The Observer - 25.08.2019

The Observer

25.08.19 41

Artists such as Velvet Negroni are

emblematic of the disintegration

of distinct genres in the streaming

age. Real name Jeremy Nutzman, he

makes gorgeously expansive sounds

that meld and melt the lines between

everything from lush synthpop,

experimental electronic and choppy

rap to reggae and dub.

Born in Minneapolis, Nutzman

was adopted by a white evangelical

Christian family and boxed in by

stringent rules. From the age of fi ve

he would play classical piano for at

least an hour a day ; secular music was

forbidden. In an interview with the

Fader , he described discovering a pile

of abandoned CDs on his neighbour’s

lawn, though all his attempts to hoard

such treasures – even hiding them in

air vents – were found out.

Going to college (and eventually

dropping out) allowed Nutzman to

spread his wings and start writing.

Since then, his music has inspired

Kanye West (the hook for Feel the

Love with Kid Cudi nodded to Velvet

Negroni’s Waves ), and he feature s on

Bon Iver’s recent i,i.

Nutzman’s debut album, Neon

Brown, is about to land on 4AD (home

to Grimes and Deerhunter ) , and is

informed by recreating those teen

years without pop music; in Nutzman’s

words: “the time when music is

supposed to be the most impactful

and exciting is when I was getting the

least of it — which lends its way to how

I write and interpret things”. Tara Joshi

Velvet Negroni’s Neon Brown is out

on Friday on 4AD

J a y S o m

Anak Ko

(Polyvinyl)

Now on her third album as Jay Som ,

LA -based Melina Duterte began as

a bedroom pop operative, writing

and playing the entirety of her fi rst

two well-received albums. Her

subtle, gauzy indie shared a love

of 80s shoegaze with a cohort of

US dream pop bands, but Duterte

also drew, albeit elliptically, on her

dad’s funk records and her teenage

years as a trumpeter. Her Filipino

heritage remains another infl uence

disrupting the idea of indie rock as a

white male playground.

On Anak Ko ( Tagalog for “my

child” ), Duterte has gained a

band, and while her production

values have ratcheted up, this

release is also quieter and more

accomplished than Everybody

Works, its 2017  predecessor.

Crowd-pleasers such as Superbike

still fetishise shoegaze, but as

these nine tracks play out, “indie

rock ” no longer seems adequate

to describe these shifting torch

songs, with programmed drums

and pastel keyboards; Tenderness

sounds oddly like Prefab Sprout.

Like previous Jay Som records, Anak

Ko might seem slight at fi rst listen,

particularly Duterte’s winsome

coo, but the payoff for lingering in

her evolving dreamspace is hefty.

Kitty Empire

Wendy Kirkland

The Music’s On Me

(Blue Quaver)

Almost two years ago I heard the

debut album of a terrifi c pianist

and singer. Her name was Wendy

Kirkland and I’d never heard of

her, which was odd, because when

there’s something really good

in the offi ng the word soon gets

round. After my review appeared,

it turned out that some musicians

knew about Wendy – those who’d

played at Chesterfi eld Jazz Club,

where she was the house pianist.

This is her second album, coinciding

with her second tour, and it’s even

more assured and full of surprises

than the fi rst.

This time there are three originals

and several existing instrumentals

to which she added her own lyrics;

Wes Montgomery’s West Coast

Blues is especially good, with a nice

guitar solo by Pat Sprakes. Notable,

too, is the Kirkland speciality of

scat singing in unison with an

improvised piano solo, which must

be quite tricky. In fact, a lot of this

happy, relaxed-sounding music

is probably tricky, but it doesn’t

show. That’s the mark of a good

band, which this quartet is. The

two guest soloists, vibraphonist

Roger Beaujolais and saxophonist

Tommaso Starace add some

judicious highlights to a great set.

Dave Gelly

Velvet Negroni

Ezra Furman

Twelve Nudes

(Bella Union )

“I wanted nothing more than to

open up and bleed” sings Ezra

Furman on Calm Down AKA I

Should Not Be Alone , the track that

opens his fi fth solo album. Well,

mission accomplished: he’s spraying

the claret around liberally here,

dropping the strong narrative drive

of his last collection, Transangelic

Raphael Saadiq

Jimmy Lee

(Columbia)

Raphael Saadiq says he didn’t

want to make this album – he had

to. After collaborating with stars

such as Solange , Mick Jagger and

D’Angelo, playing in R&B bands

Tony! Toni! Toné! and Lucy Pearl

and trying to write the perfect

vintage soul-love song as a solo act,

Jimmy Lee is his passion project.

Dedicating it to a brother lost

to drugs , and three other dead

siblings , the producer /frontman

serves up a series of brutally

honest, occasionally impressionistic

meditations on addiction and

loss, with just enough positivity

leavening the sorrow and cynicism.

