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Semper Femina by Laura Marling

Laura Marling's latest record manages to be both her most experimental effort yet, but also her least ambitious. I always felt Marling could be just a hair away from being a contemporary Joni Mitchell, but as I listen to more of both I see just how long that hair is growing.

Marling's music is husky and earnest. Her lyrics are thoughtful and usually poetic, but almost always boring. And where before Marling had the benefit of masking her words as discursive indie metaphor, her attempts to make it more low-key and honest reveal that Marling doesn't have an awful lot to say. Which is a shame, because the music here is nice, as it always has been. The albums bookends are its strongest entries, with more left-of-field instrumentation and rhythms, but honestly - they're the only two songs that ever held my attention.

And so I think the real trouble is Marling's voice. It's sassy, sure, but while she's exploring the sounds underneath herself, she never reflects that back. She's not a particularly strong melodist, and her voice often flatly rides over the music like an acoustic rhythm guitar would. It's difficult to listen closely to.

I'd love to hear Marling experiment with vocal sounds more - or maybe even take a back seat, bringing her voice in only occaisionly. Maybe then we'll be surprised, turn the music up, and be eager to listen.

*

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Gang Signs & Prayer by Stormzy

I get it. This album has two personalities - the gang signs and the prayers. The cover art features thugs, while also alluding to last supper. But this album isn't fusion, it tends to be one or the other. There's something disarming being thrown into Blinded By Your Grace after the first three tracks feel like a paranoid mandy trip through London's late night streets. 'Return of the Rucksack' doesn't belong sandwiched between Pt Two' and '100 Bags'. And there's something I can't take seriously about listening to the self-described 'smoochy' 'Velvet' while Stormzy on the cover is looking at me like he's about to proper mug me.

The times when Grime and R&B come together aren't bad, but feel more like a watered-down Grime than a souped up R&B, in what feels like an attempt to be Radio-friendly. Which is strange, because his most popular and successful efforts are the pure-breed Grime tracks - so why mix things up?

But if there's one thing that is consistent - it's Stormzy himself. His personality bleeds into every song here, he's constantly fresh, never repeating himself, always on his toes. He adapts and he's comfortable no matter the tone. His energy carries the album, because where the album lacks any real defining moments, it becomes defined entirely by Stormzy.

I read somwhere that this will be 'the year of Stormzy'. I hope not, because while this album is disjointed in search for a name, Stormzy clearly has his mind set on redefining his genre, so the best might be yet to come.

**

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A Crow Looked At Me by Mount Eerie

I've heard this album twice now, the second time more closely. It's a difficult piece of work to write about. Most critics online tend to frame it around how the subject of death is so common in art, and how Elverum has stripped away the layers and delivered something far more honest. It hardly takes two minutes into the record before realizing that.

So where exactly do you begin? I'm not saying that because the record is on some untouchable plane that words couldn't justice, or that this album has left me speechless. It's because this album sits uncomfortably between the others in my collection. It accomplishes different things, its purpose is different, its core is different.

And I don't think this is an album that requires more than one listen to 'get'. One second listen, even though I deliberatly paid closer attention, I recalled almost all of the lyrics (if you'd call them that). Instead I guess I just needed taking back into that space again. That space isn't entirely pleasant. It's pretty awful. As someone fortunate enough to have never lost anyone very close to me, this is the first bit of anything (music, movie, book or otherwise) that has really made me really realize just how terrible it could possibly be. On the second listen I felt a very real surge of sadness punch me in the gut at a moment when I wasn't expecting it. Not a 'I'm going to put on a Carissa's Weird album because I want to feel sad' kind of sadness, but something I really had to try and turn my mind away from.

If that profound effect this album has is how you want to measure it, then fine. Feeling sad can be a wonderful thing, and it can also be a very awful thing. Phil Elverum is expressing the latter in sometimes the most blunt and lurid way he can, and something doesn't feel right about using the album to 'feel alive' or 'reflect on my own life'.

Yes, Elverum has released an album, that's exclusively about the death of his wife, to the public for profit. And I don't think its right to immediately call that exploitative, or even attention-seeking - but it puts us in an awkward position. Is it insensitive to dismiss it? It's a beautiful album, but it is what it is. Elverum even opens the album saying death 'is not for singing about' or 'making into art'. He might be right, but I'm not sure that by being self-critical he makes then doing it okay. He's justified it by saying "I make these songs and put them out into the world just to multiply my voice saying that I love her. I want it known." But what we get isn't a love album, although is clearly a product of love. It's about his coping, and this is how he copes.

