This was published 9 years ago
Shortlist album reviews: Prince brings back the funk on Art Official Age
Prince
ART OFFICIAL AGE
Prince returns with Art Official Age.
(Warne)
★★★
A cosmic jazz opus by Flying Lotus on You're Dead!
The better of Prince's two simultaneous releases, as opposed to the Plectrumelectrum collaboration with 3rdEyeGirl, Art Official Age is the sound of Prince coolly nodding to his own 1980s studio funk jams just as a new generation has filtered them down to icy R&B grooves. There are flashes of that galvanising falsetto and sweet syncopation, exemplified by Breakfast Can Wait and the funk horns that empower The Gold Standard. There's a sci-fi backstory about waking in the future that is best ignored, and the album is just too laid-back. This Could Be Us sums up his divided loyalties: "Sex with me ain't enough, that's why we got to do it metaphysically."
CRAIG MATHIESON
Flying Lotus
YOU'RE DEAD!
The Delines showcase alt-country on Colefax.
(Warp/Inertia)
★★★☆
Ian Collard delivers Swamp Stomp and Boogie.
Though Steven Ellison is a seminal figure in the rise of the beatmaker to superstar status, he's also descended from the Coltranes (genealogically speaking). That latter fact seems apt on his fifth Flying Lotus LP, which leaves behind jittery hip-hop rhythms for a cosmic jazz opus. You're Dead! sets out on an astral plane littered with dizzying keyboard runs and spiralling horn solos; its most symbolic guest not Snoop Dogg (nor, even, Ellison's rap alter-ego, Captain Murphy), but Herbie Hancock. Listeners' mileage may vary depending on their fondness (or lack thereof) for jazz fusion, but You're Dead! is a singular voyage, into an artistic great beyond.
ANTHONY CAREW
A memoir of music and motherhood by Peaking Lights, set to chipper synth-pop on Cosmic Logic.
The Delines
COLFAX
(Warner)
★★★★☆
When novelist-songwriter Willy Vlautin found vocalist Amy Boone and formed The Delines, the result was an album of consistently exquisite songs populated by lost souls, broken dreams and scarred lives, delivered with a sad elegance as romantic as it is desolate. Boone's voice is wounded and resigned, and is perfectly cast for the characters created by Vlautin. It's an alt-country album crossed with the narcotic dream pop of Mazzy Star or Cowboy Junkies, but on songs like I Wont Slip Up, Colfax Avenue, State Line and He Told Her the City Was Killing Him, the album transcends genre and becomes a harrowing soundtrack for lives that are down but not quite out.
ANDREW WATT
Ian Collard
SWAMP STOMP AND BOOGIE
(Rocket Records)
★★★☆
Down on the river delta where the big trucks rumble over the bridge and the container ships tie up and the fishermen think twice about eating what they catch, they talk about a bluesman named Ian, who sings cool and blows hot harp. He's also known for his greens and gravy but this time around all that's left is Collard. Turns out he's got some mean chops on the six-string, too. Things get rowdy when friends drop by with their bass and drums to help out on this satisfying set of standards and originals. Somewhere in heaven, Junior Kimbrough is smiling.
JEFF GLORFELD
Peaking Lights
COSMIC LOGIC
(Domino/Universal)
★★★★
"Feminism gave me a choice, riot-grrrl gave me a voice," Indra Dunis sings on New Grrrls, its roll-call of heroines – Emma Goldman, Angela Davis, Kathleen Hanna – ripe with homage for Le Tigre's Hot Topic. A memoir of music and motherhood set to chipper synth-pop, it symbolises the changing spirit of Peaking Lights. Once an insular psychedelic love-in shrouded in tape hiss and bong smoke, the dubbed-out husband-and-wife duo have grown clearer and more commanding with each new record. Cosmic Logic, their fourth, has plenty of spacey lyrics and trailing echo, but its melodies are bold and its production brilliant; the LP playing like Peaking Lights' bona fide breakout.
ANTHONY CAREW