Album Reviews Nobody Asked For
Sometimes, I write for magazines. Other times, I write for love.
These are albums I reviewed just for the hell of it.
Nubya Garcia – Source
Conchord, 2020 / Genre: Jazz / Read time: 2 minutes
Nubya Garcia is a rockstar. Does she play rock? No. She plays jazz. But, having met a lot of ‘rockstars’ through my time with Kerrang! magazine, I’d argue the least important criteria for being a rockstar is… well… actually playing rock music.
Without getting too sidetracked, I’d go as far as to say that to be a rockstar you don’t even have to be a musician. Legendary chef Marco Pierre White is a rockstar. Painter Raymond Pettibon is a rockstar. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson was a rockstar.
Being a rockstar is a presence. It’s an outsider energy. It’s the understated ability to make the supernatural seem completely plausible through an unassuming blend of quiet confidence and raw talent. And Camden’s own Nubya Garcia has all of that. More so than most rock musicians. Sorry lads.
These intangible qualities are what magnetise people to a genuine rockstar – and the same goes for their art. This gives their work a standout quality that your average Joe will never capture. Case in point: Nubya Garcia’s debut album, Source.
The tenor saxophonist’s playing is commanding throughout as her and her band fly through their 7 minute+ masterclasses in a blur of improvisation and sweltering sax solos.
The dubby bass lines and keys of the title track subvert the audiences expectations, before delivering a delicious, high-octane plot twist in the form of Nubya’s quick-fire and cascading riffs.
The group’s ability to flip from the seemingly ordinary, to the utterly sublime, feels like a sleight of hand trick and often leaves you pining for an action replay of how exactly they got from point A to point B of any given song. It’s testament to their musicianship and – more importantly – it’s a lot of fun.
Together Is A Place To Be has an altogether more reflective and mellow feel to many of the other, more energetic tracks, while Stand With Each Other and La Cumbia Me Está see Nubya’s sound at its most stripped back, with just her tenor sax, a drum and some gentle vocal chants for company. These two tracks in particular are disarming, raw and perfect palate cleansers for the the rest of the record.
It’s not an overstatement to say you could shine a flashlight into any corner of Source and find playing that is soulful, arresting and humbling.
This is a remarkable debut from a homegrown rockstar and it’s exciting to see what Nubya’s next steps hold.
BaianaSystem – O Futuro Não Demora
Máquina de Louco, 2019 / Genre: Samba / Read time: 2 minutes
Brazil is an incredible country. I like it so much, in fact, that I wrote an entire zine about São Paulo, which you should absolutely check out. I love the diversity of the people. The energy of the cities. The richness of the food. But the one thing that stood out to me during my travels there, was the music.
As fascinating as it is, I’m not going to go into the history of samba here. If you want to know a bit more about it, go and buy the zine I mentioned like two seconds ago. Instead, I’m going to talk about contemporary samba. Specifically a group called BaianaSystem, who emerged from Salvador, the capital of Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia, in 2008.
Fusing traditional rhythms with atmospheric synths, picked guitar riffs and rap, the group have been influential in spearheading the modernisation of South America’s most iconic genre.
BaianaSystem have modelled their high-energy sound on the vitality of the ‘Trio Elétrico,’ large mobile sound systems, used during carnival. And it shows.
From brooding opener Água, to the infinitely-catchy Bola de Cristal, to the boisterous Sulamericano, the record is essentially a self-contained carnival.
Frontman Russo Passapusso’s fast, flowing verses are irresistible throughout… even if you don’t speak Portuguese. In fact, to paraphrase Morgan Freeman’s immortal Shawshank Redemption line, ‘I have no idea to this day what these Brazilians are singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are better left unsaid. I'd like to think they’re singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words.’
To me, this album is as fascinating as it is flawless. I can, and have, lost hours listening to it, discovering more and more depth to the sound each time.
An astonishing record, O Futuro Não Demora reverently revisits a defining part of Brazil’s history, expertly updating it to create something universally enjoyable and aggressively danceable.
Don’t forget to buy my zine. Did I mention, I made a zine?
Binker Golding – Dream Like A Dogwood Wild Boy
Gearbox Records, 2022 / Genre: Jazz / Read time: 2 minutes
Sometime late last summer I attended London’s Brick Lane Jazz Festival wearing a full corduroy suit. A decision which I now concede to be a big mistake. Squeezing into a bar packed so shoulder-to-shoulder I could almost lift my feet off the floor, I began to drift in and out of corduroy-clad consciousness.