So where's the shame in poetry? Where's the craft in taking that emotional energy and shaping it into something universal, relatable, moving and calculated. Would that not do it justice? Seems Elverum thinks so.

And really this album takes my mind to all the closed doors, all those songs about lost loved ones that weren't recorded or written, and died with the moment the guitar is lent up against the wall. I'm not sure I want to hear them, most aren't made to be heard, and that's a beautiful thing.

**

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Syre by Jaden Smith

Jaden Smith is a rapper because he wanted to be. Perhaps after he discovered that 'professor' rhymes with 'stretcher' and felt it'd be a shame if he didn't demonstrate that more than once. Dumpy affectations and shallow poetry shows that Jaden is trying to fill shoes ten times his fit, and he's never left those shoes, and it shows. 'SYRE' never sits still because its constantly redefining itself, maybe even convinced its dense and all-encompassing, but despite a 70 minutes run time the result is still arid self-reflection that might have a hard time filling a puddle. The production shifts and impresses, but does so only because it can. Its hideously clever, but never takes the time to appreciate or dwell on its own sounds or sprase concepts. I was excited to hear what the same kid who believes our 'eyes aren't real' had to offer, especially after 'Icon' presented itself as such a confident song with a crunchy beat that even Jaden could swagger over. That's certainly the record's most appealing quality: Jaden breaths confidence throughout. but by the time he's spitting spoken word at the end, you wonder whether its because no one dared tell him otherwise.

And sure, at least it is explorative, but then again - so is masturbation.

*

[bobbyb5]

Fix-a-Flat is absolutely amazing. It's supposed to be only a temporary fix, but several times I've had a flat where I used Fix- a- flat, and drove around for the entire life of the car without ever getting the tire properly repaired. The Fix- a- flat just solved the problem permanently. Good stuff. And if I recall, it only cost $3.99 a can.

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Romaplasm by Baths

Will Wiesenfeld has lost weight, and I think he might be in love. The man who puts the pop in glitch pop has proven himself to be an exceptionally acute producer in his previous efforts - both of which shared breathlessly absorbing moments, peppered between some more dense and more mundane tracks. Cerulean and Obsidian had verses and had choruses and they were often stitched together in a way that made sense. We always knew Wiesenfelds could create songs that sounded twee on the surface, but invited you to dissect each and every musical decision - and that can be a lot of work sometimes.

In Romaplasm, Wiesenfeld finally finds his feet. While there's no particular melodies or moments you can single out here, instead the result is something that feels cohesive, that swings and sways in ways that don't just make sense, but feel entirely natural. And the remarkable thing is just how natural this record sounds, despite being electronic. The synths yawn and clack while the percussion gargles on beats that you don't anticipate, so that when strings sweep into the mix or vocal beats sits alongside the makeshift ones, there's harmony. There's nothing here to hold on to for too long, you'll hear a melody or a beat, and then it'll be gone. So instead it makes more sense to just let it flow through. Its restlessly gorgeous. No song here is wasted or lacking confidence.

Moving away from his more morose tone, something cynical in me could call this saccharine. Instead, I think it tastes a whole lot more like molasses - often overwhelming, but nothing other than genuine.

***

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Gangin by SOB x RBE

Behind the layers, there's something oddly reflective and pensive at the central of Gangin. If you're looking for bars to blow you away, you won't find them here. SOB x RBE sound like kids trying to impress, but with that is a fresh enthusiasm that no number of technical rhymes or lyricism can salvage entirely. The standout member here is Yhung T.O, who whips up some surprisingly singable hooks in nearly every track, and gives almost every its flavour that makes it worth going back to. But things still hold up in his absence - 'God' is Gangin' at its rawest, and Slimmy B seems to bleed his anxieties both clumsily and with complete conviction.

The beats somehow straddle a line between disco and trap, and it's amazing, for the most part. Some songs sound as though they were recorded in a different studio, feeling hazy or distant, but there's just as much capacity for the sound to twinkle as there is for it to slap hard - and sometimes both at once.

The record is too long, but that's because it's keen. It's mostly forgettable, but consistent in what it is. Fingers crossed their next album is titled 'CRYIN'.

**