it could easily be a 21st century of update of one of his greatest glories, 'Sign O’ The Times'.

Never really felt the desire to shake Jimmy Barnes’ hand before. But his definitive, umm, ‘reclaiming’ of alternative national anthems, Khe Sanh and Working Class Man, from those knuckle-draggers certain they’re gonna catch halal from their next kebab was a bit inspiring. It showed even a comfortably situated old-style ‘rock star’ can still have a social conscience.

Similarly, there’s few more rockstar than Prince. But he too has noticed the often racially-based injustices and stupidities of the world around him, and feels the need to say something about it in song. Thus, Baltimore (Paisley Park/Warner). Perhaps it’s just the headlines scrolling by, but it could easily be a 21st century of update of one of his greatest glories, Sign O’ The Times. Some may fiddle as Rome burns, but Mr Nelson is likely dancing over the debris trying to stomp down the flames. As for shaking his hand – maybe not so much, as you feel he’d have small and soft extremities, and would grab for one of those small bottles of skin sanitiser as soon as your grip disengaged. 

Then again some can have second thoughts, if only about their own art. Laura Marling continues the cinematic theme of her recent Short Movie album by offering a ‘Director’s Cut’ of same. This would appear to mean that through touring she’s become more used to having electric band backing rather than relying on just her plaintive voice and single guitar. Her louder confidence - even in expressing her pain – might reinforce those comparisons to an earlier incarnation of PJ Harvey (i.e., before Polly got quieter in her expressions of anguish), but the slight recasting of I Feel Your Love (Caroline) is still an affecting thing.

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Continuing the PJ link – or maybe as we just wait for herself to provide the results of the art project that had her recording a new album in public as an art installation, much like people watching chimps flinging faeces at a wall in a safari park – we find Melbourne’s Jess Ribeiro moving away from the sort of semi-gothic alt-country of her first record to something a bit more visceral. Having oft-PJ collaborator Mick Harvey – that’s him at about 11 across and 6 down - having some input into her new direction, Hurry Back To Love (Barely Dressed/Remote Control) has some real guts and feeling to it. 

The backroom guys can sometimes step forward. As mixer and masterer Andrei Eremin has added textures to the works of Chet Faker, Miami Horror, and Hiatus Kaiyote among others. Anhedoniac (Higher Plains) is based around some well-constructed, if abstract, layers of electronic current which would be perfectly acceptable ambient noise before Kucka’s individual vocal lilt is added to it, making it pop music of a most modern sort. 

Then again, as much as ‘psychedelica’ now seems to cover a multitude of sins of various style and quality, Magic America make a foggy lysergic racket that certain fits the profile of anytime from 1966 to Tame Impala’s record before last. In keeping with Shock Me Sober’s (Future Popes) murky feeling of very real unreality, the visuals of that party we all only half-remember being at are offered so perfectly faded in monochrome, you can almost smell that stale and pungent mix of beer and cigarette butts from that VB can you found behind the lounge a week after the event.

There’s some similarly vintaged pop classicism in Major League’s Someone Sometime (Popfrenzy). It’s shinier than view through treacle of the above, but still has some scuffed bits to be more of an inner-suburban garage than somewhere with a nice view of the ocean. But when the girly harmonies kick in through the chorus it’s still pop music of a quality sort. And you’ll still be singing along with it in your head as soon as you’ve played it a couple of times. Which you very likely will.

Another view of what modern pop music should sound like is what Chvrches provide. The doubt, if there was one, was whether they could sustain their splendid and unashamed mix of influences from a variety of eras – with particular nod to machines developed somewhere around the mid-‘80s. However, Leave A Trace (Goodbye/Liberator) develops those synth lines a bit, but happily still leaves Lauren’s voice as the human heart of it. Already short odds for appearance somewhere around the middle of the next Hottest 100.

Not sure that Pretty Pimpin’ (Matador) would be an expected title for one of Kurt Vile’s self-described ‘drones and meanders’ through the human condition. It retains his underlying folk feeling, with that familiar slight grumpiness of a man who maybe hasn’t found the right shampoo and conditioner combination for the hair that hangs down around his shoulders in a manner now probably a little out of fashion, unless you’re singing around a campfire at a roots festival. Which is, a little ironically, not the place you’d most expect to find him.