Sometimes, you can work out whether you’re going to appreciate an artist simply by the company they keep. Kali Uchis will increasingly be a fixture on radio and Rage playlists, as well as your ‘If you like…’ Spotify and Apple suggestions over coming weeks – actually, not just yours, but just about everybody’s.
An incomplete list of her collaborators and supporters would start at Snoop Dogg, go via Tyler The Creator and Bootsy Collins – and then take some idiosyncratic turns for her just-out but possibly inaptly-named Isolation album. Throw in touring with Lana Del Rey, and it appears there’s no one pigeonhole big enough in which to try and compartmentalise her. Oh, did we mention she also busts out into her native Spanish at various points?
Anyway, early focus tracks from the new record include the one done with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker – which meanders as you’d expect – and this wonky shiny thing, In My Dreams (Rinse/Virgin). Upon listening, there’s no surprise that the producer and main inputs are from Damon Albarn in full Gorillaz mode. Perfectly cockeyed pop, unrelated to anything she’s done before, except for the voice that will likely become ever-more an identifiable presence.
Although surrounded by altogether more likely company, Jack Ladder about to offer up the record you always knew was in him. Returning from touring various corners of the world with the somewhat likeminded Alex Cameron – actually as part of Cammo’s all-star backing band with the glorious Holiday Sidewinder among others.
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Feel Brand New (Self-Portrait/Terrible) is full of Jack the lad’s usual baritone gravitas, but perhaps with a slightly lighter touch and flourishes like those waves of ‘60s-style organ to make it even more approachable. About to reconnect with his own team of talents – the smoothly funky Donny Benet, and the ‘one-man cabaret act’ and art happening that is Kirin J Callinan among them – and you are advised to get on the bandwagon early.
Frank Turner’s friends and tourmates and supporters have famously included the likes of Billy Bragg to Jason Isbell. But touring the political clusterfuck that is America in 2018 might have broken him – or at least left him looking for the answers as to why in Make America Great Again (Xtra Mile/UMG). Sloganeering observation remains his stock-in-trade, but here it’s with a disbelieving and bemused edge that’s almost like a case of PTSD.
Results of this survey include those usual but increasingly meaningless words like ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’, more realistic cultural contributions such as the taco truck, and just bizarrely, Slipknot. May god – or whoever – have mercy on their souls. Mr Turner, if having any sense left, has hopefully scurried back to his safe European home and pulled the doona over his head to recover.
The singular Mark Oliver Everett has almost specialised in keeping his audience guessing as to musically where Eels may wander. String quartets to almost metal-ish power trio, it’s all been wondrous in their own idiosyncratic way, but Bone Dry (E-Works) twists back on itself to be almost exactly what you might have always wanted Eels to be to salve and reinforce your own aches. There’s a broken heart, yet another relationship shot to shit, and a general observation of the human condition, and the internalised hell that can be. Delivered with the man called E’s typical deadpan weariness, and illustrated with perfectly anachronistic stop-motion animation, all is absolutely (un)well in the world.
Meantime, is what Reef are now doing considered ‘timeless’ - or just the same thing they were doing in 1996? And does it even matter to those still interested who’ll go see their upcoming tour just to hear Place Your Hands again? Hint: You can arrive late, it’ll be in the encore. For added novelty and nostalgia value My Sweet Love (earMusic) is presented as a duet with Sheryl Crow - also currently touring. Hint: You can arrive late, All I Want To Do will similarly also likely be in the encore. So anyway, this is all call-and-response singalong, and so traditional there’s even a call out cue for old mate to do the big strangulated guitar solo. Overall, it and they are all a bit greyer, all a bit beardier, and all a bit exactly how you think it’ll be.
Twenty years or more into a band’s career, keeping interest and even relevance can be an issue. Resin Dogs seem to handle it by disappearing for extended periods, and somehow timing their returns just as you start asking “Hey, whatever happened to…?”. Things are further freshened up here with the inclusion of the terrifically-named Kel On Earth from the terrifically-named Bankrupt Billionaires as the voice on So Long (Hydrofunk), a well put together bit almost-Avalanches-style cut-and-pasting where a relationship breakdown becomes a big soul lament. Question: Might it do better, or be noticed on its merits more, if it didn’t have the ‘heritage band’ name on it? Just sayin’.
Then there’s always the not-overly-angsty scruffy rush of that certain brand of contemporary Australian punk. Stumps – and what a good #Strayan name that is in itself – have a good-natured grumble and yell through We’ll Do It Anyway (Independent). It reels around the room, Kyle and the music almost on the verge of collapsing in a heap as they race each other to the end. It’s a photo finish. Possibly a selfie, with a schooner of Resch’s in the centre of the frame.
