Some overlooked records from the first half of 2024
Including TraTraTrax, Perc, Curve, Jahari Massamba Unit + more
And so the first half of 2024 finishes and we drag our weary carcasses into the second half of the year. To celebrate, I wanted to look back on some of the great records from the first six months of 2024 that I think have been slightly overlooked. I’m no really sure what “overlooked” even means, in the wider world. To me, it means basically that I wanted to write about them and no one commissioned me to do so, which is a kind of egotistical view but I will go with it.
Various Artists - no pare, sigue sigue 2
TraTraTrax, the Colombian imprint run by Defuse, Nyksan and Verraco, is the most exciting label in dance music right now and no pare, sigue sigue 2 is the sound of innovation in flight. TraTraTrax specialises in UK bass filth put through the Latin American wrangler, a sound whose myriad possibilities are rinsed in the compilation’s 18 tracks, which run from the reggaeton / tech / funky of LWS’s sickeningly exciting Snips to Wost’s jungle-ish kuduro to Doctor Jeep’s baile funk / electro / breakbeat rumble. The artists who feature here range from TraTraTrax mainstays (Doctor Jeep) to Mexican underground legends (Siete Catorce), to Belgian cult nutters (Maoupa Mazzocchetti) to a host of utterly unknown names (to me, anyway, but I can’t find anything about them online either), like Surusinghe, Entrañas and Atrice. The standard, however, is amazingly high throughout and it is thrilling to see the fabulous shapes that emerge from the combinations of dance culture, as familiar elements - bass purge, Art of Noise “Hey”s, clattering breaks - are moulded into teeth-shattering new shapes, with more what-the-hell? moments in the album’s 77 minutes than in most two-day dance festivals. (What on earth is Henzo up to, for example, on the aquatic, time-shifting two-step dembow of Glisten?)
Perc - The Cut Off
Perc’s fourth album is apparently his most dance-floor focused, which is like saying a cow’s latest milk is her most calcium-concentrated. Because Perc, aka UK producer Ali Wells, has long focused on brain-pounding, industrial techno of the most lethal variety and The Cut Off doesn’t exactly differ from that path. Frankly, a lot of the music on The Cut Off is so intense it makes little sense outside of the dance floor and the fact that he has introduced techno’s most clichéd sound, the TB303, for the first time of Full Goblin doesn’t inspire confidence. But within these parameters there is a lot to admire on The Cut Off, from the raging metal vocals on Imperial Leather to the ectoplasmic and rather beautiful vocal sounds on Milk Snatcher’s Return, which shows a techno producer prepared to think outside the box.
Curve - Unreadable Communication
Curve really should have been massive. In the early 1990s the UK band perfected a delectable blend of shoegaze guitars, gothic ambience and electronic touches, wrapped up in Alan Moulder’s grandest production, a mixture that Garbage (kind of) took to pop stardom just a few years later. Curve, at their best, were astoundingly good (hell, my first ever gig was a Curve gig), with singer Toni Halliday radiating pop stardom. That they never quite hit the commercial heights they deserved was perhaps due to a case of diminishing returns, with the band hitting an astounding early peak on their first three EPs - and in particularly the ice-pop-gaze classic Frozen - then tailing off ever so slightly on their debut album Doppleganger, then falling off quite a lot on their second album Cuckoo, which tried a little too hard to be industrial. It didn’t help that the UK press zero-ed in on Curve’s association with the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, who signed them to his label and mentored the band. Three decades on this compilation, which collects all of Curve’s recordings up to their 1994 hiatus, shows them at their witchy best (the first three EPs) and at their most mid-period uninspired (the Cuckoo B sides), crowning Curve as the shoegaze band you could actually sing along to.
Jahari Massamba Unit - YHWH Is Love
Is there anything better than Madlib in jazz mode? (Shout out to his excellent Shades of Blue album.) Well how about Madlib in jazz mode plus the rhythm killer than is Karriem Riggins, a jazz drummer / hip hop producer of note, as the two come together once again as Jahari Massamba Unit? Stompin’ Gamay, the first single from their second album, is a triumph of brushed drums, sunshine flute, moody chord changes and just enough hip hop focus to keep the jazz rambling in line, a genuinely simpatico mixture of each artist’s talents, while Funky Tambourine drags the most pedestrian of percussion instruments to the front of the mix and somehow makes it thrilling. Sorcery.
Halo Maud - Celebrate
French psychedelic pop artist Halo Maud provided vocals on the best tracks - the shoegaze-y ones, natch - on the Chemical Brothers’ unexpectedly strong recent album, For That Beautiful Feeling; now she’s back with a new album, her second. It unites all the things you need from French psychedelia: heavy breakbeats, fuzzed-up guitars and acres of Gallic cool, like ye-ye gone wild in the countryside. At its best - like the title track - the album is a shock of raw meat to the system.
Alice Coltrane - The Carnegie Hall Concert
An Alice Coltrane live album captured in the months after the release of her classic Journey in Satchidananda? You would be mad to say no. Throw in Pharoah Sanders on saxophone and The Carnegie Hall Concert album becomes essential. The 15-minute version of Satchidananda opener Journey in Satchidananda is hypnotic, serpentine, engrossing and fabulously atemporal, the work of a composer who became years ahead of her time by looking backwards into the mystical past; and the same could be said from the other Satchidananda track to feature here, Shiva Loka, which makes this a fabulous companion piece to the original album. Africa and Leo, two John Coltrane tracks that make up part two of the record, have a very different vibe: Alice and band attack them with a vicious intensity that is miles away from Satchidananda’s hippy-ish feels.
