FEATURE:
Warm Weather in the Forecast
IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz
Ten of the Best: Early Mercury Prize 2022 Predictions
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LAST September…
IN THIS PHOTO: Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor)/PHOTO CREDIT: Olivia Richardson
Arlo Parks won the Mercury Prize for her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams. It was a toned-down ceremony, as the pandemic meant things could not proceed as normal. Even though there is a long way to go until this year’s ceremony, there is every hope that things will return to how they were in 2019. I think that, as we are more than halfway between the last Mercury Prize ceremony and this year’s, I wanted to forecast ten albums that I feel will be in the shortlist when the announcements are made. If you are not familiar with the Mercury Prize, here are some rules and dates from last year:
“Saturday 18 July 2020 and Friday 16 July 2021 inclusive (although entries must be received by 12 May 2021). Entries received after 12 May 2021 will not be considered for the 2021 Mercury Prize
Artists must be of British or Irish nationality. Artists are considered to be of British or Irish nationality if (i) they hold a passport for either the United Kingdom or Ireland and/or were born in the United Kingdom or Ireland (“British” or “Irish” respectively) or (ii) they have been permanently resident in the United Kingdom or Ireland for more than 5 years”.
Although a lot of great albums from British and Irish artists will arrive between now and July, quite a few awesome ones have already come out. I reckon that the ten albums (one is a mixtape, but I think that it is eligible) below are primed to be in the running for the Mercury Prize 2022. We have the BRIT Awards coming soon, though I think the Mercury Prize is more varied and important. In recent years – and most years – the award has been given to a London-based artist. Will that change this year? We will have to wait and see! This year is going to some other shortlist inclusions come to the fore (including Wet Leg’s eponymous debut album and Charli XCX’s Crash). The second half of last year presented us with plenty of wonderful albums that, in my view, are likely to be among the shortlisted…
IN THIS PHOTO: Sam Fender
FOR this year’s Mercury Prize.
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Self Esteem – Prioritise Pleasure
Release Date: 22nd October, 2021
Label: Universal
Producer: Johan Karlberg
Standout Tracks: Prioritise Pleasure/Moody/Just Kids
Review:
“On her 2019 solo debut ‘Compliments Please’, Rebecca Lucy Taylor set out the stall for her project Self Esteem as an assertive but nuanced pop star. It’s with ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ that she’s upped the ante considerably. A powerful and potent look at - quite simply - the experience of being a woman in the present day, this is an album that encapsulates the fear, anger, dread and exhaustion that has become so commonplace in so many female lives. And yet, it’s a record that still offers comfort and levity; there’s a wittiness and dark humour that traverses the likes of ‘Moody’ - its opening line being the iconic “Sexting you at the mental health talk seems counter-productive” - and ‘Fucking Wizardry’, all the while remaining honest and raw, but free of judgement. When the record’s opener ‘I’m Fine’ closes with a voice note of a woman in her early twenties explaining that - if approached by a group of men - her friends’ reaction is to begin barking like a dog - because “there is nothing that terrifies a man more than a woman who appears completely deranged” - Rebecca’s response is to begin howling herself.
