You can’t really begrudge a band that, after years of the usual corporate and legal litigation shenanigans, gets control of their own art back and has a play with it. Then again, not many would take it as far as Radiohead have: recasting, renovating, and even adding a lick of paint to the rumpus room to OK Computer and making something entirely new like OKNOTOK. Fewer still would take some of their twenty-years-on second thoughts and releasing them as singles, up to and including doing the full-production promo video to go with it. Such as it is with Lift (XL Recordings) where we find squinty Thom in a lift (ah, I see what you’ve done there…) as that slightly creepy guy from upstairs in your block of flats – you know, the one with the man-bun – as various increasingly surreal passengers and floors follow its ups and downs (ah, see what I did there..?), as the music unfurls in its usual thoughtful – if slightly whiny – way.
Of course, similar musical intersecting with legal issues can trip up your career progress. Just as the hype was building early in the year, Superorganism fell foul of that trap for young players of not getting clearance for all the samples in Something For Your M.I.N.D (Domino). Thus, the eight-piece cut-and-paste unit – based variously in London, with a branch office in Maine USA - and featuring members from there, there, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand among other places had their future delayed. As various parts of that short history lesson may suggest, there’s a bit of Gorillaz and even The Avalanches about what they do – even if the title sounds like it was appropriated from King Gizzard. Kinda. Result: could be anything, and hopefully won’t take 17 years to work out what happens next. PS: Contains whale.
So, that’s changes made for artistic and legal reasons. Or you can adjust things to show off another side of your talents. Thandi Phoenix – already in receipt of many good words via her recent support spots with Vera Blue and a BIGSOUND appearance that had the right people stroking their chins. There’s already been a dancefloor-aimed version of Standing Too Close (Motto/Neon), but this remodelling makes it a soul song by a helluva soul singer. Possibly the next thing after the next big thing.
Of course, the great white soul voice of the early ‘10s – with the attendant handful of Grammys and even a Bond theme already on the resume – is Sam Smith. There’s been radio silence for over two years, but Too Good At Goodbyes (Capitol) covers all the necessary bases for career resurrection: the warble that reaches emotional breaking point just as the gospel choir kicks in to reinforce the emotions at play. Which, naturally, is young Smithy going through a messy relationship breakup – which is always a handy basis for album of heartbreak and angst. But a distinct warning sign if you’re entering a relationship with him when he’s got a new record due.
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Probably more intimate while covering some of the same emotional terrain, Melanie Horsnell makes heartaches past – and almost invariably future – as thought over and felt as much, if not quite as widescreen and buffed to a high gloss as the above. I Learned To Love From Love Songs (Independent) is personal, reflective, and nothing if not honest as she ponders her own creative process, and obviously other stuff. A European tour beckons, and there should always be an audience for music such plain and honest craft.
As the occasionally woozy and echoey guitar sways through, adding an almost deliberately ‘90s note to a music where the deliberately placed ‘Sha-la-las’ seem to have it from a few decades earlier, give or take, Sloan Peterson is making an individual noise. The way I Want You (Mirror) unfolds in an idiosyncratic way which in its archness could be taken as some sort of hipster conceit, maybe even taking the piss from itself. But the sincerity in her delivery makes it more a bit more sincere than that – in an alternate universe, this would be our next Eurovision entrant. Or possibly already was, in about 1963.
But the world being what it is, and no matter how many strong women have already appeared in this text, there is still a place for Insecure Men. For the purposes of this eponymous exercise it comes down to two of them: probably most notably Saul Adamczewski of Fat White Family, with Ben Romans-Hopcraft of Childhood – we seem to have a number of generation covered right there. But it’s more of a collective than a band proper – able to operate as up to a ten-piece, with the inclusion of various musical acquaintances up to and including Sean Lennon. Subaru Nights (Fat Possum) follows on nicely from their initial half-joking covers album, where they somehow managed to homage everyone from The Carpenters to Springsteen, via Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game. It all seems delivered with an ongoing self-deprecation which some will find endearing, but will have others wanting to punch them in the face. Your choice.