Creation Rebel - High above Harlesden
High Above Harlesden is the perfect title for this box set collection of studio albums from On-U Sound house band Creation Rebel, suggesting both the slight mundanity of the house band experience (that’s the Harlesden bit, for those unfamiliar with London) and the towering, psychedelic work that emerged from these conditions. Creation Rebel were put together in 1978 by a young Adrian Sherwood for his first album recording session (Dub From Creation), later going on to tour in Europe with Prince Far I, and to record six albums under their own name, all of which are included here. Every record has its worth - and punk fans will enjoy John Lydon’s vocals on 1981’s Psychotic Jonkanoo - but the absolute gem is 1980’s Starship Africa, a psychedelic jewel of a record. Imagine dub if it was powered by LSD rather than weed and you essentially have Starship Africa, all backwards suck, percussive dubs and the most utterly comforting bass lines. It’s one of my favourite dub albums of all time.
Maria Chiara Argirò - Closer
Italian musician Maria Chiara Argirò’s last record, 2022’s Forest City was an electronic / jazz fusion that drew on her years of experience as a classical pianist. Closer takes things even further towards the world of electronic music, with jazz just a vague musical waft on certain tracks. On Light the adventurous chord sequence suggests someone with acute musical training and there is a jazz-suggestive brass solo half way through. It’s a very charming mix but I wonder if she might have gone just a little bit too far towards electronics and away from what made Forest City so special? Still, very enjoyable.
Isobel Campbell - Bow To Love
There is only one cover version on Bow To Love, the sixth solo album from Isobel Campbell. And yet it feels like there are more. The song titles - Everything Falls Apart, Do Or Die, Saturdays Son etc - feel like they must have been used before and there is a general air of familiarity to the music. Saturdays Son, for example, actually starts with the line “three blind mice / see how they run”, which is either some pretty iffy songwriting or a good example of how Isobel Campbell creates casually enticing music, which feels like almost nothing has gone into it but makes for a rewarding listen, that kind of seeps into your ears. There is nothing really new here but, as we see on 4316, jamming two familiar elements together - in this case Spacemen 3 drone with Belle & Sebastian sweetness - can sometimes work a treat.
John Grant - The Art of the Lie
I think I have finally worked out why Americans don’t love John Grant like Europeans do. Grant’s mixture of dark humour, deep - if sometimes understated - emotion and the air of slightly seedy sex is very British indeed (think: Pulp and the Pet Shop Boys) and maybe less American. Well that’s my theory, anyway. The Art of the Lie won’t change that, being, essentially, a record where John Grant’s key characteristics are pushed up to 11. So it is very funny (All That School For Nothing is hilarious), extremely deep (Father, one of the best songs he has written) and brilliantly waspish (It’s A Bitch), with the songwriting always pristine. Listening to The Art of the Lie is like being put through the emotional wringer on a night out with your funniest friend, then getting far too drunk as you try to dance it all off.
Bodysync - Nutty
Bodysync, aka Ryan Hemsworth and Giraffage, describe their music as “dance music with the ethos of 2000s pop punk”, which only goes to show that the duo are far too North American for their own good and really should watch the Eurovision Song Contest. Because Nutty could easily have soundtracked the (eg) Finnish entry for Eurovsion 2024, so outright bizarre, joyous, sugar-sweet and silly is it. The duo claim as influences Todd Terry, Paul Johnson and Daft Punk - which you can hear in Rock It’s expertly skipping beats and finely-tuned rave signal - but also Venga Boys and Mad Magazine, which gives you some idea of the unlikely sonic combinations going on. Frankly, Bodysync’s music is right on the limit of things I can listen to without wanting to blow chunks. And that has to be a good thing.
Some listening
Olof Dreijer and Diva Cruz - Acuyuye
Olof Dreijer and Diva Cruz’s debut EP, Brujas, is out now and roughly as rump-shakingly fun as you think it should be. Acuyuye is the pick of the EP’s three tracks, with a driving bass, synth lines that screech like rave sea gulls, buckets of percussion and a brilliant vocal from Cruz.
I have long loved Norwegian disco adventurer Lindstrøm and his space funk epics. But Sirius Syntoms is outrageous in its direct, poppy appeal, like eight separate copies of Relight My Fire united in positive vibrations, ultra-addictive synth riffs hooked right into the blood stream over five delicious minutes that could easily run to 15 without wearing out their welcome. I cannot wait to hear someone play this out this summer. Oh, and the drum solo is magic.
I don’t share much with American singer / actress Remy Bond but I do share a love of Air’s devastating Virgin Soundtracks soundtrack. Rather than just loving Air, though, Bond has managed to coax them out of studio retirement, to work on Summer Song, a woozily magnificent moment of pop music, which sits somewhere in between Air and Lana Del Rey on the American mysticism stakes, with just a touch of The Lovin' Spoonful to help it go down. The perfect song at the perfect time.
This isn’t exactly new, having come out in 2022. But how come no one told me before that Tim Gane has a new band with Jeremy Novak, of New York’s Stereolab-y post rockers Dymaxion? Luckily my shame at being behind the times is offset by the brilliance of the duo’s eponymous debut, which sounds like Cavern of Anti-Matter with a slightly skewed sense of humour and a reverence for 1960s garage rock.
Things I’ve done
Line Noise - With William Basinski and Maxim Moston
William Basinski is the most rock and roll artist in the history of avant garde music. I caught up with him and composer Maxim Moston at Primavera Sound 2024, where Basinski was performing his classic album Disintegration Tapes live, for which Moston wrote the orchestral transcription. It was quite the interview. We spoke about everything from the wisdom of aging to how on earth you transcribe vinyl crackle. Dive in for the wisdom of Basinski.
The playlists
My newest and the bestest playlist on Spotify has all the best new music from the last three years. It is on 92 likes and I would dearly love to get it to 100. My newest and the bestest 2024 playlist has the same, but from this year. It is on a miserly 79 likes and I would love to see its centenary.