Filed under: album, review | Tags: 2008, alan pedder, music, sharleen spiteri, texas
Sharleen Spiteri
Melody •••½
Mercury
It’s human nature that we reject few things more vehemently than something we have fallen out of love with. Relationships, religions, political ideals: when the revolution comes, outright dismissal is often easier than facing the difficult questions that life has a sadistic tendency to pose. Sharleen Spiteri hasn’t become a Buddhist or joined the BNP, but someone’s sure got her back up. Melody, her first solo outing after more than two decades in the business, is an album informed almost wholly by the dissolution of her 10-year relationship with magazine editor Ashley Heath in late 2004; that it’s taken her this long to air her feelings on the matter is partly a reflection of how deep her hurt ran and partly of her conflicting feelings about writing such personal songs, songs she didn’t feel able to release under the umbrella of her long-time sonic conduit Texas.
Filed under: feature, voice on the verge | Tags: alan pedder, interview, joni davis, music
voice on the verge #9: joni davis
Whatever our mums once told us, let’s face it, we all judge things by their cover. People in fur coats, for instance, and people who drive sports cars to take their kids to school. Personally I’m a sucker for album artwork; I’ve bought so many CDs without hearing a note just because of the sleeve. I didn’t buy A Bird’s Heart, the second album by California resident Joni Davis, she sent it to me. But I would have, honestly, just because of Chris Dennis’s amazing painting (small section shown above). That the album contains some of the most beautiful, unadorned piano-based songs I’ve heard in a long long time is really quite an added bonus. With her resonant, powerful voice, Joni weaves astonishingly direct and affecting tales full of melancholy, reparation and the transience of the human condition. The immaculate production, by Joni and her husband, at times gives the feeling of having her singing only for you in the very same room. A brilliant performance of unsettling, incredible, positively sepulchral songs, A Bird’s Heart simply begs for wider recognition. Get to know its author.
The Ting Tings
We Started Nothing ••••
Columbia
There’s something very appealing about a straight-up catchy pop song. From Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Nite’ right up to Estelle’s (absolutely brilliant) ‘American Boy’, nothing gets a party started like a melody/beat/vocal combo that sticks in your head for days. Which is exactly the kind of thing The Ting Tings have stuffed their debut album with. These are the songs you will already have heard in Topshop, on adverts, as background music in teen dramas like ‘Gossip Girl’, in clubs, in pubs and drifting through the air at festivals. Despite this ubiquity, We Started Nothing remains a very enjoyable record, taking in everything from bratty ’90s-style punk with a Girls Aloud twist to minimal, and at times quite sinister, electropop.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2008, music, sophia rawlinson, the breeders
The Breeders
Mountain Battles ••½
4AD
Considering the six-year gap since The Breeders’ last record, Title TK, and the obligatory ‘comeback’ label that accompanies any period of hiatus – technically this band’s second – the way in which Mountain Battles chooses to quietly announce itself is fairly surprising. Opening with the glorious, shimmering wall of noise that is ‘Overglazed’, essentially a two-minute long repetition of the phrase “I can feel it” punctuated only with the occasional “oh!” amid bursts of distortion, one may be forgiven for expecting something slightly meatier given this band’s pedigree.
Sia
Some People Have Real Problems ••••
Monkey Puzzle
As with previous offerings Sia’s latest album runs amok through the many different facets of her personality. Her continued strategy of delivering stylistic tangents that encompass the best of electronica, R&B, soul and pop has made the listener’s journey to date never less than boring, though admittedly frustrating at times when the ideas haven’t quite hung together to create a whole. As a result, I have dipped in and out of her work, never quite reaching a tipping point either way. Kudos to the lady, then, as Some People Have Real Problems delivers another pleasing blend of musical schizophrenia but with added progression of thought from the first to the final song. Is this Sia’s coming of age album?
