093 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 28-06-2020

ALTER.NATION #93

Jessie Ware, Gordi, Céu, Bananagun, Pottery, Khruangbin, Sports Team, The Rentals, Haim, Nadine Shah, Derrick Hodge, Art Feynman

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"O o h  L a  L a"

ALTER.NATION #93 on DEEZER

Mature pop artist whose soul-steeped voice has guided a handful of LPs to the Top Ten in her native U.K. An assortment of guest appearances and solo singles in the early 2010s situated Jessie Ware in a line of sophisticated U.K. soul and left-field luminaries ranging from Sade Adu, Lisa Stansfield, and Caron Wheeler to Tracey Thorn and Róisín Murphy. 
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? / Ooh La La
Rhapsodic dancefloor intimacy became a new specialization for Jessie Ware with "Overtime," the first in a wave of tracks the singer released from 2018 up to the June 2020 arrival of What's Your Pleasure?, her fourth album  ...recontextualize underground club music with as much might and finesse as anything by Róisín Murphy.

Lush, pastoral electro-acoustic pop from Australian singer/songwriter Sophie Payten. Melding lush electronics with moody acoustic songwriting, Gordi emerged from Australia with a series of original songs and covers in the mid-2010s.
Gordi - Our Two Skins / Sandwiches [Alfalfa Mix]
Three years after Gordi's full-length debut, Reservoir, landed in the Top 20 in her native Australia, songwriter Sophie Payten returns with a more personal follow-up, Our Two Skins. It was informed by a series of major life events that included coming to terms with her sexual identity, ending a relationship, and even finishing her years-long studies to become a doctor. Some of the related feelings of isolation -- especially regarding identity -- led her to track the album in a cabin with no phone reception, Wi-Fi, or modern plumbing at her parents' farm in her remote hometown. Not entirely self-recorded, however, she did collaborate with co-producers Chris Messina (Bon Iver, Big Red Machine) and Zach Hanson (Bon Iver, Hand Habits)...

São Paulo-born chanteuse with an alluring and organic fusion of bossa nova, R&B, and Brazilian pop. Céu proved to one of the more internationally appealing singers to break out of Brazil around the time of her 2005 debut, ultimately winning both Latin Grammy and Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and garnering interest across Europe, North America, and finally Asia.
Céu - APKÁ! / Forçar o Verão
APKA!'s title translates as a metalinguistic cry of unrestrained joy by Céu's youngest son. Though a more minimally produced effort than Tropix, the euphoric effect remains, given Céu's treatment of the material. She employs the same crew as last time -- guitarist Pedro Sa, co-producer keyboardist Hervé Salters, bassist Lucas Martins, and drummer/co-producer Pupilo...  "Forçar O Verão" emerges as a shock, with synths and vamping guitars (courtesy of guest Marc Ribot alongside Sa) weaves a new wave aesthetic (a la Ze Records) and also references Fear of Music-era Talking Heads with the lithe salaciousness in Céu's vocal.

Members of Parsnip and Frowning Clouds merge the vintage sounds of psychedelia, Afro-beat, and Tropicalia. Drawing heavily from vintage psychedelia including Tropicalia, '70s Afro-beat, and summery retro-pop, Bananagun emerged out of Melbourne, Australia, in the late 2010s.
Bananagun - The True Story of Bananagun / Bang Go The Bongos
Representing yet another vibrant hue of Melbourne's thriving psychedelic scene are Bananagun, a lively five-piece combo whose arrangements are woven with the sounds of vintage Tropicalia, Afrobeat, garage rock, and sunshine pop... Citing a disparate array of influences from tonsured garage maniacs the Monks and Brazilian pysch-pop pioneers Os Mutantes to '90s hip-hop, Van Bakel and his crew manage a remarkably cohesive, if somewhat busy collection that ultimately pleases. Given their inspirations, it's no surprise that Bananagun place a major emphasis on rhythm and percussion. Opener "Bang Go the Bongos" speaks for itself...