There’s helplessness in his tales, but

defi ance in his ability to tell them.

Like his mentor Prince, Saadiq

uses melody and space beautifully

Thom Yorke ft Flea

Daily Battles

Sombre piano, trumpet and double-

tracked vocals create a comfortingly

familiar discomfort.

Flohio

Way2

Stark and full of attitude, this young

rapper’s latest fi nds a terrifi c backdrop

in a haunting Splurgeboys production.

Normani

Motivation

Th e solo debut from the former

Fifth Harmony star is a euphoric,

brass-fi lled pop banger.

Hot t

tracks

The US singer-

songwriter’s free-

ranging debut is

informed by the

constraints of a

strict evangelical

upbringing

and content from albums past, with
Swift’s signature shouty endings,
her key changes that keep things
moving along and her carefully
deployed lyrical detail all to the
fore. Anticipatory tunes such as I
Think He Knows and Paper Rings
fl irt hard, but perhaps not quite as
hard as 1989 ’s magisterial Blank
Space did. “Who could ever leave me
darling,” sings Swift on The Archer ,
a moodier, more elliptical track,
“but who could stay?” – revisiting
the idea of Swift being a romantic
handful, present on Blank Space and
other songs passim. Lover , the title
track itself, is a perfectly good ballad,
light on detail but with a fantastic
pregnant gap in its dynamic and a
husk to Swift’s voice that could grow
to become more interesting.
The heart, not unreasonably,
takes up a fair amount of airtime on
Lover, but Swift has other concerns.
There’s fi ght left in her, too, in
the form of The Man , a bouncy
Joel Little production where Swift
decries the double standards by
which high-profi le females are
judged. In an alternative reality,
she’s “an alpha” making “power
moves”, and not hung out to dry for
dating a succession of men.
Soon You’ll Get Better , by contrast,
is a stark song set in a doctor’s offi ce
that is likely to allude to Swift’s
mother, whose cancer has returned.
The track features backing vocals,
banjo and fi ddle by two Dixie Chicks ,
a country outfi t whose opposition
to the Iraq war landed them in hot
water with US conservatives during
the George W Bush administration.
Their presence is indicative of some
heavy signalling by Swift, who has
been criticised for not being clearer
about her own politics.
You Need to Calm Down is
pretty unequivocal about LGBTQ+
advocacy. More coded, perhaps, is
a song called Miss Americana & the
Heartb reak Prince, in which Swift
deploys a high-school setting and
lines about her own “pageant smile”
to land some allegorical content.
“American glory / Faded before me /
Now I’m feeling hopeless / Ripping
up my prom dress ”, it goes, voicing
a generalised distress at the state of
her nation.
Swift’s tanker has been slow to
turn round, and is still turning. It’s
said that celebrities remain stunted
at the age at which they became
famous, a kernel of truth that Swift
seems strangely keen to emphasise.
The four bonus editions of Lover
come with journals, which mix
entries from Swift’s own diaries,
from her teenage years and beyond,
that detail attempts in 2007 to locate
a turkey fryer to the aftermath of
Kanye West’s 2009 VMA awards
hijack. There are blank pages for fans
to fi ll in. At nearly 30 , the singer-
songwriter remains an intriguing
mixture of industry power-broker
and giddy cat-obsessive. Lover is
fi ne with that, but the real battle is
where she goes after this.

Other albums

Exodus , in favour of red-raw punk

frankness. Twelve Nudes veers madly

through distorted, ragged-throated,

urgent punk rock, like Jonathan

Richman being slowly dissolved in

acid, with sludge-metal fl ourishes

on Trauma and a Dead Kennedys-

ish stomp on Rated R Crusaders.

Just as engaging is Furman’s

bracing self-analysis: on Evening

Prayer AKA Justice he berates

himself for his complacent 20s:

“I was rolling over for wealth

and power/As if they really cared

about me ”. On the sweet change

of pace of I Wanna Be Your

Girlfriend , a sousedly sentimental

ballad, meanwhile, he muses: “My

responsible friends are applying

for jobs/But me I was considering

ditching Ezra and going by Esme ”. At

11 songs (yes, the title is a trick) and

just over 25 minutes, it all makes

for a short, sharp, exhilarating blast,

closing with the question we’re all

asking as things fall apart: What Can

You Do But Rock’n’Roll?

Emily Mackay

over radio-friendly rhythms,

slipping between genres with

authority and authenticity. He

sounds as good delivering So

Ready’s gentle funk as on dusty

spiritual Belongs to God. It feels

like he’s aiming for a 21st-century

version of classic albums such

as Sign ‘O’ the Times and What’s

Going On and, on astonishing,

soul-scraping laments This

World Is  Drunk and Kings Fall , he

almost gets there.

Damien Morris

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