July 2016 Review

July was the best month yet for music in 2016. It's been so good I've decided to do my first ever top 6, such was the quality on offer. My first 4 are especially brilliant records, and all of them would have topped the chart on a weaker month. It's been difficult once again to rank the best from July, I pretty much only made up my mind last night, but it's been lots of fun getting acquainted with some wonderful, varied music as the summer has swung through London.

I have 3 levels of music consumption that I run concurrently. The top level is what I write about, which is new releases. Another is old classics (The first 3 Stereophonics albums these past few weeks) that I have a cheeky spin of when I'm hungover in the mornings and can't deal with explorative Jazz improvisation. The last is where I sweep through back catalogues of artists that I like. Right now, I'm in the middle of a quest to listen to EVERY Wu-Tang Clan related album. That's not the whole army, mind. I do have some semblance of a life. It's the original 9 plus Cappadonna. I'm currently trawling through some of the more high-profile solo outings, and let me tell you, the 2nd half of Uncontrolled Substance is ferocious. Enough of that, though. On with the show.


The Rest:


Dirty Heads - Dirty Heads - C

Reggae/Ska


Metronomy - Summer 08 - C

Electro/Dance/Indie


Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Corazones - C

Pop-rock/Folk/Americana


ORB - Birth - C

Hard Rock/Metal/Stoner


The Best:


01: Bat For Lashes - The Bride - A

Rock/Baroque pop/Experimental


Concept albums are a rare commodity in today's world of Soundcloud demos, live Facebook feeds and download-only singles. Like many musical hallmarks of decades past, they have begun to dwindle and shrink as an entity. Call me old fashioned, but I think a well executed concept album is the pinnacle of musicianship and creativity, and I think there's still some room for it in 2016.

Thankfully, Natasha Khan, (AKA Bat For Lashes) thinks so too, and has put one out herself with her self-produced 4th studio effort The Bride. The album is the story of a woman who's fiance dies in an accident on the way to their wedding, and of her struggle to come to terms with the spectrum of emotions in the wake of the event. The Bride covers an enormous range of mental states, which would be impossible to cover in the short form I give to myself for these reviews, but Khan's own words about the album cover it better than I can: "The trauma and the grief from the death of[..]the groom [is] a metaphor and it allows me to explore the concept of love in general, which requires a death of sorts."

Death and darkness are a strong theme throughout The Bride, which touches many musical tones. None of the songs could be said to be a "single" as such, though there is a large swathe of accessibility that hooks you in early. On the other end of the scale, some pieces are downright dreamy and esoteric, the squeak and echo of heavily distorted guitars rumble through sections of ambient reflection, reaching out to elements of rock, folk, and pop to create a murky swirl of sadness and longing. The album is sprinkled with some hopeful moments too, and the last couple of songs I Will Love Again and In Your Bed melt the fog and jerk you out of the sparse nightmare and make you feel safe again. The Bride is a perfectly balanced work of art, and fully deserves July's top spot.

02: BADBADNOTGOOD - IV - A

Jazz/Soul/Hip-hop


BADBADNOTGOOD, in spite of their atrocious band name, are responsible for some of the sleekest Jazz grooves in today's musical landscape. IV captures 50 minutes of  the band enjoying a trip through clean, layered instrumental grooves, piqued by occasional vocal contributions from an eclectic range of guests.

The wonderful thing about IV is that it's complexity never gets too dense. Often when the band are deep into an intense jam section it's tempting to wince at the blaring trumpet pushing through your headphones, but they drop into calmer sections at the right time, not wavering too long on one section or milking a riff. BBNG have endless melodies that stretch through every part of IV. It's as fresh as the first time on the 15th listen.

My top pick from IV is Time Moves Slow, a soulful old-school slice of chilled Jazz, featuring a superb vocal performance from Sam Herring. Herring's gentle voice repeatedly observes a cryptic truism, "Running away is easy/it's the leaving that's hard" which sums up the listening experience of IV. It doesn't give you everything straight away, which is entirely the point; each spin unlocks more of this rewarding, precise record.

03: Roisin Murphy - Take Her Up To Monto - A

Electronic/Art pop/Experimental 

04: Avalanches - Wildflower - A

Plunderphonics/Psychedelic/Hip-hop


I'm often critical of artists who take too long between albums. I don't see the point in waiting for longer than 3 years, because the longer you leave it, the more potential it has to fail. Plus, what are you doing all day? Get in the studio, or get a job like everyone else. Having said that, when I heard The Avalanches were finally set to release their 2nd album 16 years after their debut, I knew it wasn't going to disappoint.

Wildflower is exactly what you'd expect from an album by The Avalanches in 2016. Their style has not changed much, but that's OK because there's plenty to explore in their head-swimming world. You wander around a vibrant soundscape, every now and then you'll hear a second or two of a song you know that fades away before you can capture it. The effect is a sunny, joyful waking dream. Wildflower is crazy, it's beautiful, it's lush. The wonderful thing about The Avalanches' sound is that by it's very nature it's timeless - They take musical ideas from all eras of modern music, sampling snippets from a diverse range of influences, making it impossible to pigeonhole, so it sounds as new now as it did a generation ago.

The reason why it's lower on my list is that Wildflower is unflatteringly front-loaded. The opening set of Because I'm Me, Frankie Sinatra and Subways promise a bombastic thrill-ride of banging hits, however the big guns stop firing around the time the tracks get into double figures. I get that the album is meant to be a big explosion followed by a gradual, meandering finish, but it's about 15 minutes too long. Still, Wildflower is a glorious return for The Avalanches, and hopefully their 3rd album will be come a little sooner than 2032.

05: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Sworn Virgins - A

Experimental rock

I'm warning y'all now - You're gonna be seeing a lot of this guy in the coming months. OR-L is releasing 2 albums a month from July until the end of the year, and as a huge fan of his work, I will be listening to every last blessed one. So I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to deal with my obsession.

Sworn Virgins is the first of the compendium of albums OR-L is releasing on Ipecac. The albums are all from the last 5 years or so. I always say OR-L is the Frank Zappa of his generation. He's wildly prolific over a number of styles, and his music is an electic savantism, a huge creative intelligence that is both amazed and disgusted with the world, expressed through that weird, sober cutting edge. Sworn Virgins is as typical an album as you can get from an artist with such an expansive list of genres in his locker. It's loud, grinding, and achingly repetitive.

Underneath the frantic exterior of chopped up melody lines and noise is a surprising catchiness that bleeds through every now and then; To Kill A Chi-Chi is almost radio-friendly. Almost. The highlight of Sworn Virgins is the climactic suite of Crow's Feet/Heart Mistakes, which features an oscillated guitar line and a clip of John Lennon exclaiming "Those freaks" to create a maddeningly simple groove that will run around your head for days.

I get the feeling that we'll have as many misses as hits from this forthcoming series of releases, but Sworn Virgins is surely going to be one of the best of the lot. It's got everything an OR-L fan could want from an album of his, and after a 3 year wait from his last solo effort (an ice-age in OR-L terms) it's a sizzling return from El Maestro.

06: Aphex Twin - Cheetah - B

IDM/Electronic

So that's your lot for July, I'm pretty chuffed with the whole of my top 6 if truth be told. If you're only gonna listen to 1 of my top picks I suggest Wildflower. It's the most accessible of the lot and it's one of the most summery, happy albums I've ever heard. It's awesome for drifting off in a daydream on a bus or sitting in the park watching the world go by. I'm gonna be dropping Frankie Sinatra at every party I'm at for the next year, it's too good to keep under wraps, man. See you all in a month.