Richard Dawson
End Of The Middle
“I’m in the hall on the phone…. Jen’s in her room watching ‘Neighbours’/Dad’s in the bath whistling/Mam’s on the sofa reading yesterday’s papers.” Richard Dawson sets a cosy domestic scene in ‘Bolt’, the opening track on his new album, but as anyone familiar with this Newcastle folk artist’s output will know, this is a world where anything can happen.
End Of The Middle offers prosaic but poignant snapshots of modern, cross-generational family life, interwoven with some dramatic moments. ‘Bolt’ recounts a home being struck by lightning which “leapt from room to room” (a real event from Dawson’s childhood). Elsewhere, the album bristles with less extraordinary, though no less vivid vignettes. There’s the foul weather and cafe chat of ‘Boxing Day Sales’, the “happy place” that is an allotment (in ‘Polytunnel’) and the highly relatable ‘Removals Van’, which compares the experience of happily moving house as a partnered adult, and less happily relocating as a child. The quiet, family-focused films of Japanese director Ozu were a key inspiration for Dawson, which might explain why his latest offering dials down his familiar, thrillingly awkward melodicism and burly vocals in favour of simplicity and space, with clarinet underlining both. It’s a small record, in the best sense of the word.
Label: Domino
Nao
Jupiter
It’s been quite the journey for London-raised Neo Jessica Joshua: graduating from the prestigious Guildhall School of Music & Drama, singing with Jarvis Cocker and Kwabs, and earning a Grammy nomination for her pressured second album, then experiencing some major life changes (including motherhood and a recent diagnosis of CFS) in her 30s. Now, she is back with a fourth album.
Jupiter – said to be the planet of growth and good fortune – is the follow-up, in astrological terms, to 2018’s Saturn. It’s an effortlessly confident set that’s refreshingly varied in both its sonic palette and emotional tone. Songs are of the moment with their slight nods to 90s queens Destiny’s Child (on ‘Light Years’) and Alanis Morissette (on the title track), with shades elsewhere of Brandy and Whitney Houston, but this is not lazy retroism. Nao’s voice, a mellifluous, unshowy R&B-pop instrument with a warm, husky edge, is always at the centre, and her lyrics are candid and cliche-free. ‘We All Win’ gives heartfelt thanks for the mutual uplift of close friendships, whilst ‘30 Something’ feels philosophically relaxed. “I’ve had my first kid and I’m starting to see that it’s all good,” she sings.
Label: Little Tokyo / Sony Music
Richard Russell Is Temporary
Everything Is Recorded
His name is seldom in the spotlight, but Richard Russell is an influential force in music, both as owner of XL Recordings and in his role as a producer (credits include Gil Scott-Heron and Bobby Womack’s final studio albums).
He also has his own musical project, Everything is Recorded, which draws on soul, trip hop, dub and bass music, with a changing cast of collaborators.
Richard Russell Is Temporary is the third album from Everything is Recorded, and it’s business as usual, with alluring results. As the title suggests, it touches on themes of impermanence and loss, musing on the eternal question of what happens to our spirit when we’re gone.
It features the talents of some who’ve left us – Gil Scott-Heron and 60s folk singer Jackson C. Frank included – alongside the living, among them Kamasi Washington, Bill Callahan, Maddy Prior, Berwyn, Samantha Morton and Sampha. These 14 tracks unspool languidly with (mostly) head-nodding beats supporting piano/keyboard melodies, flickering electronics and heartfelt solo and choral vocals. The album plays well as a set piece but highlights include the funk-soul swing of ‘Losing You’ and ‘Norm’, where Callahan sings on a bittersweet, bare-bones tribute to the late comic Norm McDonald.
Label: XL
Out February 28th 2025. Pre Order on Qobuz
Jules Reidy
Ghost/Spirit
Now a pillar of Berlin’s experimental music scene, Australian guitarist, composer and producer Jules Reidy made their name with an intricate, textured style that makes use of alternative tunings, improv and electronic processing, often with vocals, in pieces that explore devotional love and transcendence. They’ve worked in myriad collaborative projects across the genre spectrum, notably in ecstatic-pop duo Sun Kit and with fellow left-field Aussie guitarist Oren Ambarchi.
As might be expected, Ghost/Spirit sees Reidy conjuring insubstantial bodies and otherworldly souls as part of a quartet with bass, drums and cello. This is not a chilly or unsettling set, however: instead, these 14 tracks throb with life via warm, melodic cross-currents, vibrant electronic soundbeds and lightly treated vocals, drawing on folk, ancient blues, ambient house and sacred music.
Reidy has said they are “drawn to maximalism and density” in sound but it’s richness rather than overkill here, and the album’s density is detailed, leaving room for sounds to resonate. The tracks braid abstraction into semi-conventional song structure, most strikingly on ‘Satellite’, a haunting beauty that cuts Appalachian folk with gently juddering club beats and the bittersweet ‘Breaks’, with its deft finger-picking underpinned by a winking electronic pulse.
Label: Thrill Jockey
Listen on TIDAL (currently unavailable on Qobuz).