It’s also an album that sees Rebecca continually pushing herself to explore new sonic avenues; eclectic instrumentation and bold sonics are the backbone of the record, with tracks switching from spoken-word manifestos (‘I Do This All The Time’) through to more traditional R&B pop formats (‘Still Reigning’) via gigantic gospel-backed offerings (‘Prioritise Pleasure’), and back again. Most importantly, though, this is a record that doesn’t compromise. An uncomfortable and unnerving listen at times - as any album dealing in this level of openness arguably should be - it’s also an absolutely necessary one. Through her own personal stories - and those of others - ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ manages to challenge accepted norms and help to exorcise long-buried demons; it’s powerful to the last drop” – DIY
Key Cut: I Do This All the Time
Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Release Date: 3rd September, 2021
Labels: Age 101/AWAL
Producers: Inflo/Jakwob/Miles James
Standout Tracks: Woman (featuring Cleo Sol)/Protect My Energy/Point and Kill (featuring Obongjayar)
Buy: https://store.littlesimz.com/?ffm=FFM_902095af2ef34bcc0152372db822135e
Review:
“An uncompromising artist with a broad sense of scope, Little Simz came into her own on 2019's Grey Area; her Mercury Prize-nominated third album was a universally praised gem that seated her among Britain's top rappers. Arriving two years later, her follow-up is, if anything, more ambitious, with a personal nature that helps it connect squarely. While a range of subjects are explored within, Sometimes I MIght Be Introvert is, above all, a reckoning of Simz' public and personal selves, especially in relation to her recent success. Born Simbiatu Abisola Abiola Ajikawo, the album's title is a nod to both her identity and an acronym of her nickname "Simbi." A sprawling 65-minute opus that somehow never wears out its welcome, Introvert doubles down on Simz' preference for organic production, utilizing analog drums, bass, and guitar over which sweeping orchestral and choral arrangements expand and contract. Opening track "Introvert" acts as a sort of symphonic overture, introducing both Simz' internal struggles ("one day I'm wordless, next day I'm a wordsmith, close to success, but to happiness, I'm the furthest") and the album's cinematic richness. The journey that follows winds and weaves through past and present, examining the trauma of an absent father on the dazzling "I Love You, I Hate You" or radiating bravado on the compact "Speed" and the nimble "Standing Ovation." A bevy of interesting guests appear throughout, including dulcet-voiced Nigerian singer Obongjayar on the Afrobeat-inspired "Point and Kill" and British actress Emma Corrin (The Crown), whose theatrical diction on the album's various interludes serves as a sort of tonal counterpoint to Simz' earthy flow. Working with longtime producer Inflo, the two present a formidable pair, with innate chemistry and a tightly focused collaborative energy. As on Grey Area, there are no dry spells or dips in quality, just a master class in modern songwriting with heaps of poise and a beating, soulful heart” – AllMusic
Key Cut: I Love You, I Hate You
Adele – 30
Release Date: 19th November, 2021
Labels: Columbia/Melted Stone
Producers: Tobias Jesso Jr./Ludwig Göransson/Inflo/Greg Kurstin/Max Martin/Shellback
Standout Tracks: Cry Your Heart Out/Oh My God/Woman like Me
Buy: https://store.hmv.com/store/music/vinyl/30-limited-edition-clear-vinyl
Review:
“Because of the events in her personal life, 30 was initially pegged as a divorce album. But Adele goes far beyond wallowing in heartache, instead showing the entire spectrum of feelings that come with having one's life completely altered. Appropriately, it also periodically switches up her sound, and often to surprising effect. Her voice, able to wring an entire diary's worth of highs and lows from a single syllable, remains the focal point, but it's framed in new ways. Adele's endlessly lip-syncable music might be made for the more theatrical moments posted to TikTok, which caught fire and became a fresh vehicle for pop stardom in the interregnum between 25 and 30. As it turns out, though, her singing works well inside the stripped-down sonics of bedroom pop, which soundtracks so many of that video-sharing app's brief clips.
Take "All Night Parking," which arrives at 30's midpoint. Structured around a sample of "No More Shadows," a fluttering composition by the late jazz pianist Erroll Garner, it's an open-hearted love song dedicated to someone who's chipped away at Adele's post-breakup armor. Her voice lilts as she enthuses over the blush of first love, a girl-group chorus finishing her thoughts as they tumble from her. These refrains pop up all over 30, sometimes soothing, sometimes sassing; it's worth noting that most of the songs featuring them have vocals credited entirely to Adele, adding to the home-recording vibe.
There's also "My Little Love," a stretched-out R&B track that portrays the constant-learner status attendant to being a first-time parent. It has a windswept feel, with arpeggiated pianos and a gently rolling bassline accompanying her musings on motherhood; it also incorporates voice memos of Adele alone and with Angelo, with Adele telling her child at one point, "I feel like I don't really know what I'm doing" and, later, breaking down the anxiety she's felt since her divorce. It's a heavy, intense song that shows how even "happier" types of love can walk hand in hand with deep pain.
30 does have quite a few grand pop moments, too. "Easy on Me," the album's lead single, is a barn burner flaunting Adele's pipes; "Can I Get It," which pivots on a sneaky whistled hook, struts confidently as she looks for new romance, its carefreeness giving more juice to her longing for true connection; and "Hold On" combines gospel splendor with majestic strings as it provides a supportive shoulder for anyone plagued by self-doubt. The latter is one of three 30 tracks produced by Inflo, of the British funk collective Sault, and his dual embrace of retro aesthetics and of-the-moment reflections gives 30 an added charge.