At some point, during the height of my delirium, North London’s Binker Golding – or an apparition strongly resembling him – took to the cramped stage. A shaved-headed, tattooed blur with a tenor sax. The next 45 minutes were a fever dream, wall-to-wall with sprawling sax solos, the likes of which were so jaw-dropping, they almost make hobby saxophonists (like myself, ahem) renounce their right to associate themselves with the instrument. Hey, I did say ‘almost’.
Fast-forward to winter and I’m digging around in Ray’s Jazz store, hidden behind the bookcases on the second floor of Charing Cross’ Foyles, and I pull out a fresh vinyl of Binker Golding’s new album, Dream Like A Dogwood Wild Boy. Heck.
Once the flashbacks had subsided, I needed to know if the recording could do Binker justice. Could the beast thrive in captivity, as he had in the wild? There was only one way to know for sure.
(Take Me To The) Wide Open Lows kicks off the record with blues guitar fit for a bayou. It’s atmospheric and alien enough to to catch the listener off guard and drop the them somewhere unfamiliar – succinctly setting the scene for what’s to come.
The rest of the nine and a half minute opening odyssey is packed with Binker’s acrobatic sax solos. Controlled in all the right places and chaotic where it counts. As confident and relaxed as you’d expect from a player of his calibre.
Love Me Like A Woman sees a return to the dirty, bluesy riffs found in the album’s opening and provides the perfect platform for guitarist Billy Adamson’s exceptional and articulate Southern-style solos as him and Binker face off.
Track three, My Two Dads is – inarguably – pianist Sarah Tandy moment. A hugely accomplished musician, Sarah seizes the opportunity to casually drop some of the finest recorded jazz piano of the year. Blending with Billy’s stripped back guitar and Binker’s blooming and bursting solos, the track closes with an ever-accelerating riff fit for a hootenanny. A hoedown. The last dance at a wedding. It’s fun, okay?
Howling And Drinking In God’s Own Country puts the spotlight back on Binker with some of his nimblest solo work on the record. ‘Til My Heart Stops serves something softer and more sentimental. Romantic, even. While, With What I Know Now feels as expansive as it is immersive and has an almost journey-like quality to it, as the band bounce back and forth off each other.
The album’s closer, All Out Of Fairy Tales, is introspective and wistful and winds Dream Like A Dogwood Wild Boy to a hugely satisfying close.
The record is diverse, layered and rich as it pivots between its America twang and a sound which lands, at times, closer to the saxophonists home of ***checks notes*** …Enfield. Quite a feat.
For me, this is the jazz album of 2022 and a phenomenal showcase of some of the best players in the UK jazz scene right now. There’s no doubt I’ll be spinning this record well into next year. I might just take the corduroy off before the next listen, though.
Alfa Mist –
Structuralism
Sekito 2019 / Genre: Jazz / Read time: 2 minutes
It’s easy to take for granted, but stop and think about it for a moment and it’s nothing short of incredible how your senses can transport you. The taste of a certain spirit can drop you back in that club with the sticky floors. A glance at an old video game will have you laid on the carpet in the house you grew up in. The smell of a certain perfume will conjure your ex, as if they were standing right there next to you. Everyday magic.
For me, the most powerful of these remarkably unremarkable portals is music. Yes, lots of it’s linked to nostalgia. But occasionally an unfamiliar piece of music can teleport you to somewhere all-too recognisable. For me, this was my initial relationship with Structuralism.
On this, his second album, London-born jazz pianist Alfa Mist has captured the absolute heart and soul of London on a grey, rainy day. Obviously, the setting is a little subjective, but play this record on your headphones and walk through the streets of Hackney, Peckham or Soho when it’s miserable outside and tell me that this isn’t the perfect soundtrack.
Whether this was the artist’s intention or not, I can’t be sure. But the understated drums, the reflective piano solos, the steady drip drip drip of the bass… it’s like being stood right there, eating a bagel on the corner of Brick Lane in the pissing down rain. And I love it.
Interspersed amongst the carefully crafted instrumentals, are moments of spoken word. One such piece of prose on opening track .44 explains:
‘For me now, what I’m realising is, I’m done trying to treat people as if they’re finished beings, because we’re all unfinished. Basically, we’re all unravelling. So, it’s very unfair for me to act like ‘I’ve got you figured out’.
What a refreshingly compassionate message. Similarly, a second piece of spoken word, this time in track three, Mulago, considers:
‘That’s not a topic that comes up on your GCSEs… communication. We talk about debating and all that stuff, but we don’t actually get taught about how to communicate with another person when you’re not shutting them down. Or not hijacking the experience and taking it somewhere completely different.’
