Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 25 February 2022.
There’s something almost excruciating about the places in between. The feeling of falling. A reassertion of gravity as one step leads to another but just before the foot lands. The purgatory between borders, before clarity becomes whole. Still Life, Carson McHone’s third album and first release with Merge Records, quivers like a tightrope, with songs about existing within such tension and surviving beyond the breaking point. These are stories of sabotage, confusion, and surrender. The album is a testament to the effort of reaching, sometimes flailing, for understanding and for balance. Still Life invites us to gasp at our own reflection and acknowledge the unsettling beauty in this breath.
Peter Donohoe CBE is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility, and commanding technique. On this first volume of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, he writes: ‘When I first became conscious of my desire to be a musician, Mendelssohn meant more to me, personally, than almost any other composer – he certainly ranked alongside Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. My choice of programme for the present recording is based around a large selection from the Lieder ohne Worte, which I preface with the Rondo capriccioso, Op. 14 and the three wonderful Fantaisies ou Caprices. The Rondo capriccioso and Trois Fantaisies ou Caprices are exquisite examples of the extraordinary facility of Mendelssohn (implicitly as a pianist, but also as a composer), of his originality and inspiration, at an age that allows us, in my view, to place him in the same group of wonderfully natural and prodigious composers as Haydn and Mozart. It is always a pleasure to play these works, and they go to the heart of why I became a musician in the first place.’
More than a full year since it was initially announced, Robert Glasper has finally released Black Radio 3. The album features appearances from Q-Tip, Esperanza Spalding, Lalah Hathaway, Common, Musiq Soulchild, De La Soul’s Posdnous, India Arie, Ty Dolla $ign, and more. The album’s third single is “Black Superhero” and features Killer Mike, Big K.R.I.T., and BJ The Chicago Kid. That song followd “Shine” with D Smoke and Tiffany Gouché, and “Better Than I Imagined” with H.E.R. and Meshell Ndegeocello. This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the first Black Radio, which was released on Blue Note Records. In an interview with TIDAL, Glasper explained the differences in tone from the first two Black Radio albums compared to the third.
The Garden is a strings album and retrospective from a room in Montreal with the windows open, and the wind moving, and the leaves changing, and a spring-coloured secret on the tip of Basia Bulat’s tongue. The Garden gathers fourteen string arrangements by three different arrangers (Owen Pallett, Paul Frith, and Zou Zou Robidoux), revisiting material from all five of Bulat’s studio albums. There’s Pallett’s interpretation of 2010’s “Heart of my Own,” calling back to the Béla Bartók compositions that marked Bulat’s high-school career as an upright bassist. There’s Frith’s “Infamous,” which turns 2016’s prickly kiss-off into something open-facing and generous. And there’s Robidoux’s reimagining of “Are You In Love?” — released just last year — which here becomes a whirling ballroom dance, full of discovery.
Don McGlashan – Mutton Birds singer/songwriter and a regular collaborator of Neil Finn’s – has released his new album, Bright November Morning. The release is McGlashan’s fourth solo album, and is an essential addition to his remarkable output. It has all the glittering McGlashan touches in place: from the detail-perfect narratives of local life (the neighbours looking in when we take the curtains down, swimming and seeing Russian container ships on the horizon) to the strummy melodicism with detours into something noisier, and on to those welcome and welcoming choruses.
Shining in the Half light is Elles Bailey’s first full length album recorded in the UK. The record features Joe Wilkins on guitar, Jonny Henderson on ivories, Matthew Waer on bass duties and Matthew Jones on drums. It was recorded in deepest Devon in December 2020 at Middle Farm Studios and produced by Dan Weller, best known for his long working relationship with Enter Shikari. Post recording Road I Call Home, Elles wanted to her next record to feature ‘gospel style vocals’ so in steps Izo Fitzroy, an incredible artist in her own right, who arranged the stunning background vocals on Shining in the Half Light, and performed them alongside Jade Elliot and Andrusilla Mosley.
US-born, Norwegian-Mexican artist and producer Carmen Villain’s fourth album Only Love From Now On is out now on Smalltown Supersound. The culmination of a build-up that began with a turn in sound evident on 2019’s Both Lines Will Be Blue, Only Love From Now On presents Villain’s aesthetic blossoming into something unexpected, benevolent in its composure and altogether luxuriant in its sensuality.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up
- New music round-up (for w/e 3 September 2021)
- New music round-up (for w/e 9 September 2022)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television