"Complacency is the worst trait to have," Adele warns over the gathering-cloud guitar loop of "Woman Like Me." On that steely-eyed track, she's addressing a lover who isn't giving her the right amount of attention, standing up for herself as an object of desire and a woman worthy of devotion. But that mantra could also double as a mission statement for 30, a surprisingly personal album that showcases how Adele has matured, both as an artist and as a person, since the middle of the last decade. She could have built on her blockbuster success in a cynical way, copy-and-pasting "Rolling in the Deep" and "Hello." Instead, she lets her emotions guide her, with triumphant results. Grade: A-“ – Entertainment Weekly
Key Cut: Easy on Me
Joy Crookes – Skin
Release Date: 15th October, 2021
Labels: Sony/Insanity/Speakerbox
Producers: Barney Lister/Blue May/Eg White/Jonny Lattimer/Joy Crookes/Sam Beste/Tev'n
Standout Tracks: Poison/Feet Don't Fail Me Now/Skin
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/joy-crookes/skin
Review:
“Joy Crookes radiates a self-confidence that defines herself in terms of who she isn’t. Transcending labels with her blend of neo-soul and R&B, she takes all the hooks, choruses, and high value associated with pop and packages them into something wiser. After all, calls to soul, jazz, and Motown are considered the province of generations past, right? Wrong. Spiced up with modern production and relatable reference points, 22-year-old Crookes is the real thing.
In the past two years alone, she has been nominated for the BRITs Rising Star Award, was due to support Harry Styles pre-pandemic, and has sold out her headline shows across the UK and Europe. She imbues her music with a genuine soulfulness, all the while touching on vulnerable topics including mental health, generational trauma, politics, and sex.
Honouring her Bangladeshi-Irish heritage, ‘Skin’ places this pertinence front and centre. The title track’s lyrics are evident: "Don’t you know the skin that you’re given was made to be lived in? You’ve got a life. You’ve got a life worth living". Crookes dispenses wider encouragement and, despite the pain, remains optimistically intimate with her featherlight tones as orchestral soul-jazz weaves around her. Later in the album, her skin becomes the subject of a political narrative in ‘Power’, where she makes an ode to the female figures in her life while exploring the misuse of authority in the current social climate.
The misty-eyed haze lifts on songs like ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Wild Jasmine’ which are filled with guitar riffs and experimental sonics. Crookes twists through narratives of both new beginnings and old flames, finding value in tumultuous times. Inviting listeners to daydream, ‘19th Floor’ laments on belonging. With a string arrangement that wouldn’t feel out of place on the discography of Portishead, Crookes vocal comparably reaches untold altitudes. Across ‘Skin’, the 13 smooth jams showcase Joy Crookes not only as a vocalist or candid writer but as the new face of British soul. While many artists chase nostalgia, Crookes offers a different way forward by disregarding the traditional boundaries of classicism” – CLASH
Key Cut: When You Were Mine
IDLES – CRAWLER
Release Date: 12th November, 2021
Label: Partisan
Producers: Kenny Beats/Mark Bowen
Standout Tracks: Car Crash/Stockholm Syndrome/Meds
Review:
“CRAWLER certainly offers that needed change, even from its first moments. Fans have come to expect tremendous gut-punches from IDLES openers, but “MTT 420 RR” abandons the band’s roaring rock machine for a textured, quietly buzzing introduction. It’s dark and dense, dissecting a car crash in gruesome detail. The same motif reappears for “Car Crash,” this time framed amidst an abrasive industrial maelstrom and rapped verses, courtesy of Talbot.
CRAWLER is IDLES at their most bracing and destructive, set directly against their most intimate and adventurous material. Fans may recall when Talbot sang “Look Ma, I’m a soul singer!” on “The Lover.” Well, the record’s emotional cornerstone, “The Beachland Ballroom” makes good on that promise; Talbot takes on a hoarse, crooning howl while the band backs him up with their best Motown impression. Meanwhile, “Progress” is an otherworldly electronic dreamscape, one that transitions with a final click into the 30-second grindcore frenzy of “Wizz.” Of course, there are also the requisite amped-up highlights like “The Wheel” or “Crawl!,” as well as the unhinged dance-punk grooves of “The New Sensation,” all of which will fit well in the band’s blistering live sets.
