REVIEWSMUSIC
94 |Rolling Stone|RollingStoneAus.com May, 2016
Travelogue, social commentary, art project- The Hope Six Demolition Project is many
things. Over four years, Harvey travelled to
Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington D.C.
for inspiration. She then set up a studio in
London’s Somerset House behind one-way glass, so mem-
bers of the public could come in for 45-minute blocks each
day to watch the recording process. Call it performance art,
living sculpture or stickybeaking. She called it Recording
In Progress.
The result is one of her most visceral albums, in a cata-
logue not exactly lacking in that depart-
ment. But you’d have to go back to 1998’s
Is This Desire? to fi nd her in such a force-
ful, primal mood. The tone is set from the
get-go on “The Community Of Hope”,
with the clattering rhythm, raw electric
guitar, wailing sax and massed blues-moan backing vocals
that colour the record.
The song also sets out Harvey’s lyrical approach, which is
full of observations and descriptions – the school that “looks
like a shit-hole”, the site where a Walmart is going up. In fact,
there’s almost no artifi ce here. It’s as if she’s downloading
these impressions directly into the microphone and laying
down the music in a breathless reverie – the bluesy stomp of
“The Ministry Of Social Af airs”, the shuddering Birthday
Party-style stop-start salvos of “The Ministry Of Defence”,
the propulsive rhythms of acoustic guitars and handclaps on
“The Wheel”. BARRY DIVOLA
Harvey’s Work
Laid Bare
PJ Harvey The Hope Six Demolition Project
Island/Universal ★★★★The singer-songwriter let the world watch her
create her visceral new albumSurgical Meth Machine
Surgical Meth Machine
Nuclear Blast ★★★½
The horrendous sound of Al
Jourgensen detoxingIf you, being of sound mind, are
p r e p a r e d t o l e t i n A l Jo u r g e n s e n
in all his guises, listen away.
Surgical Meth Machine is the
Ministry man’s 33-year career
fl ashing hideously before his
eyes. He recorded alone – but
for engineer Sam D’Ambruoso- and newly sober. “I’m Sensi-
tive”, which has to be skimming
220bpm, has the bedside man-
ner of Revolting Cocks. “Just Go
Home” matches the playfulness
of 1000 Homo DJs, over a clini-
cal drum splatter. There’s some
Lard in “I Don’t Wanna”, while
the Bay Area thrash numbers
pay homage to the lightning
speed of late Ministry guitar-
ist Mike Scaccia. To close with
tremolo-laden crooner “I’m In-
visible” is to further befuddle.
JENNY VALENTISH
Radical Face
The Family Tree: The Leaves
Nettwerk ★★★★
Florida’s answer to Marcel
Proust returns
This record marks the final
instalment in Ben Cooper’s
trilogy of deep, thoughtful al-
bums chronicling a fictional
19th century Southern fam-
ily, the Northcotes. It’s not as
pretentious as it sounds, with
previous LPs The Roots and
The Branches full of unassum-
ing, gently beautiful songs in a
modern folk vein, charting an
often-cryptic course through
the Faulknerian melodramas
of this clan. The Leaves sticks to
the template, with several songs
sounding like Sufjan Stevens
circa 2005. Cooper’s music has
a n e mo t ion a l i mp a c t t h a t i s r a r e
in this exhausted genre, exhib-
ited by the exquisite “Rivers in
the Dust” and “Midnight”. Epic
project concluded, one wonders
what he’ll do next. BARNABY SMITH
Allen Stone
Radius ATO/[PIAS]
★★★½
Blue-eyed soul marries well
with pop for Stone’s newest cutSeattle’s Allen Stone has long
been acknowledged as a young
master of blue-eyed soul, and
his third LP does little to dis-
suade from this notion – Ra-
dius throbs with the realism
inherent to soul music. Where
this one dif ers from past Stone
releases, however, is in the in-
clusion of Swedish producer
Magnus Tingsek, whose slick
pop production lifts some of
these songs to new levels: “Fake
Future” immediately invokes
images of Jamiroquai; “Freezer
Burn”, with Stone’s slightly dis-
torted vocal, brings to mind
Raphael Saadiq. For the most
part, Radius is Stone doing his
thing, but these more pop-ori-
ented moments add something
else. Strong stuf from a young
man capable of whatever he
puts his mind to. SAMUEL J. FELLBaauer
Aa LuckyMe/Warp/Inertia
★★★½
“Harlem Shake” helmer aims to
keep that lightning striking
Following up 2012’s viral
hit “Harlem Shake”, Baauer
makes a point of stocking his
debut LP with tracks in a simi-
lar mode: upbeat, of beat and
wildly catchy. The fi rst hand-
ful lean towards elastic dance
bangers, but then the guests
show up. Masked rapper
Leikeli47 gate-crashes “Day
Ones” with impressive bluster,
while M.I.A. proves hypnotic
on “Temple”, Rustie roughs up
the left-fi eld “Church Reprise”
and Pusha T outshines Future
on the uneven “Kung Fu”. Most
tracks echo the jittery excite-
ment of Baauer’s career-mak-
ing moment, even if they can
feel f leeting at around three
minutes each. Still, the young
Brooklyn producer pulls off
an unrelenting, brain-busting
party album. DOUG WALLEN
KEY TRACKS:
“The Ministry Of
Defence”, “The
Community Of
Hope”