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28 THE NEW REVIEW | 01. 1 0. 17 | The Observer

Releases

Th e second album from French-Cuban

twins Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz updates

the themes and techniques of their

modern-ancient music, which refracts

Afr ican-Cuban roots through a digital

prism. Deathless features a sax line from

Kamasi Washington and – controversially

• Auto- Tune. Inspired in part by Beyoncé
  (Ibeyi fi gured in Lemonade ’s visuals ) and in
  part by present politics, Ash’s girl-positive
  content is high and its wider messages
  outward-looking. But for all the just-so
  production, sirens and guests, the Diazes
  haven’t entirely sacrifi ced the Yoruba
  spirituality and batá drumming that made
  their debut so distinctive. KE

If ever a jazz quartet was unique it was

the MJQ , with their unlikely combination

of classical delicacy and bebop bravura.

To experience it in person was to be

entranced by the poise with which they

kept the two disparate elements in

balance. Th e MJQ ended in 1994 and no one

else seemed quite able to strike th e same

balance. Now, however, I think vibraphonist

Nat Steele has managed it, along with

pianist Gabriel Latchin , bassist Dario Di

Lecce and drummer Steve Brown. Th e

classic arrangements retain the authentic

lightness of touch, while the freshly

improvised solos have all the vital intensity

of the original. Dave Gelly

As pianist as well as conductor, Vladimir

Ashkenazy has had a love aff air with

Rachmaninov for more than half a century.

Th rough his recordings of the Op 39 Études-

tableaux , he urged us to hear not just the

popular emotionalism of this composer but

the seriousness too. Ashkenazy’s authority

is one attraction of this performance

of Symphony No 1, which had such a

disastrous, under-rehearsed premiere

in 1897 : he knows how to shape detail

and soar in the big melodic moments. Th e

Philharmonia sound is muscular and alert,

from the opening woodwind solos to the

symphonic tutti of the fi nale. A short (43.23

min) but absorbing disc. Fiona Maddocks

Th is Irish singer-songwriter may ply his

trade as a folkie live, but on record he

becomes an electronic shape-shifter,

layering songs in beats, loops, hisses,

found sounds and bites of conversation.

His storylines, delivered with rueful

hindsight, are similarly surprising. Carlow

Town relates a night crashed out in a

church, awakening to a mass. Van Gogh’s

Ear captures a disturbed mind amid the

hurly burly of London’s underground,

and the title track’s reminiscences of his

County Mayo youth come enhanced by

wistful violin from Emma Smith. By turns

gritty and poetic, its words “scattered like

teeth”, it’s also a real original. Neil Spencer

Behind the justly famous and complex trio

sonatas of Zelenka lies a wealth of other

music for the same combination that was

heard at the Dresden court of Augustus

the Strong in the fi rst decades of the 18th

century. Gathered here and celebrated by

Alfredo Bernardini’s superb Zefi ro ensemble ,

this music emerges as far lighter than

Zelenka’s but equally winning in its use of the

bassoon as a solo instrument underpinning

the duetting of two oboes. Telemann and

Vivaldi are included alongside the totally

unknown Arcangelo Califano , but the clear

winner is Johann Friedrich Fasch , whose

languorous, lilting slow movements are full of

sensual dissonances. Nicholas Kenyon

Angela Hewitt has chosen 17 of Scarlatti’s

super-abundant keyboard sonatas (he

wrote more than 550 ) to create a second

engaging recital following her 2015 volume.

Again, she has cleverly organised her

selection into satisfying subgroups linked

by key and mood. We begin in declamatory

mode with the theatrical sonata in D

major Kk491 followed by the sultry Iberian

fl avours of Kk492 and Kk146 and so on.

In another group, we hear sonatas Kk63

and Kk64 , chosen to encourage amateur

players to try this sparkling and inventive

repertoire and yet another reason to

admire this most accomplished of pianists.

Stephen Pritchard

SOUL

Ibeyi

Ash

(XL)

JAZZ

Nat Steele

Portrait of the Modern Jazz

Quartet (TRIO)

CLASSICAL

Rachmaninov

Symphony No 1. Philharmonia/

Ashkenazy (SIGNUM)

FOLK

Seamus Fogarty

Th e Curious Hand *

(DOMINO)

CLASSICAL

Various

Dresden. Sonatas for oboes and

bassoon. Zefi ro/Bernardini

(ARCANA)

CLASSICAL

Scarlatti

Sonatas Vol 2. Angela Hewitt

(piano) (HYPERION)

Credited with making jazz cool again,

Kamasi Washington ’s cosmic clout is

undeniable. Following his acclaimed

2015 debut album Th e Epic , this EP fi nds

him exploring the concept of diversity

via counterpoint. Washington warmly

traverses various themes (across both

subject and music) and – via the wailing sax

on Humility , the sleazy funk of Perspective ,

and the quasi-bossa nova of Integrity – it’s

an enriching listen. Th e standout is Truth ,

taking and synthesising these themes

into a gloriously cinematic, choir-laden

masterpiece, seeking to remind us of the

beautiful harmonies that diff erences bring.

Tara Joshi

JAZZ

Kamasi Washington

Harmony of Diff erence

(YOUNG TURKS)

“Qualia” is a lovely word for the private

sensations of experience. Or the private

experience of sensations. Either way,

it’s an excellent take on the communal

solitude of the dancefl oor. Appropriately,

where Weatherall ’s last album Convenanza

was expansive and vocal-led, Qualia is

more insular and instrumental. Of late, t he

DJ-producer has been proselytising for

slower, lower dance music, but this set goes

for mid-paced , with live-sounding drums, no

brass and little bass. Apart from Vorfreude

2 ’s militant chug, it’s unexceptional.