Though there are no outright anthems on the level of “Danny Nedelko” or “Model Village,” the band’s more experimental bent also finds them looking inward more than they have since Brutalism. As much as CRAWLER is another step in the band’s evolution, it is equally an exploration of the dark corners of addiction and trauma. The record is largely devoid of IDLES’ signature political “sloganeering” and blaring affirmations. Hints of the band’s humor bleed through the lyrics, but they’re largely tinged with the edge of bitter self-analysis, as on “Crawl!” (“God damn I’m feeling good, said the liar to the congregation").
Yet, after all the record’s drug-addled nights, bloody car crashes, and searing self-hatred, the band once again ends the proceedings with a moment of hard-won hope. As Talbot explains, “Before his assassination, Trotsky knew that Stalin's men were coming over to kill him. He knew he was going to die. What did he do? After watching his wife out in the garden, he wrote in his diary, ‘in spite of it all, life is beautiful.’” Talbot closes the record on those same words. Once again, the band finds healing and beauty in their own chaotic vortex, and once again they invite everyone listening to do the same, joining them on their most exploratory and cathartic ride yet” – The Line of Best Fit
Key Cut: The Beachland Ballroom
CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
Release Date: 27th August, 2021
Labels: EMI/Glassnote
Producers: CHVRCHES
Standout Tracks: How Not to Drown (with Robert Smith)/Good Girls/Lullabies
Buy: https://chvrch.es/
Review:
“The best dance music is the kind that simultaneously gets you moving and breaks your heart. Some of the greatest club songs have infectious beats, innovative production, but more importantly, meaningful lyrics, and passionate performances. There’s nothing greater than a heartbreaking dance ballad, where the euphoric crescendo feels earned. The first track from Chvrches‘ fourth studio release, Screen Violence, the beautiful “Asking for a Friend”, starts with soft, ethereal synths, rising slowly like a beguiling sunrise, before Lauren Mayberry’s tart, soulful voice clears through the sound with moving words. “I don’t want to say that I’m afraid to die / I’m no good at goodbyes.”
As the achingly gorgeous song continues, the sentiment is heartbreaking. Yet, the shiny, glossy pop keeps the song moving and grooving, marrying the Stranger Things-esque atmosphere with the blissful feeling of a prime on-the-floor banger. Creating warm, emotional synthpop is Chvrches’ forte, and their latest album, Screen Violence, is the kind of bruised pop record that can only be made after a year in which loss defined so much pop art.
Screen Violence delivers for fans of soulful synthpop because it’s the kind of collection that feels emphatic and sympathetic. So much of synthpop can feel cold and distant, but Chvrches’ patented sound reaches for the heart: pulsing, thumping beats, swirling synths, bracing lyrics, and emotional vocals. Though so much of Screen Violence sounds synthetic, there’s a strong emotional core due to the performances and lovely lyrics. The synthesizers work to support the songs. It’s a gentle use of fuzzy, brushed synths that move away from the sharp, glassy sounds often associated with this kind of return to the New Romantic sound.
Although the 1980s impact Screen Violence, this record is not some dusty look back but a forward-thinking album that uses some important musical tropes of the decade to create vibrant and fresh music. Much of that vitality is due to the record’s address of the culture, particularly sexual and gender mores and roles. On the plaintive first single, “He Said She Said”, Mayberry sings of the complicated and contradictory standards on which women are judged. The lyrics are equal parts frustration and resentment, as she slams a lover who is gaslighting, the poignancy underscored by the repeated mantra, “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
Despite the prettiness of Mayberry’s voice, the spirited spark is glorious to hear on “Good Girls”, which rips apart societal, gendered expectations of “nice” girls by acknowledging sharper and sourer feelings and thoughts. Something is bracing and affirming of a defiant Mayberry insisting that “I won’t apologize again/and/I had never had a taste for liars.” The song’s righteous rebuke of hypocrisy is another moment when Chvrches find that fantastic meeting point in dance-pop when brainy, intellectual lyrics intersect with catchy beats.
