list.co.uk/music RECORDS | MUSIC
FOLK LIZABETT RUSSO Something-in-movement (Self-released) ●●●●● ELECTRONIC J-E-T-S ZOOSPA (Innovative Leisure) ●●●●●
Comparing the music of Lizabett Russo to the likes of Joanna Newsom, Björk and Kate Bush might be viewed as reductive and lazy, but it does give the potential listener a handle on what lies within the Scotland-based Transylvanian singer-songwriter’s powerful work. Difficult to classify but largely delectable on the ears, Something-in-movement is the third instalment of Russo’s long-player career, and as a collection, it goes a long way to stirring the blood and shaking up the emotions. While the young Romanian’s strong personality blazes through every track, this is no lonesome project: she has expert assistance from Graeme Stephen on electric guitar, Tim Lane with percussion, Tim Vincent-Smith performing violin and Pete Harvey on cello. The power of nature is evident from the off with ‘Ocean Frequency’ namechecking whale mothers handling their young, stray cats and ‘black sheep of the family’ in a pulsating paean to fighting loneliness.
Animal motifs are also evident in ‘The Back Leg of the Fox’ (a rough sketch of that very body part appears to adorn the record’s cover), ‘Birds’ and ‘The Hunter and Prey’, while she harks back to a medieval time with the stately ‘Penumbra’, a tune that wouldn’t be out of place as the backdrop to a spot of Westeros pageantry before it hurtles towards a thunderous finale. ‘Times of Change’ has Russo at her most melodious while the arpeggio angst of ‘When the North Wind Blows’ can’t fail to move the hardest of hearts. ‘Hai, Dunarea Mea (Danube Song)’ offers a more traditional denouement with the stripped- back number leaving her fully exposed to the listener’s glare, but coming through unscathed and victorious once again.
Lizabett Russo might have some observers busy ticking off the list of references which her music evokes, but she's well on the way to forging her own reputation. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Out Fri 10 May.
Jimmy Edgar and Travis Stewart (Machinedrum) first met nearly 20 years ago, brought together by a mutual love of the Warp Records and Chocolate Industries labels. After collaborating on a handful of EPs, the pair have come together once more to produce ZOOSPA (their first full-length album as J-E-T-S), a high-octane collage of their mutual influences and sounds, featuring vocal performances from Dawn Richard, Mykki Blanco, Rochelle Jordan, KingJet and Tkay Maidza.
The influence of glitch and IDM can be heard throughout ZOOSPA, which
their label Innovative Leisure has described, quite accurately, as like Autechre, but ‘more danceable’. Managing to sound at once both retro and ultra of-the- moment, this album proves J-E-T-S’ ability to merge a spectrum of genres like a beam of light split through a prism. ZOOSPA is an aural sketchbook of synth and beat-based electronic music, styles swirling together in a synthy milky-way smudge, through which we are propelled on a spaceship (bass-ship?) of hard hitting drums and heavy funk. There’s ‘Play’ featuring queer rap pioneer Mykki Blanco, a chaotic blend of
clipped samples and massive airhorns, and ‘Potions’ featuring Dawn Richard, with post-trap hip hop beats all spliced and chopped and layered. On ‘Ocean PPL’, with Rochelle Jordan, J-E-T-S turn their hand to super-slick R&B to create what sounds like Ashanti and Lil’ Kim having a party inside a black hole. ‘Team Effort’ is an absolute banger, reminiscent of the barbaric, militant beats
of Fuck Buttons, and ‘Lotus HD’ is an array of twinkling synths and vocoder straight out of a Nintendo soundtrack. There literally is not one dull
moment on an album that’s the product of two highly experienced and experimental producers rejoicing in collaboration. ZOOSPA is a kaleidoscope of different EDM sounds that are brought together expertly to form a pretty berserk, yet somehow coherent whole. (Kate Walker) ■ Out Fri 24 May.
INDIE FOLK SIOBHAN WILSON The Departure (Suffering Fools Records) ●●●●● ELECTRONIC CHEMICAL BROTHERS No Geography (Virgin EMI) ●●●●●
Much has been said about Siobhan Wilson’s innate ability to captivate, her vocals possessing a sublime magnetism that captures moments and holds them close. As the follow-up to There Are No Saints from 2017, The Departure is emblematic of Wilson’s evolution as an artist, possessing an urgency and indignation previously veiled below shades of tenderness.
The album’s opener, and title track, has a deceptive sweetness, much like the rest of the record, with a twinkling piano accompanying her haunting vocals. The focus is very much on the movement of the harmonies, clashing beautifully as the choral-like piece progresses towards the fuzz of next track, and lead single, ‘Marry You’. The song provides a rugged blast of folk, punk and grunge, with the dichotomy between Wilson’s hazy Baritone Gretsch guitar and soothing timbre continuing elsewhere. ‘All Dressed Up Tonight (Better Than I Ever Did With You)’, for example, has a nonchalance, combining folk vocals with shoegaze instrumentation, understated in its make-up but packed with something unexpectedly fierce.
The anthemic ‘Unconquerable’, with guest lyrics and vocals from Stina
Tweeddale, offers a menacing call and response while album highlight ‘Little Hawk’ opens with a whisper, barely heard before strings weep around the vocals wistfully. A distorted guitar enters defiantly and by the end, the song’s repetitive war cries become reminiscent of Live Through This-era Hole. It offers a contrast
To say the Chemical Brothers remain trapped in amber on this, their ninth album in 24 years (the follow-up to 2015’s Born in the Echoes) is to play down just what a remarkable feat their career has been – two decades and more ploughing through the ever-mutating world of dance music by essentially doing what they’ve always done, while modulating it just enough to appear both current and timeless.
Which is a way of saying that No Geography is more of the same again – the last time they delivered a record it stood up to the sound of the world around it and this time it’s no different. In fact, if anything in Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons’ repertoire has changed, it’s the subtle sense of itchy-footedness about the way the political world has shifted since their last release.
The signposts to what the pair are trying to say are obscured in the dense undergrowth of techno beats, but are there if you want to find them. ‘No geography . . . you and me, and him and her, and them too,’ murmurs the sampled voice woven through the upbeat retro house crests of the title track, a sense of internationalist solidarity implied; ‘I know we can make it, girl / we’ve got to try,’ hollers the hopeful Hallelujah Chorus sample arcing over the ragged acid breaks of ‘We’ve Got to Try’; ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it no more,’ runs the vocal across ‘MAH’s strident techno funk, the words taken from El Coco’s 1977 track and not Peter Finch’s angry white man turn in Network.
to the album’s more delicate numbers, such as Wilson’s take on Gainsbourg’s ‘Ne Dis Rien’ or Barbara’s ‘Dis, Quand Reviendras: Tu?’.
Wilson conjures atmospheres in The Departure that are intimate and yet cinematically expansive. She weaves darker elements more intricately than ever, with soundscapes that spiral towards the otherworldly, and melodies that transfix, effortlessly fitting varied ranges and genres with quiet confidence. (Arusa Qureshi) ■ Out Fri 10 May.
These connections are there to be found if you’re looking, but this isn’t the Chems’ agitprop record. It is, frankly, another big party of an album which will only be proven in its natural environment, the air-rumbling arenas of their upcoming tour. Amid the steel drum post-punk of ‘Bango’ and the urbane chill-out of ‘The Universe Sent Me’, there are some enjoyable experiments here, while the impossible-to-resist ‘Got to Keep In’ is a stone-cold Chemicals classic on very first listen. ■ Out Fri 12 Apr. 1 Apr–31 May 2019 THE LIST 97