Album Review: Soul on Soul (Deluxe Edition) - Jean Wells

I'm sure I point this out every year but December onwards always tends to see a dearth of decent music releases as the industry focuses on milking the valuable casual market for Christmas. The result is all X Factor, greatest hits compilations and deluxe reissues of the year's best (selling) albums.

Soul on Soul is a re-release, albeit one selected from an artist who deserves more exposure rather than less for once. Wells was never a massive star in her own time - her biggest single was the desperate and lovelorn 'Have a Little Mercy', which reached number 25 in the R&B charts on release in 1967. But her voice simply boasts bags of soul, and these songs always leave the gloves off.

Whether it is wallowing in the depths of emotion, as on the aforementioned 'Have a Little Mercy' or the similarly themed 'Sit Down and Cry', or being forthright and commanding respect Wells' songs are beautiful and gloriously sung. ’Somebody's Been Loving You (But It Ain't Been Me)’ is a brilliant example of the latter - a slamming put down to a cheating partner, Wells making it clear that she hasn't had anywhere near enough (ahem) attention lately.

Particularly mind-blowing is the synthesiser backed 'Roll Up Your Sleeves, Come Out Lovin' (Winner Takes All)’. Recorded in the early seventies it feels like a rough take on 80s disco but the fuzzy charm of the bass line gives it an incredible grounded feel. Best of all is 'What Have I Got To Lose', a soaring, string-led epic Philly soul joint that is all butterflies and sunshine of spring love - the all too short moment of contemplation before making your move on a new love.

If, like me, Christmas tends to drive you loopy with the disposability of it all then you could do much worse than keep this on standby throughout the next five weeks.

BP x

Soul on Soul is out now on BBE, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Soft Pack - Ruede Hagelstein & The Noblettes

Ruede Hagelstein's Soft Pack is not what you expect from a release on Tiefschwartz's Souvenir Music label by a DJ that has dabbled with electro-clash and been featured on Kitsuné Maison and Mathew Dear's Fabric album.

And that is because this is a laid back, experimental album and, together with his band The Noblettes, Hagelstein has made a set of contemplative jazz-influenced folk songs. The benefit of Ruede's producer-background are clear though, as this album is spoilt by a myriad of tiny flourishes and little moments that elevate these songs to greatness. Listen to 'Berlin', a tribute to the band's home, and it is full of detail - the clicks and shuffles of the percussion in the opening half, the disconcertingly slowed down break half-way through and then the shimmering jazz chorus that seemingly breaks out into flight for the song's second half. The layers of keys, the guitars, the traffic sounds that close it out.

There are more overtly electronic moments - the static and distortion of 'Blue Straight' or (an admittedly more laid back take on) previous single 'Emergency' - but even these moments are not going to bother any dance floors. This is an album of atmospheric pop, as close to Sufjan Stevens and Animal Collective as anything else.

And it is best when it is at its most free. The looping bass and rhythm of 'Leaving the Centre' feels improvised, the lyrics an unbound stream of consciousness. Despite the weighty bass it skitters around your head in floods of reverb. You can't help but worry the whole thing might fall apart if you were to concentrate too hard. 'Romance' is similarly unconstrained, a five-minute instrumental that feels like an extended snapshot of a single moment in time, the melodies unpacking and re-packing themselves over and over.

Ruede Hgelstein and The Noblettes have made an album of joyful ambient pop. It features the kind of music that can only come from the mind of an extremely talented producer. At its best, it is no less than beautiful.

BP x

Soft Pack is out now on Souvenir Music, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Era Extraña - Neon Indian

Neon Indian's debut album, Psychic Chasms, fell neatly into chill wave scene at exactly the right time. It had moments of sheer brilliance ('Should Have Taken Acid With You') but also felt like it had a fair amount of filler. Era Extraña is the opposite, it is the sound of musician Alan Palomo and his band seemingly freed from the shackles of genre-definition to make glorious shoe gazing distortion pop chill and, more to the point, it's packed with killers.

This isn't to say this second album abandons the Neon Indian sound - it doesn't. It just pushes it outwards to make something larger and more encompassing. At times it's a bloody noisy record, which isn't something you often hear people say about chill wave, and if you didn't tell me I'd probably have guessed this was M83's new one rather than Neon Indian's (more on which in a later post possibly...).

Era Extraña is brilliant simply because it boasts brilliant melodies. The cover depicts a confusing image of a person lit up from within (by a glow stick? Or mobile phone?), seemingly staring into their own hands whilst the sun sets on urban decay in the background. It feels totally fitting, packed with warm colours and messy scenery.