Because so much of Screen Violence looks to the New Romantics, it seems fitting that Cure frontman Robert Smith joins Chvrches on the urgent single “How Not to Drown”. The song benefits from darker production than the other songs on the album; the music is slightly harder, the synthesizers somewhat more industrial, the beats hit tougher. There’s a beautiful, baroque feel to the expansive chorus, and Smith’s tight howl adds an invaluable drama to the epic song.
What makes Screen Violence such a successful album is that the songs reach for honesty and candor whilst simultaneously working overtime to get people moving. So much dance music chooses the hooks and beats over the heart, but Chvrches makes some of the most expressive pop music for the dance clubs. There are some gorgeous highlights on this album; there’s no filler, an impressive feat for a record with ten tracks. But the best is the touching final track, “Better If You Don’t”, in which the lyrics explore the despair of lost love, as Mayberry faces challenges such feeling “never as alone as I am back home” and admitting that “no one broke my heart quite like that man.” It’s a powerful capper to a record that embraces all of the sticky, torchy emotions of being human” – PopMatters
Key Cut: He Said She Said
Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
Release Date: 8th October, 2021
Label: Polydor
Producer: Bramwell Bronte
Standout Tracks: Get You Down/Long Way Off/Spit of You
Buy: https://shop.samfender.com/*/*/Seventeen-Going-Under-DIY-Black-Vinyl-Signed/745F0000000
Review:
“In a recent NME cover story, Fender said that this reflective period was influenced by the pandemic and his own experience shielding due to a previous serious illness: “It was such a stagnant time that I had to go inwards and find something, because I was so uninspired by the lifetime we’re living in,” he said. It forced him to reconsider why certain formative “stories keep appearing” and the humbling process of growing up. Young men think they know the world, but they rarely take time to get to know themselves.
You can pinpoint the stories that have shaped Fender the most, particularly the father and son dynamic on ‘Spit Of You’, where he ruminates on the passing of his grandmother and his father’s reaction to that seismic loss. He recognises both their flaws (“smashing cups off the floor / And kicking walls through / That’s me and you”) and compassion: “you kissed her forehead”, he remembers, knowing that “one day that’ll be your forehead I’m kissing / And I’ll still look exactly like you”. Finding common ground to communicate doesn’t come easy to sons with fraught relationships, though. “I can talk to anyone / I can’t talk to you”, Fender sighs in the chorus, no resolution in sight.
Defeatism rears its head often in Fender’s writing – he knows what he’s doing is deviant or flawed – but to point them out is not a display of machismo and cockiness, instead highlighting his own remorse. On ‘Mantra’ he flags that he’s “trying to be better but I fall at every hurdle” and is unable to shake the pressures of social media; there’s a knowingness in ‘Last To Make It Home’ also: “I am a soundboard to some / With myself I am not so forgiving”. A ray of hope occasionally breaks through, as on The Boss-aping album closer ‘Dying Light’, but it does so with a certain dimness: “I must admit I’m out of bright ideas to keep the hell at bay”
The world-weariness comes with slightly less conviction on the politically-motivated ‘Aye’ and ‘Long Way Off’, falling into the trap of “pointing at stuff angrily”, as he described some of his debut album to NME. But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom; two of the finest, funniest songs from this purple patch, ‘Howdon Aldi Death Queue’ and ‘The Kitchen’, exist solely as B-sides. It’s a testament to the conviction of this project that he can leave these songs out.
The musical reference points are similar to his those of debut – The War On Drugs, the aforementioned Bruce Springsteen – but the connection with producer and confidant Bramwell Bronte grows only stronger throughout this album. There are shades of Echo and The Bunnymen on the string-laden ‘The Leveller’, and The National on the stuttering drumbeat of ‘Paradigms’; his voice has the space to soar on these darker, grandiose compositions. This appears to be a musical friendship that could run and run for years.
If ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ was the sound of a young boy kicking out at the world, ‘Seventeen Going Under’ sees Fender realise that it can kick back a lot harder, and he counts every blow and bruise. But he seems to have found that time passes and that most wounds – even the deepest – will eventually heal, if he can allow them to” – NME
Key Cut: Seventeen Going Under
Tirzah – Colourgrade
Release Date: 1st October, 2021
Label: Domino
Producer: Mica Levi
Standout Tracks: Colourgrade/Hive Mind (featuring Coby Sey)/Sink In
Review:
“Though Tirzah continues to work closely with Mica and Sey (who sang on Devotion’s title track), her approach to song-making has changed drastically. Devotion was compiled from 10 years’ worth of material, with the intention of allowing each song to stand alone. Here, she aimed to leave things unpolished: “The roughness, the accurate recording, the time it takes to get places, it’s a bit of a statement on how things feel live,” she’s said. In this way, Colourgrade has a certain organismal quality: the mid-sentence throat clearing on “Beating,” or the sirening synths that illuminate Tirzah and Sey on “Hive Mind.” Bookended by a pair of tracks emulating conception and death, the album’s sequencing is reminiscent of life itself. The titular opener is Tirzah at her most unfamiliar: abstract lyricism, Auto-Tuned vocals, and uncanny, bird-like synth whistles signal a new beginning. On the other hand, saccharine closer “Hips” zaps all over the place, like a sudden rush to settle all your accounts: “Cold grips my mind/Cold hits my chest.”
But Tirzah leaves the middle tracks tantalizingly open-ended, as rootless as driftwood. She meditates on the existential, everyday life of a parent, bringing us into her new and ever-changing world. On “Recipe,” granular synths drenched in reverb seep through her voice, as if to wash away her anxieties. Or take “Crepuscular Rays,” a long, meandering song in the album’s second half that, according to Tirzah, is foundational to its structure. Moving through droning vocal manipulations and skeletal instrumentation, it unites the unearthly production with the fleshiness of the vocals. In nature, crepuscular rays are the angled beams of sunlight that appear near dusk or dawn. It’s no coincidence that Tirzah named one of Colourgrade’s defining tracks after a phenomenon of change.
We tend to measure life by the dots on the timeline, but Colourgrade studies all the distance in between, absorbing each moment and making space for it to settle. The songs move between rumination and enchantment, simulating the multiplicities of being alive. And while it’s a feat to watch these experimental songs come together, Tirzah isn’t trying to be anything beyond her music; the wonder is in the process. While she remains a very private individual, her music is generous even through its haziness. As Colourgrade highlights, love, family, intimacy are central to her everyday. Luckily, she allows us to partake in these familial affairs, and the outcome is spellbinding” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Send Me
Yard Act - The Overload
Release Date: 21st January, 2022
Label: Island Records
Standout Tracks: The Overload/Dead Horse/The Incident
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/yard-act/the-overload
Review:
“For all the expectation that surrounds The Overload, it’s sometimes clear that it’s the work of a band that’s barely been together two years. Yard Act are sporadically consumed by their own influences, particularly on Rich which, with its hypnotic two-note bassline, percussive clatter and distinctly Mark E Smith-ish vocal intonation – “skilled lay-BUUH in the private sec-TUUH” – sounds so much like the Fall circa Perverted By Language you start wondering if it’s actually a knowing double bluff, a wry comment on the media’s eagerness to bring up the Fall whenever a band with a vocalist who speaks rather than sings appears.
At other points, however, the sense of a band not yet fully developed feels oddly exciting. The Overload is a starting point for a number of routes, rather than a perfectly formed end in itself. Certainly, there are flashes of a smartness and depth to Smith’s writing that go beyond scabrous one-liners. Tall Poppies retells the saga of a provincial David Watts figure – confident, handsome, a skilled footballer – who decides to stay put in his home town, become an estate agent and settle down. Initially, it sounds perilously close to sneering at “little world” ambitions, as though there’s something unconscionable about wanting to own your own home and have kids. But the music slows, then collapses entirely, and Smith flips the script, in a way that recalls Arctic Monkeys’ A Certain Romance. The protagonist dies young, of cancer, and the narrator attends his funeral. “He wasn’t perfect but he was my friend / He wasn’t perfect but he was one of us,” offers Smith, before noting that the friend wouldn’t have liked the inscription on a commemorative bench, “because he wasn’t too bothered about long songs with loads of words”: Tall Poppies lasts nearly seven minutes and its lyrics cover two sides of A4 paper. It isn’t the most complicated message – we’re all different, we can all theoretically get along – but it feels genuinely affecting and powerful in the context of an album so obsessed with divisions and spitting bile at the other side.