Freewheeling Montreal indie rockers who borrow from post-punk, psych-rock, country, and more. Montreal's Pottery take a freewheeling approach to indie rock that borrows from cult heroes like Devo, Orange Juice, and Josef K and mixes in bits of garage rock, psych-rock, country, and whatever else they see fit with abandon
Pottery - Welcome to Bobby's Motel / Under the Wires
...Musically, the Montreal quintet's first full-length is surprisingly cohesive, coalescing around sweaty punk-funk that owes a heavy debt to LCD Soundsystem, Gang of Four, and especially Talking Heads... Motel lacks in stylistic wandering, however, it more than makes up for in restless energy and tricky structures; songs such as "Under the Wires" are packed with sudden tempo shifts and busy breakdowns and fills... The way Pottery throw themselves completely into their music often has more in common with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard than most of their more detached post-punk-inspired peers...

Jet-setting Texas trio whose smooth, mainly instrumental music is heavily influenced by Thai rock and funk, among other styles. Khruangbin (Thai for airplane, or literally "engine fly") are a jet-setting trio from Texas whose smooth, groove-heavy music is heavily inspired by Thai rock and funk from the '60s and '70s, as well as a multitude of other influences ranging from surf rock to dub to Iranian pop.
Khruangbin - Mordechai / Time (You and I)
After Khruangbin released their second album, Con Todo el Mundo, in early 2018, the jet-setting Texan trio's music suddenly seemed to pop up everywhere, from play lists of many stripes to hip boutiques and eateries. Their uncategorizable but easily enjoyable blend of psych, funk, dub, and myriad other styles managed to find the right audience, and they sold out concerts left and right, while vinyl collectors fiended over limited pressings of their records... Mordechai contains vocals on nearly every song, and the group have much more to say this time around. "Time (You and I)," maybe their best song to date, reflects on a desire to build a future with someone, if only there was more time and the feeling was mutual. The sprawling disco beat and playful cadences make the song an easy party jam, but the lyrics' mixture of fantasy and invitation resonate harder than anything else they've written...

Founded at Cambridge, this indie rock band fuses energetic guitar rock with dry humor and playful arrogance. Playing energetic, guitar-based indie rock with a sharp but playful edge, Sports Team are a band from the North London community of Harlesden whose taut sound is matched to witty lyrics that celebrate flip phones, Ashton Kutcher, and tacky British seaside resorts.
Sports Team - Deep Down Happy / Stations Of The Cross
London-based six-piece Sports Team managed to generate excitement from their inception. Packing shows as students at Cambridge University, they quickly drew the interest of indie labels like Nice Swan with their muscular guitar hooks and point-blank, chant-along choruses about class division, demagogues, friends who change, friends who won't, and actor Ashton Kutcher... The album's length is just about right, going by in an efficient 36 minutes but feeling satisfying at the end, and while fans are bound to pick favorites, there's not a real dud in the bunch.

Initially a retro side-project from Matt Sharp's day job as bassist for Weezer, later one of the most enjoyable alternative bands of the late '90s.
The Rentals - Q36 / Forgotten Astronaut
...Sharp and friends have been exploring since the project began in the mid-'90s. With 16 songs and a lengthy running time, Q36 is epic in scale alone. With recurring themes of space travel and detours into science fiction territory, the album becomes even more fantastically epic... Q36 overflows with theatrical hooks, otherworldly concepts and the kind of brilliantly straightforward pop songwriting Sharp has perfected. It's a long album but stays on full power for its entirety, with the endlessly catchy songs of alien worlds standing as some of the brightest and strangest material the Rentals have ever delivered.