Sumptuous listening, immaculately

constructed, but lacking the malevolent heft

of his classics. Damien Morris

DANCE

Andrew Weatherall

Qualia

(HÖGA NORD)

Th ere are those for whom Kieran Hebden ’s

drift towards the dancefl oor is something

to lament, and those for whom it was an

unexpected fl ash of excitement in the

subtle folktronica master’s largely super-

chilled career. But even for the latter

camp, there is a growing suspicion that

he’s now best experienced live; this ninth

album has the expansive pleasantness of

a self-release unbothered by PR hurly-

burly. What it doesn’t have is a great deal

of tracks to pull you back, bar perhaps the

fl uttering vocal samples of Scientists. Th e

unremarkably housey SW9 9SL tries to

up the stakes, but the album title feels,

ultimately, misleading. Emily Mackay

ELECTRONIC

Four Tet

New Energy

(TEXT )

Goodbye girl in the hood

You almost feel sorry for pop
divas. Their every move is sifted
for signifi cance by fans, haters and
professional cultural scrutineers alike.
Every gesture is loaded; every stylistic
nuance is grist to some commentary,
a process at whose sharp end Miley
Cyrus fi nds herself, once again. Her
latest album, Younger Now, fi nds the
child star turned pop provocateur
pivoting hard after two radically
diff erent long-form releases, 2013 ’s
Bangerz (hard-partying R&B) and
2015 ’s Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz
(stoned pop, given away free ).
You can hear Younger Now one
of two ways. It is either a pleasant
country-tinged outing that refl ects,
tunefully, on Cyrus’s recent past,
roping in her godmother, Dolly Parton ,
for a track called Rainbowland , in
which they envision some sort of
utopia that twangs (it is also the name
of Cyrus’s recording studio ). This is
Cyrus au naturel, daughter of another

POP

Miley Cyrus

Younger Now

(RCA)

country star, Billy Ray Cyrus , gimmick-

free , #unfi ltered. Alternatively, you

can see Younger Now as pure white

fl ight, a retrenchment into heartland

Americana after unapologetically

channelling R&B and the impression of

being bullet proof.

So the mothers of small girls can

rejoice: Younger Now is a twerk-free

zone. Malibu is all California sunshine

and lovehearts directed towards

Cyrus’s on-off -on fi anc e; in the video,

Cyrus cavorts demurely. The album

isn’t entirely retrograde: a few tracks

sound like it’s 2017. Thinkin ’ is a

throwback to pop R &B, while one of

the album’s best songs, Bad Mood ,

sulks seductively. Producer Oren Yoel ,

who plays all the instruments, came on

board during the Bangerz era, so the

about-face behind the desk is, perhaps,

not quite so dizzying.

And yet Week Without You is

another old-time charmer that opens

a trio of straight-up love songs, Miss

You So Much and I Would Die for You.

Inspired closes the album with a ballad

that frets for the planet. The video

for the title track involves a puppet ;

Cyrus is styled like a 50s sweetheart

of the rodeo. In the lyrics, Cyrus gets

her excuses in swiftly: “No one stays

the same,” she sings as a dancer twirls

pointedly on a pole. “Even though it’s

not who I am/I’m not afraid of who I

used to be.”

You’re tempted to conclude that

the former self Cyrus is unafraid to

acknowledge is Hannah Montana ,

rather than the grill -sporting , Molly-

mentioning hell raiser of We Can’t

Stop (Molly being E). Bangerz brought

with it serious charges of cultural

appropriation ; as an R&B-free zone,

Younger Now confi rms Cyrus really

was just a cultural tourist. It’s a shame,

because Cyrus did R&B well, lending

her supple voice and a deranged sense

of fun to an often po-faced sound; Mike

Will ’s imprimatur on production lent

the whole endeavour ballast.

Younger Now isn’t a failure exactly

• just the sound of Cyrus, or her
  record company, panicking and hitting
  “reset”. And that cultural fear – that
  this theoretically Tefl on-coated
  pop star would be in such haste to
  hand back her “ hood pass ” (well, her
  notional “hood pass”) – is the saddest
  thing about a record in which a young
  woman fi nds herself in love again.
  Kitty Empire

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Miley Cyrus,

whose new

album is a

‘retrenchment

into heartland

Americana’.

Wild Beasts

Punk Drunk and

Trembling

Th e best UK band

of the past decade

have called it a day,

but they’ve left us a

luscious new track.

Rich the Kid ft

Kendrick Lamar

New Freezer

New York and

California rap

meld, fi erce and

choppy, over

mesmerisingly ice-

cold production.

Chance the Rapper

Untitled

It’s personal,

it’s political – the Chicago

wunderkind

debuted a lyrical

track on US TV.

Follow our

playlist at

tiny.cc/

obshot

tracks

HOT TRACKS

POP

Betsy

Betsy

(WARNER BROTHERS)

Th e proud owner of a voice that could strip

paint – think Shirley Bassey, Paloma Faith

and Cher in a wind tunnel – Wales’s Betsy

dominates the glossy pop of her self-titled

debut, cloaking everything she sings in

vampy high drama. It means her producers

are occasionally left straining to keep up,

their default settings on the upbeat songs

oscillating between Lost & Found ’s dated

drum’n’bass and the suff ocating MOR

dance-pop of Last Time We Danced. Th e

gorgeous Fair , as close to stripped-back as

she gets, is a much better showcase for her

talents, while the gloriously overblown You

Won’t Love Me confi rms her future lies in

big billowy ballads. Michael Cragg

he Rapper

nal,

al – the Chicago

nd

lyrical

US TV.

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