This is melodramatically hormonal music. Listen to the adrenal rush of 'Hex Girlfriend', fuzzy bass and a synthesised take on epic guitar solos and a suitably climatic finale. Similarly 'Fallout' just feels gorgeous - there is something so cool about Palomo's swagger on these tracks, he makes a song about actively wanting to fall out of love with someone sound like the most romantic thing imaginable. There are stacks of songs as good as this and before you know it Era Extraña is almost over, on dawn chorus of 'Sun Irrupt'. The album closes proper with instrumental 'Heart: Release', a bookend to the synthesiser referencing 'Heart: Attack' and 'Heart: Decay' that mark the opening and rough midpoint of the album.

Those that were fans of the previous album may feel like Neon Indian have thrown the baby out with the bath water on Era Extraña. I don't care - they just got themselves a much better baby.

BP x

Era Extraña is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: BBE 15 - Various artists mixed by Chris Reed

BBE, along with their series of successful Beat Generations albums, caught my attention back in my university days. Hip-hop felt more interesting then with a movement of artists who brought a more creative free-flowing aesthetic to the genre. Some dubbed this as 'indie' hip-hop but I always felt that kind of seemed a bit condescending.

My favourite artists at this time were The Roots, Common and most of all Jay Dee, or J Dilla as he later became known. I've covered and mentioned Dilla on the site a number of times before but a few of his albums never fail to blow me away. Best of all was Donuts, a set of instrumental jams recorded from his hospital bed shortly before Jay died of blood disease TTP in 2006. Pretty far up the list however was his Beat Generations album for BBE - perhaps the first demonstration that he had aims outside of the hip-hop and R&B genres, with its wonky electro moments and thick and heavy soul.

This genre-bending experimentalism is what has made BBE a great label over the years, and it's here in spades on BBE 15. Hip-hop has lost something for me over the years but to listen to this you wouldn't know it. There is plenty of the loose, soulful hip-hop that is good enough but it is when things stray from this that this album really shines. Then rapidly accelerating beats and rhymes of 'Black Star' by Richy Pitch featuring M.anifest feel like a frantically tweaking modern take on hip-hop, the tempo making rapid shifts like moving through musical traffic. The transition into Ty's 'Heart is Breaking' is equally wonderful - a percussive, soulful track that combines breakbeats and soulful disco.

Osunlade and Erro's cover of Radiohead's 'Everything In It's Right Place' is inspired and punctures the first disc like a brass pin through a butterfly's wing, a gravity that holds the whole thing in place. A cover of Radiohead can be a risky move but the sales rhythms here work perfectly. The final portion of disc one takes in drum 'n' bass, soul and soulful hip-hop, with the bombastic 'How 'Bout Us' by Katalyst really pulling no punches.

The second disc never quite reaches the same heights, feeling much more constrained by genre than the first half of this album. J Dilla's turns return their glory, particularly 'Pause', but there is just a bit too much straight up hip-hop. There are still some great moments - the vitriolic rhymes and rough riding bass lines and beats of Jazzy Jeff's 'Scram' and the gloriously classic disco of Don Cello's cover of 'Aint No Stoppin' Us Now' - things just aren't quite as adventurous.

On the whole it's impossible not to forgive the slight disappointment of the second half of BBE 15 when it packs so much into one album. Few labels could hope to have such a varied and exciting retrospective - BBE 15 should make us grateful such great labels exist.

BP x

BBE 15 is out now on BBE.

Album Review: On the Water - Future Islands

Last year's Future Islands album was a pleasant surprise - an early highlight from a new band unknown to me up until that point. On the Water is Future Islands' third album and it pretty much plays its cards just right.

As a band I'm surprised that Future Islands haven't had more success. Their blend of shoe-gazing fuzzy indie and 80s synths is undeniably very 'now'. And whilst singer Samuel T. Herring's vocals are deliberately abrasive this isn't an inaccessible band. Perhaps this fact hasn't escaped their notice either, as On the Water definitely feels like a play for the mainstream, as demonstrated by first single 'Balance', which recalls the Cure's ability to combine melody with angst.

Whilst On the Water's Future Islands have a rounder sound they start off by almost sinking. Compared to In Evening Air's kick start of 'Walking Through That Door' the opening title track here falls a little flat. It is all noise but with little to say and far too slow to not be saying anything at all. In comparison the duet of 'The Great Fire', with Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner, shows this is a band capable of applying softness amidst a raw aggression.

It is the latter portion of the album that really wins me over however. 'Where I Found You' is gorgeous synth pop with what could almost be a heartbeat for a rhythm. Appropriate for a song that wears its heart on its sleeve so proudly. 'Give Us the Wind' is even greater - a song that starts softly, as if to trick the listener this isn't a race, before breaking into soaring vocals that feel like the aural equivalent of a heavy foot on the accelerator as you fly into the corner.

When On the Water comes together it has some moments that outshine the best bits on Future Islands' last album. It may not have the impact I felt upon hearing In Morning Air, but that is probably just because I knew more of what to expect. Future Islands continue far more than much bigger bands.

BP x

On the Water is out tomorrow on Thrill Jockey, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP [affiliate links].