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Albums of the week: Sharon Van Etten, James Blake and Alice Merton

Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow

(Jagjaguwar)

*****

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Named after a persistent software update message on her laptop, Sharon Van Etten’s comeback album is a testament to time management. As well as becoming a mother, the New York-based Van Etten has been studying for a psychology degree, making music for films and acting in Twin Peaks and Netflix sci-fi series The OA.

If her life has changed dramatically in the past few years, so has her music. Formerly a reliably raucous indie-rock singer, her keening vocal and intense lyrics have been set to droning electronic rhythms. While family life contributes a more positive sentiment to her songwriting, she still sings as if any contentment was hard-won.

The romantic realism of No One’s Easy to Love creeps up on you over several listens, while the plangent piano arrangement of I Told You Everything is uplifting. Her experimentation pays off on the gauzy groove of Stay and the strange and forbidding Hands, during which Van Etten sounds like she’s trying to sing over a hovering military helicopter. Yet Remind Me Tomorrow also boasts the sort of radio-friendly choruses she never managed on previous records. Seventeen has a Springsteen-style swagger; Comeback Kid is a resplendent synth-pop anthem. Van Etten could have settled for cult status with more of the same.

By changing direction and writing some of the finest songs of her career, she’s come up with the first great album of 2019.

by Andre Paine

James Blake - Assume Form

(Universal)

****

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James Blake’s despondent electronica may have “subdued a generation”, as he once put it, but it has also won calls from Beyoncé, props from Kanye, life advice from Joni Mitchell, etc. One of the reasons he works so well with others, I suspect, is that as finely wrought as his compositions are, they lack a certain presence — a problem mostly dispelled on his fourth album.

Relocating to LA with girlfriend Jameela Jamil has updated Blake’s contacts book (André 3000, Travis Scott, Latina superstar Rosalía...) and directed a little warmth at his unsunny disposition. Don’t Miss It finds him slowly realising that life is there for the taking: “I could never be involved … I could avoid coming to life … Oh, but I’d miss it.” Barefoot in the Park is about how nice it is when it’s warm; Can’t Believe the Way We Flow is about the wonders of getting on with someone; Power On is an actual banger. Thank goodness!

by Richard Godwin

Que Vola? - ¿Que Vola?

(No Format)

***

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¿Que Vola?, What’s Up? is the standard greeting in Cuba and it’s the name of this new French Cuban band transposing Afro-Cuban rhythms into an instrumental jazz line-up. It begins with a percussive rhythmic homage to Chango, one of the most powerful Afro-Cuban gods.

The line-up is substantial, with four horns, three Cuban percussionists, drums, keyboard and bass, but the music is surprisingly reticent. The title track has some horrible keyboard noodling over the percussion but things improve with Lyesa, when the horns and percussion mesh. They play London EartH on April 10.

by Simon Broughton

Alice Merton - MINT

(Paper Planes)

****

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As debut single releases go, Alice Merton’s followed a dream-like trajectory as No Roots was streamed 300 million times and earned platinum status globally. Even more impressive was Merton’s decision to release the song on her own independent label after it was initially criticised by label and radio reps who advised her to drop its electronica and restless bass grooves, the song’s best features.

Happily, she ignored them. Her debut album has similarly infectious and interesting tracks elsewhere, such as the Haim-like Why So Serious and rocky opener Learn to Live.

While the songs are mostly autobiographical, the album does sometimes lack a distinct lyrical narrative — something perhaps most notable on the ballads. Yet there’s plenty to make this a debut to be excited about, not least I Don’t Hold a Grudge, with its contemporary, stylish take on Eighties synth pop.

by Elizabeth Aubrey

Rosie Turton - Rosie’s 5ive

(Jazz re:freshed)

****

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The recording careers of young jazz gunslingers Nubya Garcia and Ashley Henry were launched via this popular 5ives series — now comes London-based trombonist and composer Rosie Turton, wielding her instrument with finesse, ingenuity and occasional hair-blowing bombast.

A mainstay of outfits including, alongside Garcia, the septet Nerija, Turton has a rhythmically adventurous style that nods to hip-hop and Indian classical music as well as jazz. An ensemble including violinist Johanna Burnheart, keyboardist Maria Chiara Argiró and Maisha drummer Jake Long flesh out tracks including Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly, imaginatively reworked, and the grooving, melodically complex The Purge.

Stolen Ribs, slow-building, multilayered, featuring dreamy self-penned vocals by Luke Newman, is a wonder. All this, and Turton has only just begun.

by Jane Cornwell

Maggie Rogers - Heard It In a Past Life

(Polydor)

****

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The debut album from Maryland 24-year-old Maggie Rogers is the culmination of a life in music that began with harp lessons as a young child, included college years as a folky banjo player and really took off when Pharrell Williams was filmed listening to and raving about her NYU composition, Alaska.

The clip quickly went viral and sparked a bidding war for her mix of sparkling synthpop with more organic elements. “I’m like falling water,” she sings on Fallingwater.

Burning is built on tribal, campfire rhythms. She’s got tunes here to rival the pop giants — The Knife, in particular, is an irresistible treat — but there are layers of emotion in her lyrics and her beautiful voice that make this anything but disposable froth.

by David Smyth