The Sunday Times Culture - UK (2021-11-14)

MUSIC

POP & ROCK

Damon’s just dreamy

Damon Albarn

The Nearer the Fountain,

More Pure the Stream Flows

Transgressive

The Blur

and Gorillaz

frontman’s

second solo

album, which

takes its title from a line in

a poem by the 19th-century

poet John Clare, was inspired

by the landscape around his

home in Iceland. Conceived

as a live event for full

orchestra, the album

morphed into a set of songs

with the feel of chamber

music: exquisite miniatures

that roam freely musically

and lyrically beyond Iceland

Idles

Crawler

Partisan

The combative Bristol

post-punk five-piece follow

last year’s No 1 album, Ultra

Mono, with another blast of

feral, gut-spilling polemic.

Songs such as Stockholm

Syndrome, Crawl! and Meds

hare past like a drive-by,^

Joe Talbot leading the

charge with spittle-flecked

fervour, and are going to be

sensational live. DC

Dave Gahan & Soulsavers

Imposter

Columbia

Moonlighting from his

Depeche Mode day job,

Gahan reunites with Rich

Machin for their third

collaboration. This features

an eclectic mix of covers,

including Cat Power’s Metal

Heart, that showcase his

sonorous, soul-singer

vocals. DC

Courtney Barnett

Things Take Time,

Take Time

Marathon Artists

The Melbourne singer’s

third album strips things

right back, lyrically and

musically, and it suits her.

The allusiveness of old is

exchanged for matter-of-

fact, Lou Reed-channelling

songwriting that’s a mix of

lugubrious, candid and

tender. DC

to locations including South

America and Arabia. As ever

with Albarn, the melodies are

impossibly lovely: Royal

Morning Blue, The Tower of

Montevideo and Daft Wader

are among the most

beautiful he has written.

There are intriguing tangents

— the instrumental track

Combustion could be an

outtake from David Bowie’s

Low sessions — and some

misfires (The Cormorant is^

a bit souk-it-and-see). Albarn

incorporates words and

phrases from Clare’s poetry,

an act of homage as befits

a project that is as much

about the imagination as it

is observation.

Dan Cairns

CLASSICAL

Like Chopin

himself, Hough

is an opera

lover, and he

recognises

that the composer’s

Nocturnes are bel canto

arias without words. Like

a great singer, Hough

“breathes” Chopin’s

Belliniesque melodies with

the long phrasing beloved of

Wagner, yet he avoids any

hint of “Bellini-of-the-Piano”

Anna Netrebko

Amata delle Tenebre: Arias

by Purcell, Verdi, Wagner,

Puccini, Strauss et al

With Orchestra del Teatro

alla Scala, cond Riccardo

Chailly

DG

Netrebko essays recent new

roles (Aida and Elisabetta in

Don Carlo), some that passed

her by (Madama Butterfly

and Lisa in Queen of Spades)

plus a languid Dido’s Lament

and Isolde’s Transfiguration.

She is still in complete

control of her remarkable

spinto soprano. HC

Chopin

Nocturnes

Stephen Hough (piano)

Hyperion

cliché (a frequent 19th-century

putdown). Indeed his lightness

of touch, perfectly controlled

rubato, and “endless cantilena”

has an improvisatory quality

recalling the art of the divas

Chopin heard in the theatre.

A selection of posthumous

Nocturnes (including one of

his last compositions, the

isolated Op 72 No 1),

questionable misattributions,

and a later version of Op 9

No 2, with Chopin’s own

“coloratura” embellishments,

are substantial bonuses.

Hough at his most personal

and best.

Hugh Canning

ALBUM

OF THE

WEEK

Roaming free

Damon Albarn

Light touch

Stephen Hough

STEVE GULLICK