list.co.uk/music ELECTRO-FUNK THE BLET PROJECT Now Live (Self-released) ●●●●●
EXPERIMENTAL POP TANYA TAGAQ Retribution (Six Shooter) ●●●●● Records | MUSIC
Certain phrases can really ruin your day. You know the sort of thing I'm talking about: ‘Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?’ or ‘It's not you, it's me.’ Personally, I'd put ‘electro-funk concept album' into that category, and so I approached the Blet Project's debut album Now Live with a considerable degree of trepidation. A couple of years back, Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq saw off competition from Drake and Arcade Fire (among others), and lifted Canada’s Mercury-equivalent, the Polaris Prize. The some-time Björk collaborator bagged the gilded accolade for her third LP, Animism – a ferocious, radical meditation on social and political turmoil, ecocide, and much besides.
Of course, prejudice can sometimes blind us to the good things in life. That guy That record’s follow-up, Retribution, is no less provocative, stunning or
earnestly handing out copies of The Watchtower to passers-by probably makes a really good cottage pie. That break-up could give you the time you need to get on with that coding course you’ve been meaning to take. And you might spend the best pat of your week enjoying an electro-funk concept album. uncompromising. If anything, there’s an upsurge in the passion, venom and outrage that fired up her last defiant offering. ‘Why sugarcoat it?’ asks the LP's accompanying literature. ‘This album is about rape: rape of women, rape of the land, rape of children, despoiling of traditional lands without consent.’
The brainchild of songwriter Stephen Dennis, the band make 90s-inspired Such a manifesto invokes myriad new levels (and horrors) on Tagaq’s cover of
electro pop with a critical twist. Given contemporary pop producers’ addiction to pilfering the sounds of that decade, it's interesting to find an act trying to combine the format of the three-minute pop track with socially conscious songwriting. Breakout single ‘Eight Til Ten’ is a jumpy take on wage slavery, ‘The Anthem’
Nirvana’s, ‘Rape Me’, (recalling her take on Pixies’ ‘Caribou’ on Animism), but her own compositions are the showstoppers here – from ‘Ajaaja’s avant-garde lullaby, through the tropical-metal dirge of ‘Aorta’, to the primal, apocalyptic disco of the title track (‘Our mother grows angry / Retribution will be swift / We squander her soil / And suck out her sweet, black blood to burn it . . . Money has spent us’).
locks on to virtue signalling and self-righteous social media politics, and ‘Mr David Harris’ contains a few wry digs at the music industry itself. The production echoes 90s anthems (especially pop-funk acts like Level 42) while lead vocalist Maisie Hutt's voice recalls the Beautiful South's Jacqui Abbot – though Dennis doesn't
Retribution is a variously horrifying and thrilling portrayal – and exploration – of a tumultuous and destructive world, that variously excoriates capitalism, climate change, and wilful environmental devastation. It’s also a beautiful, ecstatic, and often carnal, record. It features a warm
compare favourably to Paul Heaton in terms of songwriting chops due to heavy-handed instrumentation on tracks like ‘A Love Of Sin’, on which synth drops lead into indulgent guitar licks. It’s refreshing to find a record with political bite which doesn’t seek to emulate protest music in the Billy Bragg tradition, but considering that the band also set out to invert the classic pop song mould, it wanders far from their brief too soon into the record. (Sam Bradley) ■ Out Fri 8 Nov.
array of musicians and company: Tagaq’s alchemic vocal talents are augmented by producer, electronic diviner and lead violinist Jesse Zubot; drummer Jean Martin; Tuvan throat singer Radik Tyülyüsh; rapper Shad; traditional Inuk singer Ruben Komangapik; and – perhaps most notably – Tagaq’s own young daughter, Inuuja, whose presence elicits something akin to a tentative hope that there’s light in the future. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Out Fri 18 Nov.
ROCK RODDY HART & THE LONESOME FIRE Swithering (Middle of Nowhere) ●●●●● FOLK POP REBEKKA KARIJORD Mother Tongue (Control Freak Kitten Records) ●●●●●
Roddy Hart has certainly been round a musical block or two in his time. Having helped open the Commonwealth Games, performed at the Scottish Parliament’s tenth anniversary and been a steady fixture on Craig Ferguson’s US chat show, Hart has picked up a galleon of influences during his decade- plus in the music biz. His pleasing brand of indie-folk-rock has resulted in comparisons to everyone from the Killers to the Boss, and in Hart’s new collection (emboldened by his Lonesome Fire buddies), a new raft of namechecking appears to be going on. You might catch glimpses of Arcade Fire, King Creosote and even Talking
Heads in among the dozen tracks of Swithering, and while this game of name-that-forebear might get a little tiresome after a while, there are still many delights to be had. ‘Berlin’ features an inbuilt anthemic drive in a song which may be a paean to
the German city or perhaps a homage to Bowie (the song’s late gear-change into Win Butler territory might hint at the latter) while the elegantly upbeat ‘Violet’ could so easily have cropped up on Kenny Anderson’s From Scotland With Love.
Those tunes’ attributes might be clear, but some numbers simply drift off into a wholly unmemorable rock-clichéd mulch (‘In the Arms of California’, ‘Dreamt You Were Mine’ and ‘Strange Addictions’ being the most obvious
The change that you often experience when becoming a mother is not just visible in the day-to-day variation in routine and habits; it can consist of a total emotional metamorphosis in which the very reason for being shifts. Mother Tongue is an album that documents Rebekka Karijord’s journey of motherhood, from the pain and heartache of almost losing her daughter to the strength and courage required to survive such a traumatic period. The album lifts Karijord to new territory, remaining in line with the modest instrumentation and minimalist textures of previous album We Become Ourselves, but thematically broaching new ground with fierce honesty.
There’s a sense of repetition and pattern throughout the album, which appears to mimic the act of breathing, as on opener ‘Morula’. The arpeggio pattern that accompanies the breathy vocal line is reiterated continuously, signalling survival; a common motif. This is also apparent in the steady percussion of ‘Stones’, which ebbs and flows alongside the main melody.
Elsewhere on the album, there’s the jaunty and energetic ‘The Orbit’, with
percussive handclaps and harmonies expressing a sense of jubilation. Similarly, ‘Six Careful Hands’ has a nervous excitement surrounding it, with the lyrics ‘light as a feather’ echoed multiple times as if to emphasise amazement or disbelief. The element of the album that truly gives it depth is Karijord’s voice, which is occasionally made the central component of the musical arrangements. ‘Your
perpetrators) and insipid balladeering (‘I Thought I Could Change Your Mind’), ultimately preventing the album from sustaining a consistent high. While Roddy Hart’s admirable
search for the perfect melody and incessant hook will continue after this record, there’s quite likely to be some greatness just around the corner. But whether it can be conjured up while avoiding an over-reliance of external forces seems unlikely. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Out Fri 25 Nov.
Name’ is an example of this, where the simple piano and synth chords shadow the vocals, enabling her voice to rise to a melismatic climax. Closing track ‘Mausoleum’ also explores the interplay between harmony, in a mostly unaccompanied choral ode to the album’s main subject; motherhood. But Mother Tongue is not just about one experience, it’s also a sentimental look at what it means to suffer, and in turn cope, with the common and more unconventional hurdles of life. (Arusa Qureshi) ■ Out Fri 27 Jan. 3 Nov 2016–31 Jan 2017 THE LIST 105