Clearly, there is a message of understanding threaded through the captivatingly moody music. And in a world that often feels increasingly lacking in tolerance and togetherness, this heightens the album’s sense of purpose.
Elsewhere, Kaya Thomas-Dyke’s delicate vocals transform standout track, Falling, into something altogether beautiful, while Jordan Rakei’s soulful voice makes album closer, Door, utterly unmissable.
Structuralism strikes the perfect balance of cementing Alfa Mist as an incredible talent behind the piano, while also giving his fellow musicians room to breathe and flourish. Clearly, he’s practicing the togetherness the record preaches.
London can, at times, be a lonely place. But when soundtracked by Structuralism, it’ll feel a lot more like a friend. Now, out in the rain with you. Go.
Adam Bałdych Quintet – Poetry
ACT Music+Vision, 2021 / Genre: Jazz / Read Time: 2 Minutes
I don’t know how I found it, but I did. Actually, maybe it found me. Come to think of it, maybe this record and I have always existed, drifting in the ether of eternity until… no, wait, I discovered it on Spotify after something else I was listening to. Classic.
What I will say is the music of Poland’s jazz violin prodigy, Adam Bałdych, made an immediate and lasting impression on me. In fact, outside of my remit of rock’n’roll writer for Kerrang!, Adam’s album Poetry was my number one album of 2021.
Disarming in its initial simplicity, Poetry creeps into life through cinematic opening track, Heart Beats. Cold, atmospheric and mournful, much of the record sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place on the soundtrack of a Scandi crime thriller. It’s genuinely bracing stuff.
Semi-legendary Italian trumpeter, Paulo Fresu, guests on five of the 11 tracks, adding extra weight to Marek Konarski’s already haunting tenor sax. Crucially, Darwid Fortuna’s drumming lends the music a sense of urgency whenever necessary and keeps the sound from becoming dreary.
Adam has a knack for painting an entire soundscape with just a few sweeps of his bow. It makes for thrilling listening, particularly when coupled with the equally gargantuan musicianship of the rest of his quintet.
Songs such as Hyperballad and Teodor appear to take on a life of their own as they breathe and flex gently into shape, while closing track, Open Sky, feels like all together much more abstract animal.
It’s notable that Polish jazz is currently enjoying a golden era. In fact, while we’re on the subject, here’s a semi-related bit of trivia for you to bore your friends with: did you know that jazz was officially banned from the radio in Poland and the rest of the Soviet Union under Stalin’s brand of Communism? Jazz musicians were thought of as counter-revolutionaries. For some reason. Fuck knows.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. The golden era of Polish jazz. It’s happening. And it’s, in part, down the the talents of musicians like Adam Bałdych and his quintet who seem to, steadily, be starting to pick up international acclaim.
If I can suggest a starting point to anyone wanting to explore Polish jazz, albeit an extremely varied scene, my recommendation would be right here with Poetry. Heck, even if you don’t have even a passing interest Polish jazz (which would be fair enough, I suppose), you should give this record a spin and prepare to be enthralled in its desolate majesty.
Mac Miller – Circles
REMember Music, 2020 / Genre: Hip Hop / Read time: 4 minutes
In September 2018 the passing of Mac Miller rocked the world of hip hop. A good soul, gone too soon. Yet somehow, aged just 26, it already felt like the the Pittsburgh rapper had lived a thousand lives.
Huge radio-friendly hits like Nikes On My Feet and Knock Knock (2010) initially put the spotlight on Mac, touting him as a talented-yet-accessible voice for the mass market of the American mainstream. A succession of hit albums, singles and an MTV show, Mac Miller & The Most Dope Family, doubled down on this somewhat two-dimensional image which, whilst hugely commercially successful, only managed to allude to the tremendous talent Mac ultimately possessed.
His single Donald Trump (2011) notably brought Mac into conflict with the future president who, having initially dined out on the ego-boost of having a hit song named after him, soon became tremendously bitter as he attempted (and failed) to demand a cut of the song’s royalties.
Yes, this anecdote is a detour, but it’s also hilarious, so hear me out. When Trump began his metamorphosis from B-list-TV-rich-guy to potential leader of the free world, Mac promptly went on Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show to reassure his fans and the public that he “Fucking hates Donald Trump,” going on to call the future president “an egomaniacal, attention-thirsty, psychopathic, power-hungry, delusional waste of skin and bones" …and that was before Trump had taken office. Visionary much? Anyway, back to the review.
