Yaya Bey
do it afraid
Brooklyn singer/songwriter Hadaiyah Bey made her debut in 2016 with a largely acoustic album inspired by the writings of Audre Lorde. She’s since developed a seductive, sun-faded take on neo-soul and future R&B, and added notes of house, funk, prog jazz and reggae to her sound.
The title of her new album speaks to a need for courage, tenacity and joyful engagement in current times, despite life’s uncertainty and inevitable hurts.
Opening track ‘wake up b****’ sets out her stall via urgent, quickfire rap, but it’s gentle on the ear, as are the tracks that follow.
In less skilful hands, these soft-focus essays in jazz-toned soul and R&B could seem slight, but the washed-out palette and brief running time, coupled with strong production from Bey and her co-producers (including electronic jazz group BadBadNotGood), keep the flow feeling fresh and ever rolling.
Ear hooks include ‘merlot and grigio’, a good-time tune with a soca core and ad-libbed vocals from Bajan artist Father Philis, and ‘bella noches pt. 1’, with its flubbery rap and jazz house.
Label: drink sum wtr
Haim
I Quit
“You can hate me for what I am/You can shame me for what I’ve done/You can’t make me disappear,” sings Danielle Haim on ‘Gone’, the emphatic opening track of Haim’s fourth album.
Liberation from a broken long-term relationship, along with the fall-out and inevitable post mortem, is the inspiration for the 15-song set, created with co-producer Rostam of Vampire Weekend.
Blending Haim’s beloved soft-rock sound with elements of 90s R&B, electronica-driven indie balladry, early noughties chart-pop, country and even shoegaze, it’s perhaps their most musically adventurous and personal album yet.
At times, it feels overlong, but several tracks, including the breathy, Kylie-ish ‘Spinning’, ‘Take Me Back’, with its handclap beats and urgent strumming, and the groovy, deliciously gooey ‘Relationships’, are top-down, high-summer perfection, despite the heartbreak.
Label: Polydor
S.G. Goodman
Planting By The Signs
Growing up in rural Kentucky, country-folk artist Shaina Goodman learned to sing during her family’s thrice-weekly visits to church. Her songs have a faint hymnal air, but belong to a very different and much earthier realm.
Planting By The Signs, like her previous two albums, showcases a flair for narrative detail, with understated, emotional writing inspired by small-town life. Goodman muses on underage driving and taking the wheel of her father’s farm truck in ‘Snapping Turtle’, and mourns the death of a friend and mentor in ‘Michael Told Me’.
Other songs, such as the gently see-sawing ‘I’m In Love’, with its twangled guitar and cardboard-box beats, are more unabashedly revealing. “I’ve been trespassing on my neighbours, swimming naked in their pool,” Goodman states.
Her alluringly careworn and slightly dusty voice recalls both Karen Dalton (who she acknowledges as an inspiration) and a Southern-gothic Cat Power. Its tone and timbre provide a perfect match with Bonnie “Prince” Billy in the exquisitely lonesome ‘Nature’s Child’, and with collaborator Matthew Rowan in the haunting title song.
Label: Slough Water
WITCH
Sogolo
In the 1970s, WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc) were Zambia’s biggest rock band. They pioneered Zamrock, fusing rock’s classic prog, psychedelic and garage forms with African rhythms and percussion to thrilling effect. They largely disappeared in the 1980s, but the issue of an exhaustive boxset in 2012 relaunched their career, and they’ve just released their second post-revival LP.
With their latest release, the group – fronted by 75-year-old Emmanuel ‘Jagari’ Chanda, the only remaining member – have sensibly opted not to make any radical changes.
The production on Sogolo (from the Zambian word for future) is warm and raw but not rough, in sympathy with their bass-heavy thrust, most notably on opener ‘Kamusale’ and the wah-wah-heavy ‘(In Memory Of) John’.
There are some new tweaks, however: analogue electronics lend a more atmospheric feel to previous projects, particularly in the dubby ‘Totally Devoted’ and deeply hypnotic closer ‘Machiriso’. ‘Queenless King’ brings to mind Jack White’s garage blues and something of NYC’s ’80s dance punks Konk, while ‘Set Free’ strikes a very different note mid-way through: sung by the sweet-voiced Theresa Ng’ambi, it’s a highlife-edged number with a hint of calypso.
Label: Partisan
