You are Miles Kane. By a mixture of accident, design, luck, and talent, you find yourself in one of the UK’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful side-project combos of the last decade or so. But then the other main guy in The Last Shadow Puppets– that Alex Turner fella – goes home to his fairly well-regarded day job with Arctic Monkeys - and so you’re a solo artist again. But you’ve found you kinda like this collaboration thing. So by a mixture of accident, design, luck, talent, and the people you now know, Loaded (Columbia) comes with a fair degree of input from Jamie T – which stylistically kinda makes sense too. Result is an utterly English rolling singalong, owing a lot to classic glam-era T.Rex in its manner - and we haven’t even got to the latter end of it where Lana Del Rey’s distinctive breathy tones join the choruses. Between any and all of those elements, failure seems unlikely.
There was the belief, the hope, that the result of last year’s equal marriage non-binding double-talking plebiscitey thingy might have made #Straya a better - or at least more accepting - place. Yeah, maybe. Although the fire and brimstone that rained down upon me earlier this week from self-described ‘good Christians’ when I casually suggested on certain social media that a rugby union footballer might not be the definitive source of information on the topic of gender preference did surprise. But like Jen Cloher on her gloriously eviscerating Analysis Paralysis, Cash Savage & The Last Drinks ask the more than reasonable question as to whether it was anybody’s business other than their own who should have a say on who should marry who. Better Than That (Mistletone) is Savage rawly and rightly savaging those who were given licence – and those who gave it - to vomit their bile in the name of whatever god they want to misquote. As ever, utterly from her guts and her heart – maybe even a bit moreso than usual.
Relatedly, hopefully we’re drifting toward that place where the quite towering ache of King Princess' Talia (Zelig Recordings) is just taken on its own terms, rather than the stated same-sex attraction that centres it. This is simply about loss, about memory, about love. And is quite brilliant at enunciating it. Too many of us have curled up at the foot of the bed. If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. The artist occasionally known as Mikaela Strauss still has the benefit (and weight) of being first artist signed to Mark Ronson’s own label, and a perhaps surprising endorsement from Harry Styles to bring her the wider audience she so deserves.
As a certain local songwriter of quality once noted “If you love someone insane – why would you want them to change?” Somewhere along a line from that particular pearl of Tim Rogers wisdom, The Wombats’ Matthew Murphy comes at it a little differently on Turn (14th Floor): “You could give an aspirin the headache of its life” before a final admission that “Maybe it’s the bullshit I miss…”. Tord and Dan nod sagely in agreement. Fair points all round. Never quite as big in the US as in their English homeland or here – would that be simply because of the name? Surely not. OK, maybe. The visuals now attached are fairly unsubtle in their portrayal of the object of affection’s ‘difficult’ nature, as Americans apparently like things spelled out for the them in as unsubtle a manner as possible. This may help further their acceptance there, allowing for the otherwise very British nature of it.
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There’s an awful lot of dysfunctional-to-broken relationships out there, and they really do make for good musical fodder. Eliza Hull’s voice and art is developing even if the heart is still liable to trainwreck. Hard Way (GagaDigi) is the learning experience and examination of self to work out what went wrong. Hint: he was a manipulative dick. Her music appears to be changing too – this having a little more a human basis to it. The synths that used to cradle her replaced here by less mechanical backing. This is modern – and yet timeless – soul music. A touch of the Meg Macs is no bad thing, but Hull’s voice is certainly her own. This is just well-crafted, well-made, and genuine.
Conversely, our man Spod still rushes through his mood and muse like the batteries in his Casio are about to run out, and there’s not a $2 Shop handy. But here on Day In The Sun (Rice Is Nice), with a backdrop of some of the less glamourous elements of LA looking just seedy enough in the background, he waxes philosophical on his place in the world, and the eternal art vs having a life equation. It all squeaks and squelches as it should, you smile and clasp your arm around his shoulders in consolation and stroll off for a quiet beer. All this in one minute and 41 seconds. That’s clever.
When the press release felt the need to describe this as ‘delicate and punchy’, I approached with caution. But Adelaide’s Paradise Club somehow find that tricky balance between being that bit emo and that bit melodic. Away (Independent) is thoughtful, but not self-consciously or archly so. There’s a slight clench to the feels involved, but they never quite forget they’re making pop music here. Expect community radio attention and spot plays on triple j. Yeah, somewhere around that sometimes uncomfortable middle ground for a band.
