New music

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/07/2023 (1155 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROCK

PJ Harvey
I Inside the Old Year Dying (Partisan)

When Polly Jean Harvey burst into public consciousness in 1992 with the Dry album and its incessant singles, Dress and Sheela-Na-Gig, the English singer/songwriter was the antithesis of the packaged, sterile, Stock-Aitken-Waterman pop that dominated the U.K. charts at the time. The “artiness” of her look and sound were immediately captivating, and the slashing guitars and visceral energy of her earliest work set her apart as someone creative and exciting. Over the next decade, Harvey and her main collaborators, musician John Parish and producer Flood, created some of the most compelling and essential music of the era, which she accentuated with an exaggerated, theatrical onstage persona and style.

Since winning her second Mercury Prize for the 2011 album Let England Shake, Harvey has been relatively quiet, releasing just one album (2016’s The Hope Demolition Project) while publishing two books of poetry and pursuing her polymathic interests in art, literature, film, theatre, soundtrack composition, politics and culture.

In 2022, Harvey published an epic poem called Orlam, set in a “magic realist version” of England’s wooded West Country, near and around her childhood home in Dorset. I Inside the Old Year Dying is a musical companion piece to that work — a dozen compositions inspired by Orlam and the moods it evokes. Working again with Flood and Parish, Harvey’s music here is quiet and atmospheric — largely guitars, piano, bass and drums, coloured by electronic accents and field recordings of wind, church bells and animals. The result is the sound of imagined spaces and, in the lyrics, a pastoral netherworld in which a child confronts a sometimes-bleak reality, fears the unknown and, perhaps, longs for home and warmth and safety. ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Prayer at the Gate, Lwonesome Tonight, I Inside the Old I Dying

— John Kendle

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REGGAETON

Rauw Alejandro
Playa Saturno (Sony Music Latin/Duars Entertainment)

Puerto Rican musician Rauw Alejandro has always had his eye on the future — taking familiar genres and contorting them into something novel.

At the beginning of his career, that meant R&B-informed reggaeton when the rest of the industry leaned into “popetón,” a tried-and-true pop formula. Alejandro takes dem bow, the four-on-the-floor, three-beat percussive pattern that lays the foundation for many Urbano Latino genres (that’s the “boom-chk-boom-chk” to the untrained ear), and manages to stretch the sound into new, experimental heights. And maybe to the furthest corners of the galaxy, as his extraterrestrial concept album suggests.

Released as a surprise spinoff to his 2022 album Saturno, Alejandro’s fourth full-length, Playa Saturno, is an idyllic soundtrack for a beach party in outer space, a collection of songs that demonstrate Alejandro’s keen ear and respect for those performers who laid the path for his success.

The Queen of Reggaeton, Ivy Queen, appears on Celebrando; the pair harmonize on the song’s ascendant bridge. Spanish popstar Miguel Bosé appears on the retro-reggaeton Si Te Pegas; Mexican singer Junior H brings his corridos tumbados to Picardía. Puerto Rican duos Jowell y Randy and Ñego y Dálmata also make an appearance, on Ponte Nasty and No Me La Moleste respectively, bringing classic Boricua reggaeton to Alejandro’s modern audience.

In fact, much of Playa Saturno hits like a musical history lesson across the Caribbean: it’s heard in the steel drums of No Me Sorprende and the vocal melodies in Hoy Aquí, made contemporary by a retro-futuristic, synth-heavy production style.

A spinoff album is a tricky thing. There’s an expectation that these songs could be a collection of sub-tier tracks that didn’t make the original release, but that is not the case here. Playa Saturno is an alternative storyline in a larger musical universe. If there is a misstep, it’s in the similarity between Hoy Aquí and Lejos Del Cielo from Saturno, but coincidences can be expected when working in the same sonic template.

The successes of Playa Saturno far outweigh those moments: particularly Baby Hello, the electro-pop lead single in collaboration with Argentine producer Bizarrap, known for his viral BZRP Music Sessions on YouTube. It’s innovative pop music, a late song of the summer contender for those looking to party among the stars. If space is the final frontier, Alejandro’s album serves as a reminder that there’s a lot more to discover — and the boundlessness of his music is a reflection of that fact. ★★★★ out of five

— Maria Sherman, The Associated Press

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JAZZ

Tineke Postma
Aria (Edition)

Dutch alto and soprano saxophonist Tineke Postma has released seven earlier albums, six of which preceded a multi-year hiatus while she concentrated on her young family. Happily she has now resumed her public life with her new album, Aria. Her colleagues here are the great Ben Monder on guitar, Robert Landfermann on bass and Tristan Renfrow on drums.

Postma’s music is both adventurous and intimate. There are arpeggios that skip with melody, while retaining a focused sound. Melody is never lost, even as she dances with dissonant riffs and harder-edged moments. She is wonderfully creative across a swath of moods. The cool opening track, Sankalpa, offers a rhythmic challenge to settle on a time signature. Monder’s guitar is stunning throughout, demonstrating his place in the contemporary jazz world.

The second track, Frede, is a beautiful ballad that evokes a feeling of intimacy, with each quartet member demonstrating the same level of emotion and involvement. At times, Postma’s alto-playing is the most evocative.

Overall, the music has a contemplative feel, whether in a mellow groove or hitting harder in the style of Wayne Shorter, apparently one of Postma’s heroes. There are several fascinating drum solos by Renfrow, as in Vibe Shift, and he generally handles quirky time shifts with great skill. He also displays wonderful brush work and subdued sound with sticks.

Even the edgier tunes and fragments are accessible, and the reflective mode enhances the changes in mood while simply sounding absolutely right. Postma nails it, both in her writing and her solos, and with these first-class colleagues, she shines even brighter. Aria continues her fine contribution to the jazz world, with even more maturity and focus than before. Welcome back, Tineke Postma. ★★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: Still Another Day, The Sky Is Everywhere

— Keith Black

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CLASSICAL

Les Siècles with François-Xavier Roth
Ligeti: Kammerkonzert & Other Works (Harmonia Mundi)

Notably celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Les Siècles led by François-Xavier Roth performs three works by György Ligeti, in this newly re-mastered release by Harmonia Mundi originally recorded in 2016.

The first of those, Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet (1953) — originally banned for its strident dissonances, and derived from the composer’s prior piano cycle Musica ricercata — immediately displays the chamber group’s pinprick clarity and ability to articulate the work’s densely woven textures. Highlights include their no-holds barred, effervescent rendering of I. Allegro con spirito, the more languid II. Rubato. Lamentoso, as well as Ligeti’s personal homage to his fellow countryman, 20th-century Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, with V. Adagio. Mesto.

The more abstract Kammerkonzert (1970), comprised of four movements depicting “different types of motion,” is infused by close-knit, pungent harmonies broken by sudden jolts of sound. Kudos to Roth and his players for their conviction in bringing this knottier work to life, including the penultimate III Movimento preciso e meccanico, pour Friedrich Cerha, propelled by twitchy, rhythmic energy and visceral bow strikes, as well as finale V Presto, pour Walter Schmieding.

Last but not least, Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet (1968) allows each of its five instrumentalists to shine, from the opening I. Molto sostenuto e calmo through to finale X. Presto bizzarro. The latter is a particularly quirky highlight, showcasing Michael Rolland’s hopping, leaping bassoon — the wind instrument oft-regarded as buffoon of the orchestra — which brings a smile to the face. ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet, Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, X. Presto bizzarro

— Holly Harris