The radio-friendly albums. The hit singles. The MTV show. Colossal commercial achievement. All of these would be a benchmark of success for most musicians. Mac however, sank into depression as he read scathing reviews from critics that, rightly or wrongly, painted him as, at best, every frat boy in Americas’ favourite rapper and, at worst, “crushingly bland” (Pitchfork, 2011).
He responded to this with his 2013 album Watching Movies With The Sound Off and his follow-up mixtape Faces (2014), the former of which exhibited the first stand-out examples of a more mature Mac sound, the later of which was abstract, strung-out and often morose, bordering on morbid. A genuinely incredible listen and, for my money, the first true example of the unplumbed depths of Mac’s abilities.
Yet still, other peoples preconceptions proceeded him.Mac himself told an anecdote of being recognised on a flight as ‘Hey, you’re that guy off TV, right?’. This idea of the public seeing him as a TV celebrity or even a bland pop musician – not a true artist – mortified him and almost undoubtedly contributed to his ongoing, unhealthy relationship with substances.
He ended the TV show prematurely. He got out of LA where, by his own admission, he had been living an increasingly hollow celebrity lifestyle and moved to NYC, retreating into an apartment in Brooklyn. And as such, his music began to take on a more outsider quality.
Upon the release of 2016’s The Divine Feminine, it felt like Mac had finally cracked it. A deeply introspective, musically accomplished record that married his desire for artistry with his former commercial success. The album, in part, a love letter to his then partner Ariana Grande, was hailed by Pitchfork as ‘the most surprising, concise and accomplished album of his career’. Was Mac content? Absolutely not.
The eventual arrival of critical acclaim only served to prove to Mac that he was, as he’d always believed, capable of making music that mattered.
2018’s Swimming was intended by Mac to be the first part of two albums which, when paired with follow-up record Circles, would form Swimming in Circles.
The first of the aforementioned duo, masterfully blends funk, jazz and hip hop. Stand out hits such as What’s The Use? and Ladders pair Mac’s gift for creating irresistibly catchy tunes with some of his most intelligent and alluringly self-aware lyrics. The album also delivers some of Mac’s most vulnerable music yet, with the likes of 2009 and So It Goes.
Swimming was, in every sense, a triumph. But Mac was only just getting started. He wasted no time, working on the companion album, Circles, while preparing for the promotional tour for Swimming. Sadly, the tour would never happen.
+ + +
In the early hours of September 7, 2018, Mac Miller passed away.
His dependancies had led him to combine substances, inadvertently creating a toxic and ultimately fatal mix.
His family, friends and fanbase were heartbroken. His passing was a devastating loss on both a human level and an artistic one. Finally, he had grown his sound from ‘frat rap’ to some of the most masterful music in hip hop. Mac had found his sound, his message and proved himself entirely unafraid to continue evolving as an artist.
After initial the shock of his passing, the unavoidable question of what his next album would’ve sounded like began to circulate in Mac’s fanbase. Little did they know, by some miracle, they would ultimately find out.
I’ve heard it said that Circles was 90% complete when the rapper passed away, which may go a long way to explaining why it is arguably the greatest posthumous album of all time.
The record was completed by producer Jon Miller, who had been working on the songs with Mac, and released in January 2020.
Multifaceted in its sound, Circles effortlessly slips between the ethereal, downbeat sound of its title track and closer Once A Day …and something altogether more punchy.
Good News, to me, is one of the defining moments of not only the album but also Mac’s career.
‘I spent the whole day in my head. Do a little spring cleaning, I'm always too busy dreaming. Well, maybe I should wake up instead. A lot of things I regret but I just say I forget. Why can't it just be easy?. Why does everybody need me to stay?’
'‘Good news, good news, good news. That's all they wanna hear. No, they don't like it when I'm down But when I'm flying, oh, it make 'em so uncomfortable. So different, what's the difference?
As well as being tragically prophetic, Good News manages to sound buoyant and triumphant… while simultaneously being vulnerable, naked and absolutely defeated.
The song masterclass in duality that somehow straddles the full spectrum of emotions, its sentiment and mood morphing according to the ear of the beholder, in the same way that the Mona Lisa’s smile dims the longer you look at it. This, I believe, is the genius Mac Miller was always striving for. The crowning glory of his short but incredible career.
Where the artist would’ve gone from here, is a question that will haunt fans like myself forever.
I could, and gladly would, marvel over each and every song on this deep and beautiful album, but I feel like this review (or is it a love letter?) should probably end somewhere.
It feels appropriate to allow the rapper’s work to have the last say, so I’ll end, simply, with a quote from one of my favourite tracks on Circles.
Mac, it’s a blue world without you.
