100 words music reviews
Clarice Lispector’s 1973 work ‘Agua Viva’ is written in the syllabic flow of a perfect novel, but expressed through streaming narratives and hellishly opaque metaphor. An outline. I think Bob Dylan had the same idea on ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ – to write passively with lyrical latitude and have faith that between alien […]
On her maximalist fourth album, Gaye Su Akyol again makes expressive use of the burnt tremor in her voice, this time singing directly to Istanbul. Through its baroque psych-rock, the record blazes through its themes without deference to taste and/or accessibility. This is certainly Akyol’s most anti-pop album to date, as she takes the scenic […]
Elliott Smith packed more melody into a double-tracked whisper than would be expected in a Glee cover of Mariah Carey. He can also say ‘fuck’ with more power than any outlandish, testosterone-steaming ‘rockstar’. Either/Or is like the shadow of a pop hit—Brian Wilson might have written it if he spent the 1960s leaning musically into […]
The Wau Wau Colectif found each other when Karl Jonas Winqvist was stranded in Toubab Dialaw, an hour down the coast from Dakar. He encountered local musicians in a spirited artistic community and, when he returned to Sweden, traded Whatsapp notes until a debut was born. Mariage is their second record, pieced together without hiding […]
Quadeca is a YouTube rapper who made his name through clickbaity disstracks at fellow streamers. That should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of this record, but “I Didn’t Mean to Haunt You” defies all expectations. The grandiose, genre-spanning concept-album is written from Quadeca’s own purgatory, where a lifetime’s worth of […]
It’s tempting to draw on some familiar names to help convey this record, but I’ll resist. That might validate the fact that Parallelograms went practically unheard until its 2003 reissue. It is a unique album, from a unique composer. The wistfulness is in tune with a woodland Aesop fable, but Perhacs’ folk isn’t a sun-glazed frolic […]
The cover of Exile poses two possible scenarios: the person is being thrown, or they are raising their head as an expression of openness. The status of ‘exile’ holds the same dualism—free, in theory only, to go anywhere but your home. The record is a story of youthful longing, and we imagine the protagonist walking […]
Familiarising his eccentric spirit, Benjamin Clementine has produced a big-hearted record that swoops down to greet the listener. It is still unpredictable, but the force conducting ‘And I Have Been’ is benevolent—more like a guide than some epistemically distant energy. Clementine has a deep, timeless presence in his work. Here, he seems to connect history […]
It will surprise no one that Natalia Lafourcade has made a beautiful album. It might surprise some that she has made this beautiful album. De Todas Las Flores is more muffled in essence than her previous records. It has a quiet, life-affirming warmth that cuddles the narrative maturation through love and love lost, taking into […]
100 words music reviews 