BABYBIRD
HAPPY STUPID NOTHING
PSYCHO MAFIA RECORDINGS★
While Stephen Jones might have
seemed quiet this last decade,
online he’s been spawning a
myriad of tunes under multiple
names. Happy Stupid Nothing
compiles 17 of the best from the
Babybird nest, their style only
slightly less eccentric than his
early lo-fi recordings. Few hearts
will be cold enough to resist
Feel’s desperate drama, or
In Place Of Love’s intimate,
piano-led declaration of
commitment, while there are
also anthems-in-the-making,
like Vacuous and Bad Feeling,
and curios like the instrumental
Football. Just don’t mention
You’re Gorgeous. WWMIKE + THE
MECHANICS
OUT OF THE BLUE
BMG RIGHTS
★★
Who buys Mike + The Mechanics
records? Ever seen one in
anyone’s home? And who’d pay
to hear Mike Rutherford recreate
eight of the band’s biggest tunes
with current singers, Andrew
Roachford and Tim Howar,
adding three new songs as bait,
plus six acoustic recordings?
Well, maybe there are folk who
wish someone would shout
“Guitar!” instead of “Come
on, Mike!” before Word Of
Mouth’s solo, and others who
think the keyboards Van Halen
eBayed after they Jump-ed would
improve All I Need Is A Miracle.
That’s the miracle. WW
GIRLI
ODD ONE OUT
PMR / VIRGIN EMI★
To spot some of Charli XCX’s
collaborators among the credits
for Milly Toomey’s debut explains
a lot: Odd One Out’s fuelled
by a similarly unruly, brattish
energy. “No one told us... how
much it hurts to be young,”
Young warns her audience,
but the empowering Hot Mess,
the vigorously candid Up &
Down, and the electro-stomping
Deal With It remind older
listeners that youth can be fun,
too. Despite a potpourri of
infl uences, from Day Month
Second’s acid squiggles to Friday
Night Big Screen’s punkish
guitars, those anthemic choruses
can’t be repelled. WWROBERT ELLIS
TEXAS PIANO MAN
NEW WEST RECORDS★
“I’m fucking crazy,” sings
30-year-old, Texas-born Robert
Ellis on his fi fth album’s (he self-
released his fi rst LP, The Great
Rearranger, in 2009) opening
track, but he sounds anything
but, unless evoking the mastery
of the likes of Harry Nilsson on
When You’re Away and Elton
John on the punchy Passive
Aggressive are signs of insanity.
There are hints, too, of Billy Joel
on Aren’t We Supposed To Be
In Love, while on He Made Me
Do It, he adds a little doo-wop
for good measure. Best of all
is Nobody Smokes Anymore,
a witty tirade that Lemon Twigs
fans will adore. WWTHE CHEMICAL BROTHERS
NO GEOGRAPHY
VIRGIN EMI
★
LION BABE
COSMIC WIND
LION BABE MUSIC★★★★
Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons
are often credited with making
psychedelic dance music, and
their ninth album will only boost
that reputation. No Geography,
though, is more than this, and
consequently well-named: it’s so
dizzyingly anarchic as to be
chaotic. A carnival of cut and
pasted vocal samples and
combative noise, it’s the
relentless sound of a pill-
popping Art Of Noise battling
the apocalypse. When the
frenetic, acid-fl avoured MAH
(Mad As Hell) borrows the text
of Howard Beale’s speech from
Network, it makes perfect
sense: it’s like the ‘Brothers’
have decided that, if we have
to go down, we’re going down
in a colourful ball of fl ames.
So No Geography begins
with Eve Of Destruction, its
early atonal vocals and squidgy
rave melodies torn open by a
characteristic Chemicals
bassline, off which bounce
random vocals, alien noises
and Latin breaks. Bango boasts
70s funk bass, thunderous
breakbeats and Nintendo game
effects, while Aurora guides us
through The Universe Sent Me’s
growing mayhem, and the title
track merges rave nostalgia and
80s production values. For
simpler pleasures, try the
celebratory disco fl ourishes of
Got To Keep On and the
siren-touting anthem, Free
Yourself. You’ll lose yourself in
the thrill. WWIf you sometimes crave the
sweet magic of Erykah Badu’s
1997 debut, Baduizm, it’s time
you met Lion Babe, whose last
album, 2016’s Begin, was –
perhaps lamentably – praised
in these pages as “a roaring
success”. Fronted by Jillian
Hervey, daughter of Vanessa
Williams, with Lucas Goodman
masterminding production, the
New York duo might lack
Pharrell Williams’ input this
time, but their urbane mixture of
old-school R&B and laidbackhip-hop remains intact, to be
fi led alongside The Internet’s
Hive Mind.
Sometimes, consequently, it
feels nostalgic, but no more
than, say, Janelle Monae,
another like-minded voyager.
Consider, for instance, Western
World: it might steal a line from
Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls,
and offer nifty little 80s style
keyboard twitches, but its
slinkiness is as timeless as
the Martinis it will ideally
accompany. The title track, too,
might surface in a way that,
rather strangely, recalls RAH
Band’s Clouds Across The
Moon, but its tight beat and
otherworldly wails are so cool it
adds ice, whatever your drink.
Hit The Ceiling, too, sidles up
with Hervey at her most sultry,
while Honey Dew’s stuttering,
programmed percussion is
simply hypnotic. So, dare we
say it? Go on: enter the Lion
Babe’s den... WWNEW RELEASES