American sister act HAIM -- their name simply taken from the trio's surname -- formed in 2006 after spending their childhood as part of family cover band Rockinhaim. They grew up together in California's San Fernando Valley, where they were brought up listening to Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, Santana, and the sounds of Motown, to name a few of their diverse influences...
HAIM - Women In Music Pt. III / Up From A Dream
Dark events of the sisters’ recent past inform their revelatory third album on which garage and louche funk combine with west-coast rock... Haim’s third album retains some of their perpetual glide. But this is a set in which everyone is dancing with tears in their eyes, and one where Haim’s pat affiliation to 70s west coast truisms undergoes some interesting seepage. More so than ever before, Haim venture outside their musical Hotel California, with jazz saxophone and UK garage beats heading up a lively new intake of sounds. Intermittent blasts of lurid electric guitar – witness the chorusing riffola on All That Ever Mattered – are there to underline the trio’s allegiance to rock music... Stranger still, Up from a Dream galumphs like glam rock, but some hyper-processed machine variant, strafed by low-flying effects...

Born of Pakistani and Norwegian parentage, Whitburn, South Tyneside-based singer/songwriter Nadine Shah possesses a voice and more importantly, a mystique, that has often been described as a blend of PJ Harvey and Nick Cave.
Nadine Shah - Kitchen Sink / Ladies for Babies (Goats for Love)
The fourth long-player from the spell-casting English singer/songwriter, Kitchen Sink is aptly named, as Nadine Shah and longtime collaborator/producer Ben Hillier have crafted a wily and inventive collection of songs that pair astute social commentary with crisp, cosmopolitan arrangements drawing from a deep and intuitive arsenal of styles... Like its predecessor, the scathing "Ladies for Babies (Goats for Love)" is awash in wiggly beats, staccato horns, and flourishes of Tropicalia, with Shah's evocative lyrics and stately, confidant voice wryly and vividly parsing the relationship between sexism and fertility. Exploring the notion of what it means to be both a woman in your thirties and an outsider (Shah was born of Pakistani and Norwegian parentage), the sinewy title track's clanging guitars and strident piano mirror the narrator's insistence on combating cognitive bias with confidence -- it's a strut, not a sprint...

Philadelphia bassist who is equally adept on electric and upright instruments. He is a recording artist, film composer, and session musician.
Derrick Hodge - Color of Noize / The Cost
Color of Noize is at once the title of his third album and the name of his band, comprised of pianist/organist Jahari Stampley, keyboardist and synth player Michael Aaberg, drummers Mike Michell and Justin Tyson, and DJ Jahi Sundance on turntables. Hodge plays bass, guitar, keys, and sings. He co-produced the set with Don Was... Color of Noize is the first time Hodge has worked with an outside producer. Cut live in studio, his musicians encountered the music only when they were about to record it; improvised moments are abundant here. Hodge doesn't meld genres, he blurs them in an exotic, resonant, uplifting music of his own. Groove and flow become multivalent expressions of a single creative voice through instrumental hip-hop, contemporary jazz, indie rock, and soul; they emerge to offer emotional depth and spiritual heft.
"The Cost" opens with sampled, fragmented voices hovering above fretless bass, turntables, reverb, wafting organ, and lithe piano, grooving through the studio haze in a thunderous crescendo with lightning-fast breaks and vamps that bind them...

Animist musician and alter ego of indie singer/songwriter Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic). Around the time he switched coasts and settled down in Northern California in 2016, visual artist and indie singer/songwriter Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic) adopted the persona of animist musician Art Feynman.
Art Feynman - Half Price at 3:30 / Night Flower
The second album by Luke Temple alter ego Art Feynman, Half Price at 3:30, follows Temple's sixth long-player under his own name, 2019's Both-And. Whereas his main solo releases sometimes venture into purer acoustic folk, his output as Feynman has remained in a trippy, ethereal, electro-acoustic territory that often moves seamlessly between structured song and something more improvisatory. There is definitely some stylistic overlap between the two catalogs, however, at least to the outside ear...

Jessie Ware, Gordi, Céu, Bananagun, Pottery, Khruangbin, Sports Team, The Rentals, Haim, Nadine Shah, Derrick Hodge, Art Feynman