Reviews

ALBU MS

RÓISÍN MACHINE

MURPHY RÓISÍN

Image: Guardian

“I feel my story’s still untold... but I’ll make my own happy ending…“ Róisín Murphy’s bombastic new album, adequately named Róisín Machine, doesn’t take any prisoners. From out of the dregs of a seven-month-and-counting-in-and-out-lockdown enters this album and its opening manifesto: making one's own happy ending. The opening track ‘Simulation’ exudes an untouchable effortlessness, strutting around the mantra this is a simulation up and down the buildups and drops, landing itself resolutely in the icy cold swelling synths that bleed into the comparatively held-back and pen into the compartments and gizmos that make up the ‘machine’, but few live up to the coolness and vitality of the opening track, which I unabashedly could listen to on repeat for hours and hours. ‘We Got Together’ is Róisín at her most rambunctious and pun conviction; we MOVE together, we STEP together... yes Róisín, I will move and step with you too! I was especially looking forward to how the penultimate track ‘Narcissus’ would be treated, it being the only Róisín song I was truly familiar with before the album dropped. The transition into it did not disappoint – swirly strings in a psychedelic-disco-maelstrom, that naughty, naughty bass line, the hissing echoes... Narcissus... Narcissus... Róisín – I am indebted to you for brightening this glummest of Octobers. Sure, some of the tracks drag out, but for the most part this record has more strong moments on it than weak. Just put your headphones in and the lights off – why, you can almost imagine life back to normal a gain.

Dany Bowen

TRACKS

Though summer is slipping away, some of us are still yearning for those sunny festival vibes; Greentea Peng provides all in her new track ‘Revolution’, a spiralling reggae-inspired number. Her lilting and silky sibilant vocals slide over this psychedelic music, with twinkling guitar weaving through the dub sound. Lyrically, it’s far from frivolous - the description for its music video reveals that this track is a response to the current social and political climate. “A result of recent turmoil: political, societal, and individual. 2020, a painfully transformative year for the collective. Revolution is a product of this pain and also the anger we’ve been struggling to move through, at the same time it represents the hope conjured.’“ Greentea Peng perfectly expresses her disillusionment through the yearning tone of this track, posing the question: ‘Feels like a revolution / But whose revolution?’ The track feels woefully short, leaving you wanting more - perhaps this song, alongside its twin release ‘Hu Man’, is hinting at a

Fern McErlane GREENTEA PENG - REVOLUTION

WALLOWS -

constitute Remote provide the enthusiastic follow-up to Wallows’ acclaimed indie debut, REMOTE (EP) Nothing Happens, which has been widely anticipated since early 2019. Recorded entirely throughout lockdown, the spirited EP is marketed as a sort of in-between compilation of creative ideas preceding their sophomore record. Wallows kick off the project with the short but uplifting ‘Virtual Aerobics’, combining staccato, poppy piano notes with upbeat instrumentation, against Minnette’s familiar vocals: Hey there, safe travels / Read it, I unravel. The rap-esque segment midway welcomes the trio’s lighthearted side, and sets precedent for the album’s peppy tone. This energy is cemented by the hypnotising fuzz of the synth soundscape with the similarly upbeat ‘Dig What You Dug’ and ‘Talk Like That’. September saw the accompanying release of the comedic and retro-inspired music video, for which they enlisted the help of trusted friends and human cut-outs, in support of social distancing measures. Their energy partially falls short with the fourth track: ‘Coastlines’, in which the tempo noticeably drops to allow for the comparatively me The duo of mellower songs provide a welcome contrast to the LP’s chaotic rhythms, whilst retaining the band’s transition from indie to alt-pop territory, as premiered by their 2020 single, ‘OK’. This change in direction may thus allude to the direction of their second studio album.

Katie Brown

Image: La Maroquinerie

BONOBO - HEARTBREAK

Heartbreak is the debut release on OUTLIER, the new label from Simon Green (better known as electronic giant Bonobo). The track sees him team up with fellow British DJ Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs with a physical release set for November 13th, along with b-side 6000 FT. As Orlando (TEED) notes that “now, more than ever, it feels important to be putting out dance music with deliberate acknowledgement of its history“, the single can be seen as a powerful homage to dance music of times gone by. Whilst the vocals are a sample of Christine Wiltshire’s line “I can’t take the heartbreak” in New York City disco classic ‘Weekend’ by Class Action, the strobe-laden video is a staunch nod to 90s UK rave. toward more club-focused work, with OUTLIER originally starting as a New York based events once painful and uplifting. As it spirals into an intoxicating breakdown we’re urged to let the track wash over and liberate us in that same way, even from the comfort of our living room sofas. At a time where we can’t yet (safely) dance again, the track serves as a reminder of not just where we’ve been in terms of club culture, but also what we’ve got to come.

Alice Browne