It’s a theme picked up – albeit with the winning caveat “it’s hippy bullshit, but it’s true” – on the closing 100% Endurance, both the album’s best moment and its most atypical. Decorated with gentle electric piano, it’s a song that seems to have its musical roots less in the post-punk era than an aspect of Pulp’s oeuvre, long buried in the popular imagination beneath the radio-friendly anthemics of Common People and Do You Remember the First Time?: the lengthy, conversational storytelling of Inside Susan and David’s Last Summer. Its narrator is hungover after a night digesting the news that sentient life had been discovered on other planets: rather than teaching humanity anything about the universe or the meaning of life, “not one of them had any clue what they’re doing here either”. This development doesn’t bring about an existential crisis, but a glorious, warm crescendo about the power of the human spirit: “Grab anybody that needs to hear it … scream in their face: / death is coming for us but not today … all that you ever needed to exist has always been within you.” It’s a sharp U-turn from the preceding track’s suggestion that everything is “so bleak that giving your two pence on anything isn’t worth a fucking thing”: a sudden, infectious blast of optimism, from a band who currently have a lot to be optimistic about” – The Guardian
Key Cut: Rich
PinkPantheress – to hell with it (Mixtape)
Release Date: 15th October, 2021
Label: Elektra/Parlophone
Producers: PinkPantheress/Oscar Scheller/Izco/Jkarri/Mura Masa/Zach Nahome/Dill Aitchison/Kairos/ Laferme/Adam F
Standout Tracks: Pain/Just for Me/Reason
Buy: https://shop.pantheress.pink/uk/to-hell-with-it.html
Review:
“All aboard the hype train; Pinkpantheress is driving, and she knows exactly what direction she wants to go in.
Every now and then, there's an artist that comes along that gets all the music editors excited. They'll be young, smart, their music will cover a variety of bases, and they may well be at the forefront of a new internet or social media trend.
There's no doubting Pinkpantheress ticks all of these boxes. Born in 2001, the London based artist has come to prominence over the last 10 months, utilising TikTok to astounding effect; from dropping clips of tracks into the void in December until "someone notices", to her song being sampled by a track hitting number four in the UK charts in July, her career so far has been as shortly effective and smartly curated as her songs. All whilst still studying film, and managing to maintain a degree of anonymity; her debut mixtape 'To hell with it', released on a major label, comes with a lot of external pressure and expectation - both from an industry of suits eager to hold on the coattails of the next youth phenomenon, but more importantly, of a young, savvy and diverse fanbase.
There is a simple reason why her music has captured the attention so quickly; it is very, very good. It also just happens to be music that absolutely captures much about current youth culture; her sound genre hops, picking pieces from UK garage, K-Pop, 2-step, and emo. Her use of samples is both sweetly nostalgic and knowingly urbane; from Sweet Female Attitude's UK garage classic 'Flowers' in Pain, through the 'Hybrid Theory' era Linkin Park on 'Last Valentines', to Pain's sample of the 90s drum and bass classic 'Circles' (which in itself sampled its hook from 70's jazz-funk classic 'Westchester Lady'), there's a complete lack of pretension here, mirroring a generation of music fans no longer divided by the tribal fan culture of the past. Pinkpantheress is younger than half of the samples here - she doesn't care if you were a mosher or a raver, she just knows if the music makes you feel good, then that's all you need.
But this mixtape is much more than just an astute collection of samples; her voice is a key ingredient here. Much like the UK garage vocalists of yore, her tone is sweet and clear, but with a conscious detachment, owing a debt to the likes of PC Music's Hannah Diamond and QT. Her melodies are catchy, simple, and effectual; while she might mine her Spotify library for musical ideas, there's no doubt she's capable of littering her songs with memorable hooks. The production too is fantastic; clean and uncluttered, it allows the multicolour palate of influences to shine through. And while the overall effect is both at once evocative and euphoric, it's also a much calmer and more sober experience than ketamine daze of vaporwave, or the MDMA whirl of PC Music.
It's exciting to hear an artist so assured at such an early stage of her career. Yet to play live, she's letting this project do the talking on its own terms. She's acknowledged that she's an internet kid, and this is truly an internet album - full of self-aware wistfulness and post-ironic references, it avoids the pitfalls of many other flash-in-the pan internet culture records by also being genuine; genuinely nostalgic, genuinely sweet, genuinely interesting, and genuinely great” – CLASH
Key Cut: Passion