Staff Picks: CDs & Vinyl

Here are some new, and older, CDs & Vinyl that our Library staff have enjoyed listening to recently.

Gus’ Picks:

Most of my musical discoveries this year can be put under the banner of “female-fronted 80s/90s genre-revival art-pop”. Wet Leg’s debut self-titled album (favourite track: Chaise Longue) more than lived up to the hype, with their varied Britpop-esque guitar-heavy tunes about small-town woes and young love. Australian singer Hatchie’s recent album Giving the World Away (favourite track: The Rhythm) and Mitski’s Laurel Hell (favourite track: The Only Heartbreaker) was a nice throwback to the kind of college rock and heavily-produced bubblegum pop of the 90s that I was cutting my teeth on as a burgeoning Top 40 listener. My advice to future artists: if you can somehow blend The Cranberries with Sugababes, I’ll be your fan forever.

Martin’s Pick:
The tipping point / Tears For Fears
If you liked Tears for Fears in the 80s/90s, the big sound, the big voice of Roland Orzabal and the anthemic large scale songs, then 2022 is a good year for you. It’s easy to wallow in the familiar comfort of a well-loved sound but often the ‘new stuff’ of perennial groups, seems like a lesser pastiche of the original that you loved long ago. Those ‘old’ groups that are now old but still churning it out. So you will definitely get that from ‘The Tipping Point’. It’s familiar, there’s the same beats, the same build-up of songs and the same signature sound, but it is very well done. I thought The Seeds of Love was a good album (that’s 1989!!) but with a little too Beatlesy. The Tipping Point has the same feel as Songs from the Big Chair, often quite bombastic, but it’s the tiny details of sounds and the lush flow that takes you along. Orzabal’s voice is still powerful and subtle when needed and there is a good mix of the loud and soft. ‘Stay Don’t Stay’ shows Orzabal’s tone and rhythm, while ‘River’s of Mercy’ is so Tears For Fears and a beautiful song. ‘End of Night’ is punchy and ‘Break the Man’ sounds like a sure fire single. So at the moment I’m loving a return to form.

Mark’s Pick:
Hi / Texas (Musical group)
Someone stole the first copy we bought of this before it even went out, so I guess there is at least one other fan of this band still out there. Texas originated in the 80s, and basically dabbled in multiple genres (the Americana of their 1989 debut ‘Southside’, the electro-pop of 1997’s ‘White on Blonde’, the soul stylings of 1999’s Hush, collaborations with rappers like Wu-Tang Clan) before all those things became hardened into the retro classicism of today’s music. Similarly to fellow 80s band Sade, they don’t tour much, and seem to have no interest in reissuing their back-catalogue albums as Deluxe or Anniversary issues, so you tend to forget they are actually still around until they put out a new album. Originally this started as a rare archival project, featuring an albums worth of unreleased tracks from their ‘comeback’ album ‘White on Blonde’. In the course of this they found 3 songs which were only half-finished, decided to complete them, and then inspired by the older material wrote a bunch of new songs. The tracks range from disco influences, to folk, country, & synthy 80s sounds, and are mostly upbeat, with the addition of a few heavier ballads that were added post lockdown and following the sudden passing of singer Sharleen Spiteri’s mother. There’s a co-write with Richard Hawley, Clare Grogan from Altered Images duets on “Look What You’ve Done”, and the Wu-Tang Clan and Ghostface Killah feature on “Hi”. There’s a timeless quality to their intelligent and well-crafted pop music, as well as the maturing emotional resonance of Spiteri’s lovely voice, that make this the kind of soothing pop music that always puts you in a better mood.

Live in Paris : the Radio France recordings 1983-1984 / Baker, Chet
The Elemental Music jazz label has specialised in tracking down and licensing for release previously unreleased live material from Jazz giants like Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon & Bill Evans among others. Their latest archival release is a double CD set containing 2 sets from iconic trumpet player Chet Baker captured by Radio France from 1983-1984, featuring bassists Riccardo Del Fra and Dominique Lemerle, and legendary pianist Michel Graillier. Liner notes by GRAMMY-winning writer/author Ashley Kahn, and interviews with Riccardo Del Fra provide a portrait of this point in Bakers life, while the music, like a lot of his live material from this decade, ranges from the good to the sublime, and is for the most part well recorded by Radio France. At this point Baker preferred to play without drummers, instead relying on his innate rhythmic sensibilities to put over the intimate chamber-jazz aesthetic he aimed for in the second phase of his career, with its long langid trumpet lines and unique aspects of phrasing and improvisation. The 2nd recording with Del Fra on bass is perhaps more consistent but there are great moments over both discs, once again confirming that you don’t listen to Baker for the external flourishes of the music, but the internal spaces his music takes you to.

Maxine’s Pick:
Wheels of fire / Cream
Particularly the song “Pressed rat and warthog”. The song is about Cream disbanding and getting back together.

Sam’s Pick:
A light for attracting attention / Smile
I’d been looking forward to the release of this album from a new project featuring Thom and Jonny from Radiohead for a while. The various singles were all very promising and I’m pleased to note that they’ve really followed through with a strong collection of songs on this full-length. With all due respect to the other members of Radiohead, I’ve always gotten the impression that Thom and Jonny are the creative big guns in that band and listening to this new project only strengthens that impression. I would go as far as to say that if this were to be packaged as a new Radiohead album I think most people would be fooled. The only clear distinction to me is in the generally more stripped-back nature of the arrangements, with it being the collaborative work of 3 individuals instead of 5. In saying that, there are plenty of moments that feel just as lush as anything Radiohead has put out, with Jonny’s orchestral arrangements really shining through on tracks such as ‘Pana-Vision’ and ‘Free in the Knowledge’. There are also some very strikingly rock-y tracks such as ‘You Will Never Work in Television Again’ and ‘We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings’, which contain some of Yorke’s most vital and aggressive vocal performances in decades. Speaking of Yorke’s vocals, he is in very fine form right across this record and I think he sounds as consistently great as he ever has. It’s quite incredible how little his voice has changed, now being in his 50s compared to how it sounded in his 20s. Overall, my current impression is that this is the strongest Radiohead related album to come out in many years and will almost certainly be a strong contender for one of the best albums of 2022. Highly recommended!