Weekly Music Roundup: Algiers, Agnes Obel, and Tawiah
Week of Nov. 4: This week, a secular anthem from Algiers, a fictional song made real by Robyn Hitchcock, UK "alt-soul" sensation Tawiah, and a trio of mysterious musical landscapes.
Algiers Releases A New Anthem Of Political Soul-Punk
The band Algiers burst out of the box with their 2015 self-titled debut, which blended soul and gospel vocals with dark post-punk guitars and drums. They honed a fine edge on 2017’s The Underside Of Power. Now they’re preparing to release their third album, to be called There Is No Year, and like its predecessors it seethes with anxiety, anger and determination. The first single, “Dispossession,” has just come out and its video sees the band in Paris – but not the iconic tourist spots of Paris. Instead we see the banlieues, the largely immigrant neighborhoods that ring the central city. The song is propelled by a menacing piano and topped by some catchy gospel harmonies, although the message, “you can’t run away,” makes it clear that this is a very secular anthem.
Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked Spawns a New Robyn Hitchcock Video
When Nick Hornby wrote his novel Juliet, Naked, I wrote the following on the Soundcheck blog: “he writes so convincingly about the songs of the reclusive Tucker Crowe that it’s hard to accept that you will never, ever hear those songs.” What the hell was I thinking? Sure, Tucker Crowe is an invention from Hornby’s music-addled brain, and the songs nothing but descriptions on the page; but by 2018, the book was a movie and the songs were real. Or at least, some version of them was real. In the film, Ethan Hawke sings “Sunday Never Comes” several times, and “he caught the feel just right.” So says the guy who actually wrote the song, the veteran English-born rocker Robyn Hitchcock. Now, Robyn has recorded his own version of the song and released a video of it. Both are full of regret, nostalgia, melancholy… and beauty.
An ambient hip hop instrumental from Clams Casino
Producer Clams Casino is best known for his longtime association with the rapper A$AP Rocky, but his own music has left hip hop observers baffled. Impressed, but still, baffled. His moody, ambient tracks have been called “witch house” and “cloud rap” by critics attempting to describe his experimental sound. Clams Casino’s new album, Moon Trip Radio, comes out on November 7, and he’s released this single, called “Rune.” The title suggests something ancient and magical, and that seems to be the effect he’s going for, with layers of electronic drones and wordless vocal samples floating over a strong downtempo groove.
Agnes Obel Releases a Spectral New Song, “Island of Doom”
If you don’t know Agnes Obel by name, you might still be familiar with her music. She has spent this decade making songs that use the structure and easy melodicism of pop with the instrumentation of classical music, and her albums have been repeatedly plundered by TV series, video games, and films. Born in Denmark and based in Berlin, Obel has created a sound world is dreamy, sometimes ghostly, with washes of piano arpeggios and often multiple layers of her own ethereal vocals. The latest song to emerge from that half-lit place is “Island of Doom,” the first track from her 2020 release, Myopia. It’s built on a piano part that seems to owe a debt to both the minimalism of Philip Glass and the classic ambient albums of Harold Budd & Brian Eno. Obel pitch-shifts her voice here and there, and a pizzicato cello adds forward momentum, but this is a song that is in no hurry. It luxuriates in its twilit, mysterious self – and that sense of mystery is heightened by the video, where spectral images fade in and out of focus, and the song’s lyrics, which are largely abstract but include the startling line, “They told me: ‘Clean out the room and bury the body’.”
Myopia comes out on February 21. Agnes Obel plays in New York on April 21, with veteran ambient -global-goth-rockers Dead Can Dance, at Radio City Music Hall.
An Ambient, Psychedelic View of The American Landscape, From SUSS
SUSS is an ambient music group that is based here in New York but seems to wish it were considerably further west. The quintet uses electronics and instruments like pedal steel and harmonica to paint a haunted, perhaps peyote-tinted picture of the vast expanses of the American West. Their latest album, High Line, calls to mind Dark Side-era Pink Floyd, the music from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, Brian Eno’s Apollo, the twangy guitar of Duane Eddy, and cinematic post-rockers like Stars Of The Lid, all at once. This piece, “Sundowner,” is the album’s closing track – appropriately, as it appears to be the sound of riding off into the sunset.
High Line comes out on November 8. SUSS plays at the Sultan Room here in NY on November 20.
Serious Groove and Soul-Baring From London singer Tawiah on Starts Again
South London alt-soul singer Tawiah has a whipped butter-like voice possessed of both expressive range and raw seductive power, with hints of early church vocal training. She’s collaborated with Cinematic Orchestra, Blood Orange, Mark Ronson, Kindness, Cee-Lo, and previously been on major labels, but her 2019 record, Starts Again (First World Records), is Tawiah's first independently-released album where she got to take her time, stretching out to explore her identity (she’s a queer woman of color) and her faith (she was raised in a pentecostal family) on a full album journey.
She moves from “Recreate,” with lyrics of spiritual reflection: "Been dreaming of the promises you made / that keep me going every day / Been thinking of the times we were so close / I could hear you when you spoke" and on the chorus sings: "Elevator take me home / let the angels sing this song" to taking on long distance relationships in “Borders” - backed by gorgeous gospel choir-like vocal harmonies, and her status as a ‘secret lover’ on “Don’t Hold Your Breath,” framed with tension in the strings and marching snare drum groove. The title track “Starts Again” tackles constancy and commitment, and the difficulties of working things out - musically represented by a disruption of flow in the chorus with two extra beats in a cool rhythmic turnaround. The album closer “Mother’s Prayer” opens with a hymn tune and shines with the return of a gospel chorus asking us not to lose faith or hope.
Her slow-burn creative vision, together with her co-producer Sam Beste (Hejira), has paid off with incredibly well-considered and punchy layers of tasty guitar licks, superb synth and organ melodies, string arrangements (composed by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson), field recordings from Ghana, and an unusual and rich combination of orchestral mallet percussion, hand percussion, drum kit, and electronic percussion.
For the record, (ahem), Starts Again needs a listen as the full sequence of the album. (- Caryn Havlik)
