My Week In Music: 9-13 September
New albums from Fred Again and Illuminati Hotties, and a stellar effort from MJ Lenderman, lead the way as we also celebrate Biggie and Arcade Fire
Monday:
NEW: Cassyette - This World Fucking Sucks (2024)
It struck me as somewhat coincidental that I started listening to this one the same day I first heard the new Linkin Park track with Emily Armstrong: this record is almost equal parts early Linkin Park and latter Lady Gaga.
Somehow it works: Cassyette - Cassy Brooking of Chelmsford, Essex (near where I was born) - has been bubbling under the surface, playing festivals and supporting acts like Bring Me The Horizon and My Chemical Romance with her brand of nu-metal pop music, songs that are as catchy as they are brutally heavy. “Say My Name” is an early highlight, alt-pop verses giving way to a chorus straight from the nu-metal guidebook (and does New Order get a songwriting credit?), while things slow down to a distorted guitar grind on ballad “Porcelain” and break beats take over on “Sex Metal”.
This is a varied album that sticks together with pure force of will on the part of Cassyette, and - given the popularity of alt-pop and the nostalgic rejuvenation of nu metal - a solid debut effort for a singer striking at maybe the right time.
Tuesday:
NEW: Nia Archives - Silence Is Loud (2024)
Nia Archives quite literally stumbled into jungle music: keen on making videos documenting the squat rave (parties held in abandoned buildings) scene in 2017-2018 - the source of the 'Archives' moniker - she found that she wasn't able to get help from local producers to soundtrack her videos, and started making her own music, later discovering a knack for jungle - electronic music at high BPMs with a lot of breakbeats (looped drum samples).
Silence Is Loud is her first album and its a goodie. More than just a dance or electronic record, it boasts all the hallmarks of jungle and drum'n'bass, but it has this added element of soul about it, like Archives is digging a bit deeper than the standard electro fare. Songs like "Cards On The Table" and "Crowded Roomz" afre as close to a soulful ballad as you'll find in the genre. "Tell Me What It's Like?" is a highlight here, as is the anthemic "Unfinished Business".
Archives ended up with a 2024 Mercury Prize nomination for this record. Well deserved, I reckon.
Wednesday:
Notorious BIG - Ready To Die (1994)
Notorious B.I.G. Biggie Smalls. Biggie. Chris. Whatever you call him, its undeniable that he had an outsized impact on 1990s hiphop thanks to his knack for composition over style. And his role in the East Coast-West Coast rap feud, I guess - a feud which led to his death before he could even release a second album. Ready To Die turns 30 years old this Friday; its follow up Life After Death came out a fortnight after he died.
Biggie is now thought of as one of the greatest MCs ever, tracks like "Juicy" and "Big Poppa" part of the cultural story of hiphop. But here is the thing: that feud did immeasurable damage to the rap genre, and to the legacy of Biggie and 2Pac, who also lost his life as part of it.
Rappers and hiphop stars from both sides of the country believed their own hype - to the point that Atlanta stars Outkast were booed when they won Best New Artist at the Source Awards in 1995 (Andre 3000 famously said "the south got something to say"; arguably Southern hiphop is the most popular now). The feud arguably turned off listeners and caused hiphop to lose mainstream momentum and stymied its growth as a cultural force for a decade or more.
Not to mention how much great Biggie (and Pac) music we missed out on hearing. Alas.
Wednesday:
NEW: Illuminati Hotties - Power (2024)
If you're not familiar with Illuminati Hotties, you're not alone - it took three albums for them to land on my radar too. Ostensibly a project formed so that producer, mixer and audio engineer Sarah Tudzin could show off her skills; their first album was intended as a demonstration of her skills.
Sometimes the best things are accidental. It turned out Tudzin had a knack for catchy indie pop rock once she had a band around her, leading to critical acclaim, a guest spot on the soundtrack to the series Ahsoka, and a critically acclaimed third album that bounces between pop sensibility and crunchy guitars as if insisting on it might make them the same thing.
It almost works: tracks like "I Would Like, Still Love You" are decent songs in their own right, even if they don't really know what they are just yet. Elsewhere, the group veers into more straight-forward rock music, as on "Falling In Love With Somebody Better", and almost Weezer-esque optimistic sounds on "Didn't" and "What's The Fuzz", the later complete with 'a-woo' backing vocals. A really strong album and a helluva fun forty minutes.
Thursday:
NEW: MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks (2024)
One of the better rock albums of 2023 was Rat Saw God by the North Carolina quintet Wednesday, led by singer Karly Hartzman and (you guessed it) guitarist MJ Lenderman, also known as Jake, who is back again this year with his fifth solo album in six years.
Manning Fireworks is an exploration of life in a small town, in addition to exploring Lenderman’s catholic upbringing, leveraging his natural skill as a raconteur to create stories out of the music he makes. Witty lyricism evokes early 90s artists like Beck and Kurt Cobain, songs like “Rudolph” and “She’s Leaving You” drawing you in and holding your attention.
Musically, the album alternates between this wonderful alt-country sound, and straight up indie rock; Lenderman is a good guitarist, but Manning Fireworks contains some of his best work to date, both in playing and in composing.
I really loved this album, the sound and style and wordplay, and it’s one I will be coming back to again with some frequency.
Friday:
Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
It is crazy to me that Arcade Fire - a group that have been huge then faded into the background, who released three of the best albums of the century so far (this, Neon Bible and The Suburbs), who were a cultural touchstone for so long - have only really been with us for 20 years, since the release of this, their debut album. Funeral arrived in 2004 and kept succeeding through 2005, eventually landing on a bunch of year end lists and grabbing a Grammy nom.
I was actually kinda slow to Arcade Fire, getting caught up in the pre-release hype for their second album, then going back to Funeral and realising just how good it is. Funeral is that rare album that is (or was) different to anything else around at the time, that hit the reset button in your head about what music could and should sound like.
I still love the big songs - "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Wake Up", the latter arguably one of the best songs ever made - but Funeral is an album that needs to be listened to from start to finish, I reckon. And thats exactly what I did this week. Arcade Fire have lost their way a little in recent years, but Funeral holds up.
Friday:
NEW: Fred Again - Ten Days (2024)
Fred Again - or more accurately, Fred again.. - or even more accurately, Frederick Gibson - is an act whose name has been everywhere in the last couple of years thanks to the atmosphere at his live shows, many of which are announced and sold in an extremely short lead time.
As in "hey Auckland, tickets for a show in three days on sale in 45 minutes" short, giving his shows a frenetic, short-notice, only-for-the-fans feel.
Ten Days is his fourth album and takes him in a slightly different direction, putting production and lyrical content ahead of catchy beats in the formula Fred has rolling around in his head. The man is a master at track layering, at building a song from the ground up; this time heart is an important part of the calculus.
For me, a casual electronic fan, it makes for a more interesting listening: there is a lot going on in each track - take a song like "Just Stand There", with SOAK doing a spoken word performance on life as a teenager. Sampha guests on another highlight, "Fear Less". Anderson.Paak, Emmy Lou Harris, Four Tet and a ton more appear as well.
For my money, this might be Fred Again's best album, but your results may vary based on how much you like the dancefloor beats of albums past.
Thanks for reading, everyone - have a great weekend!
Cheers, Chris
Essex boy, Chris? I grew up in Manor Park.