The Guardian - 06.09.2019

Section:GDN 12 PaGe:14 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 17:12 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

Pop

Artist Chrissie Hynde

Album Valve Bone Woe

Label BMG

★★★★☆

Chrissie Hynde has

off ered up various

justifi cations for

her latest record, a

collection of jazz-

facing covers of

classic tracks. One is that she found

belated inspiration in her 1994 duet

with Frank Sinatra; another is a

newfound desire to sing melodies

• having recently observed their
  “decline” in popular music. Or,
  perhaps, she is simply following
  the winds of change: according to
  the Pretenders frontwoman, the
  “demise of rock” has prompted a
  jazz resurgence, and she wants in.
  Maybe Hynde is so keen to
  rationalise her decision because
  rerouting along a gentler, jazzier
  path could be viewed as a rather
  hackneyed move for a 67-year-old
  rock star. But Valve Bone Woe is
  neither trite nor tedious.
  Instead, it sees Hynde drown out
  cliche (and, occasionally, any tune)
  with her inbuilt insouciant cool and
  disregard for anything approaching
  stuff y tradition. Alongside jazz,
  she calls on dub, psychedelia and
  faintly disorientating electronica
  to enhance the otherworldliness
  of her alternative American
  songbook. There are offb eat,
  luxuriously melancholic versions
  of jazz standards and moody bossa
  nova numbers (including a Kinks
  song inspired by the genre). She
  injects unsettling strangeness into
  Beach Boys and Nick Drake tunes,
  and, miraculously, manages to
  make a Rodgers and Hammerstein
  composition sound rock’n’roll.
  Despite choosing multiple songs
  famously performed by vocal
  powerhouses (Streisand, Simone,
  Sinatra), Hynde’s voice is rarely the
  main attraction.
  Rather, it is the attitude she
  radiates – one of aspirational
  nonchalance, lightly worn swagger
  and subtle subversiveness – that
  makes Valve Bone Woe so inviting
  and interesting: less an indicator
  of impending irrelevance than a
  reminder of the thrills Hynde is still
  capable of producing.
  Rachel Aroesti


• 
  

  The Guardian
  Friday 6 September 2019

  
  

Kindness

Something

L ike a Wa r

★★★☆☆

Kindness returns

with an album of

tender alt-pop

grooves. It’s a

quiet storm of

love and self-

realisation, with

Robyn and

Sampha lending

their voices. TA

Muna

Saves the World

★★★☆☆

Alternating

between sad

ballads, mordant

electropunk and

glitchy synthpop,

the LA trio’s

second album is

a collection of

accessible tunes,

wit and grit. RA

Mahalia

Love and

Compromise

★★★☆☆

Solid new album

from one of

Britain’s

promising new

R&B voices. The

Leicester singer-

songwriter

blends smoked-

out soul,

dancehall and

pop choruses. AC

Sandro Perri

Soft Landing

★★★★☆

This reverie

of an album

opens with 16

minutes of soft

circularity , and

never grows

more insistent.

Instead, it is

insidious, its

tendrils creeping

everywhere.

Gorgeous. MH

In brief

Reviews by

Tayyab Amin,

Rachel Aroesti,

Aimee Cliff ,

Michael Hann

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