The Guardian - 06.09.2019

Section:GDN 12 PaGe:13 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 16:25 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

Pop

Artist Bat for Lashes

Album Lost Girls

Label AWA L

★★★★☆

“Why does it hurt

so good?” feels

like an eternal pop

question. Followed

by the refrain , “You

don’t treat me like

you sho-ooo-oould”, it could easily

be a haunting chorus sung by a 1960s

girl group, or a gothic 80s power

ballad, or a 00s R&B cut: all sugar

and sweetness, delivered from a

place of real pain. Actually, it’s the

hook of So Good , one of the standout

synth-powered pop songs on Bat for

Lashes’ fi fth studio album.

Lost Girls, a 10-track LP that

unabashedly channels 80s pop and

movie scores, is Bat for Lashes at her

most playful – and ironically, given

it’s her fi rst record free of a major-

label contract, it’s also the sound

of unadulterated pop.

Frequent Mercury prize nominee

Natasha Khan didn’t set out to make

this record. She moved to LA to

develop her fi lm career , working on

scripts for production companies.

But music pulled her back; during

nocturnal studio sessions, she

composed this album simply for

fun. Inspired by the burnt orange

LA sunsets , Khan channelled a

narrative involving a vampire girl

gang roaming the desert. (Many

of her albums have a fi lmic bent:

her last, 2016’s The Bride , told

the grief-stricken story of a new

widow.) It’s plain this music was

born out of sheer pleasure: its

propulsive rhythms and zig-zagging,

ostentatious synth melodies are the

stuff of fi st-pumping high-school

movies. The cowbell-powered

Feel for You is a highlight, with its

bubbling funk guitar and layered

vocals; meanwhile, it’s hard to

believe the saxophone of Vampires

wasn’t recorded in the 80s. But it’s

not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake:

the record has surreal moments and

powerful songwriting that could

only have come from Khan, whether

in the carnality of The Hunger , or

the Middle Eastern synth patterns

of  So Good. She may not have set

out to make this album, but it’s

a blessing that she did.

Aimee Cliff

• The Guardian
  Friday 6 September 2019 13

Country

Artist The Highwomen

Album The Highwomen

Label Low Country Sound/Elektra

★★★☆☆

In 1985, Johnny

Cash had to sing

arguably the silliest

lyric of his career.

In the fi nal verse

of Jimmy Webb’s

Highwayman , he intoned: “I fl y

a starship / Across the universe

divide.” In rewriting the song for

their own supergroup, Brandi Carlile

and Amanda Shires – joined by

Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby –

ditched the rippling muscles of the

song’s original roles in favour of a

refugee, a doctor killed as a witch

in Salem, a freedom rider and a

preacher. It’s still a little hokey, but

as a counter to the men-in-black

outlaw concept , it does its job,

separating the Highwomen from

old cliches: “Rosie the Riveter with

renovations,” as the second track,

Redesigning Women, puts it.

As is so often the case with

supergroups, it’s not always a

complete success. The need to give

the four principals a fair shake is

understandable, but when they take

turns singing lead within the same

song, it rather lessens the impact.

There are high-class songwriting

collaborators (Lori McKenna, Ray

LaMontagne and Jason Isbell), but

they’re just fi ne without them: the

Carlile-Shires-Hemby co-write My

Name Can’t Be Mama rollicks along

gloriously. That said, the standout

track, and the most daring , is the

fabulous ballad If She Ever Leaves

Me, written by Shires and Isbell with

Chris T ompkins, a gay love song that

warns a male suitor: “If she ever

leaves / It’s gonna be / For a woman

with more time / Who’s not afraid to

let her dreams come true.”

Michael Hann

11

T

here is a hazy expansiveness to Tuareg

band Tinariwen ’s music that recalls the

desert setting in which it was created.

Fuzzy guitars are rhythmically picked over

undulating rhythms and gravelly baritone

vocals; you can almost hear a sand-laden

breeze passing between the mics as the band record.

For their ninth album, the nine-piece group took

inspiration from that desert breeze as they rehearsed and

wrote their music in the Moroccan Sahara en route to

recording in Mauritania. The result is an impressionistic

record full of references to “becoming the son of

gazelles / who grew up in the meanderings of the desert,”

on opener Tenere Maloulat , “golden sand glittering in

the light of the moon” on Amalou na , and “the burning

sun, sparks spouting from its entrails” on Zawal. It places

the listener entirely within the nomadic Tinariwen

universe, regardless of where you are listening.

Amadjar features a host of impressive guests,

including Bad Seeds co-founder Warren Ellis looping

a plaintive violin line on Mhadjar Yassouf Idjan and

bowing with distorted reverb on the clattering Iklam

Dglour, while guitarist Cass McCombs provides a

fl oating falsetto melody and oneiric spoken word for

Kel Tinawen. But the true artistry comes from the

deft interplay between the younger and long-serving

members of Tinawiren: percussionist Said Ag Ayad’s

polyrhythms with bassist Eyadou Ag Leche, the joyous

choral backing vocals from all members, and, crucially,

the weather-worn delivery of founding lead singer

Ibrahim Ag Alhabib tying each composition together.

This is a band that has been in existence, in one

form or another, since 1979. Never resorting to clich e,

they continue to be just as inspired by the universal

themes of love, politics and nature as they always have

been. Their musical delivery is just as heartfelt and

forceful for it.

Also out this month

Cuban singer Daymé Arocena returns with her third

album, Sonocardiogram , letting her powerhouse voice

soar as she sings over kinetic clave rhythms. Tunisian

collective Arabstazy release their second compilation of

electronic music from the Arab world, Under Frustration

• Vol 2 : full-on deconstructed club productions.
  Also out this month is an excellent compilation of
  releases from the displaced Cape Verdean community
  from the 1970s and 80s, called Radio Verde. Its joyous
  mix of spangly disco synths and pulsing coladeira
  showcases the musical interchanges of migration.
  Ammar Kalia

Artist Tinariwen

Album Amadjar

Label Anti Records

★★★★☆

Nomadic sound world

in a desert breeze

Global

album of

the month

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