The Far Out Album Chart: The best new indie and alternative albums this week
The strangeness of the days we live in never ceases to amaze. This week’s big talking points have been AI reforming Oasis, the revelation that Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson might be brothers, and Frank Ocean bizarrely calling off a harem of ice skaters shortly before his Coachella set. Thus, it is even more refreshing that old folk stalwart The Tallest Man on Earth is back with another beauteous outing, there is a polarising new release from Benefits to split the pub discussion, and Baaba Maal has offered something to welcome in the summer.
In a traditional sense, April has often been considered a fallow month, sandwiched in between the winter warmers where people crowd around their record players and shut out the cold, and the festival bangers of the summer. However, with the internet now blurring everything, April is as almost fruitful as any other, offering indie bands exposure as the big labels slumber.
So, this week’s finest records offer whirlwinds from Africa, new indie starlets getting the stamp of approval by Phoebe Bridges, and a bit of bat mythology, to make for a strange but delightful week in new indie and alternative record releases. And this oddball mix seems perfectly fitting for the moment; as the author Frances Hodgson Burnett once described the season: “It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine.”
So, we’ve picked out the best new music alongside the occasional dud for your consideration below in this week’s Far Out Albums Chart. Enjoy…
The best new indie albums this week:
Henry St. – The Tallest Man on Earth – 4/5
The Tallest Man on Earth has a guitar-playing style that comes off like a one-man orchestra; it focuses on details, delicacies and pinching little flourishes from the minutiae of the guitar that often gets neglected by heavy hands. Thus, having a full band has almost seemed redundant. But now, with Henry St., he’s decided that it’s high time he finds himself back in a band. And we get the same beauteous results, just on a grander scale with space to experiment.
This has left him thematically a little more sparse, as he loosens his grip on the songs and offers them up to the muses of a band waxing and waning on musical flow. In the process, the furore of his early albums makes way for something more measured and less pointed but far from pining for the growl of raw emotion to return, fans will certainly be happy to sink into this seamless pillow-propped new vain.
Nails – Benefits – 4/5
Nails is not for everyone. I, for one, didn’t like it. I found it to be like Alan Partridge’s poem ‘The Working Class’ read out over the sound of a pneumatic drill by a very, very angry man cynically seething about all the plight with none of the playfulness and few discernible melodies to boot. But Arun, our writer who reviewed the album, thought that this period of maddening plight is no time for playfulness anyway and to pair that raging despair with dissonance is only fitting. That is fair enough.
Because, if anything, the triumph of the album – that I’m happy to accept – is that it is polarising. It stands out from the pack through its pure unashamed desire to put noses out of joint and kick up a storm. In essence, it is punk in the traditional sense, a lambast aware of its own potholes but determined to ram the message home like a speeding juggernaut all the same. Whichever way you look at it, Benefits are a band who have not arrived with a whimper.
Being – Baaba Maal – 4/5
It has been seven years since we got a new record from the Senegalese legend Baaba Maal. However, he has far from been quiet in that time. He has collaborated with Damon Albarn, popped up on the Black Panther soundtrack, and clearly knuckled down into further honing his infectious sound. Being is an album brimming with assured experimentation.
In terms of musicology, Meal mixes traditional African folk techniques with studio pop engineering, however, aurally this doesn’t seem like a hybrid, it comes out like a unified blast of cold water. Invigorating and innovative, this is experimental music at its easiest, because while you might not have heard it before, you’ll find yourself having a ball all the same.
In Between Thoughts… A New World – Rodrigo y Gabriela – 4/5
Rodrigo y Gabriela once worked on a Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack which makes a lot of sense because listening to these rousing tunes makes you want to hijack a boat. These instrumental Mexicans strum away like dancing millipedes and whisk you over to a holiday booking site in an instant, assured that Mexico simply goes about things better than the rest of the world.
Found busking by Damien Rice, they hit the big time through a quirk of fate, but now they’ve even played in front of Barrack Obama and rumours it that his socks had been knocked off by the end of their gig. In Between Thoughts is pure musical poetry that entraps the adrenalised feeling of strolling Las Ramblas, deboarding a plane, or emerging over the sand dunes onto a luscious beach. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea then maybe you’d be right not to dive into the duo’s latest work, but you also have deep-rooted problems to resolve.
Fuse – Everything But the Girl – 3.5/5
Making a return after over 20 years away isn’t easy. In Fuse, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn have, indeed, remained relevant and up-to-date with modern trends. The lead single, ‘Nothing Left To Lose’, introduces a fresh, energetic garage beat deftly produced with Thorn’s towering vocal display. While danceable, the track maintains a macabre dimension allowing an immersive experience even for the stationary listeners among us.
Wounded and 1999’s Temperamental. Continuing their latter dance incarnation, Thorn and Watt have evolved from the ’90s rave scene with an updated album influenced by modern house/techno and R&B styles. It is an album that flows as though they’ve been keeping their stride steady this whole time.
Any Shape You Take – Indigo de Souza – 3/5
Indigo de Souza is a young artist happy to bare her youthful vigour and that is a great boldness to encounter. Her raw emotions, wavering voice, and rugged guitar playing are all laced with the poignancy of trying to figure out this odd world. Thus, what Any Shape You Take lacks in polish and adroitness, it makes up for with the visceral potency of expression.
However, what separates the album from other indie records of angsty coming-of-age expression is that it is littered with hooks that offer it plenty of single potential. Tracks like ‘Smog’ see things slip into a slick groove where she punctuates verses of delirious hopelessness with a chorus of toe-tapping catharsis. This ability to contrast seamlessly is something that shows Indigo has a great knack for composition that will only get better as she gears up.
Eternally Frozen – Andrea Belfi – 3/5
An album about the Deprong Mori bat species is an interesting proposition, especially if you’re an instrumental composer. You might not be dragged into their idiosyncratic X-ray vision world – especially if you didn’t know that was the brief beforehand – but Belfi’s electro-acoustic experimentation continues to beguile in its own unique way.
The sparse brass intro might be a perturbing handshake, but once you get to know Eternally Frozen, you can become comfortable in its stark world. With bruising synths and rhythmic percussion turning the album into a textured ensemble, you soon settle into touches of Elmer Bernstein before being batted back towards some bleak ayahuasca entrancement of Belfi’s very singular design.
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