Billed as both his most chaotic and “solid” record so far, Jeff Rosenstock’s seventh full-length is neither, but still provides its fair share of satisfying if familiar punk rock hits.
There are few acts in rock today that can depict this era’s lingering sense of apocalypse (the broken machinations of late-stage capitalism, the corrosion of American democracy, the imminent decay of the whole planet above all) quite as sharply as Jeff Rosenstock. The veteran New York punk who started his career in an unhinged DIY collective called Bomb the Music Industry! (exclamation mark mandatory) has now spent over ten years dissecting his converging personal and global worries in the form of an increasingly lauded and hit-dense discography, peaking perhaps with the smooth-flowing masterpiece of angst WORRY., an album so definitive it deserved a full stop in the title.
This year’s promisingly titled HELLMODE was hailed by promoters and early reviewers as his most chaotic, anarchic and, in Rosenstock’s own words, “solid” record yet, so it’s something of a disappointment that it ends up sounding more or less like the six albums that preceded it. The good news is that any Jeff Rosenstock album is a good one, and his knack for sticky hooks and pithy distillations of a very millennial form of pessimism isn’t going anywhere. HELLMODE is front loaded with tightly written numbers. Exhilarating opener WILL U STILL U is packed with instrumental left turns and belting gang vocals that wouldn’t sound out of place next to the 40-year-old’s very best. Lead single LIKED U BETTER winningly pairs a jaunty keyboard earworm with that sinking feeling of being able to escape your own anxieties. DOUBT follows suit, nurturing a false sense of ease before erupting into a screechy, cathartic polemic. Oftentimes Rosenstock’s dismay at the state of the world – the climate crisis in particular looms over this record – veers towards a relatable defeatism. “The world doesn’t owe you,” he concludes powerfully in standout FUTURE IS DUMB, thus summarising ten years of intense creative output in a single harsh truth.
It’s a shame that Rosenstock couldn’t quite maintain his momentum, especially when it comes to album centrepiece HEALMODE, which does away with the rest of the record’s nuance and undermines the prevailing sense of gloom with the tired, sickly sweet message that love alone can save us from unmitigated disaster. It doesn’t help that the clichéd lyrics are delivered with a cautious softness by Rosenstock, whose voice is much better suited to angry ragers about the constitution than cutesy love songs with an acoustic guitar. Hookless LIFE ADMIN follows, which stands out as one of the limpest tracks Rosenstock has released in years.
As is customary for a Rosenstock album, it all ends in a somewhat theatrical seven minute epic, although there’s very little in 3 SUMMERS that can outdo the much more memorable closing numbers in Rosenstock albums of years gone by. Above all, that’s the key limitation of HELLMODE: with the exception of flawed moment of calm HEALMODE, there’s little invention to be found here, and this distinctive form of volatile rock is better served by most of Rosenstock’s previous releases. True, this is a competently delivered album by an artist who clearly knows how to set a room alight with blaring guitars and verbalised deep-seated dread. It just helps if you don’t know what you’re missing out from the rest of Rosenstock’s oeuvre.
Beethoven’s flamboyant Emperor concerto was an odd choice for this master of pianistic introspection, but Ólafsson nonetheless proved his world class status following a typically daring and dynamic first half from Sousa’s Royal Northern Sinfonia.
It’s a chilly Wednesday night at St. James’ Park, and the music is a heady mix of Hey Jude, a Wembley-themed Que Sera, Sera and a live rendition of Newcastle United’s own gloriously cheesy anthem Going Home. It’s odd to think that amongst the thousands of fans twirling their scarves in the stands one of Europe’s foremost concert pianists, a fresh United scarfdraped over his chic turtleneck. What would Víkingur Ólafsson, a man known for his heartfelt and studied renditions of obscure Bach organ works, make of the wilfully dated sax melody and the thumping 80s drum groove?
Almost unbelievably, it turns out the Icelandic piano sensation wasn’t just there out of curiosity. In fact, he’s been a fan since he was a child, boldly going against the consensus of his Reykjavík schoolmates by picking Newcastle over Manchester United. After this 40-minute Beethoven recital in Gateshead, he recounts the wild events of the previous night’s victorious cup tie, provoking chuckles from the audience as he – dressed in a pristine suit and hair neatly gelled in position like a lovable teachers’ pet – struggles to recall the words “howay the lads”. “I originally picked Newcastle because they played exciting football,” he remarks before reeling off several names from Newcastle teams of yore, as if to prove his true allegiance. “But now I realise it’s because they are black and white, like the piano keys.”
It is a bizarre footnote that somewhat explains Ólafsson’s unlikely appearance in Gateshead. The Glasshouse is undoubtedly one of the finest concert halls in the North but, even for them, getting Ólafsson is something of a scheduling coup – the pianist won a Grammy just days ago for his superb recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which is generally considered as one of the finest readings of that legendary suite of music. Next week he has a blockbuster series of recitals with fellow piano god Yuja Wang in the hallowed concert halls of Toronto and New York. Consequently, the atmosphere in a packed Glasshouse is simply electric. The lady next to me can’t help but burst into conversation about Ólafsson, telling me about his “magical” Prom last summer, the majesty of his Bach organ transcriptions and, most giddily, that “he was on Petroc this morning!” If BBC Radio 3’s silken-voiced presenter approved, then it seemed certain we were in for a classic concert.
First, though, we had the first half of the programme to get through. Fortunately, resident conductor Dinis Sousa is not one for adding crowd-pleasing filler to his concerts. He continued his noble work of promoting contemporary classical music with an opening rendition of Ciel d’hiver, the 2013 piece from recently departed composer Kaija Saariaho. The Finn was known for her fascination with light in all its subtleties, and it was the eerie grey of a dusky winter sky that was most clearly evoked here through Charlotte Ashton’s icy opening flute solo. Later, strings slid from note to note unnervingly, and bubbling harp glissandi gave way to alarming rushes of cymbals. The programme notes suggested Ciel d’hiver would be a beautiful experience, but this was more of an orchestral horror film, vividly portrayed by an RNS demonstrating their fine attention to detail, even in avant garde, pulse-free pieces like this one.
It was a fitting warm up for the following piece, Bartók’s masterwork Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, which is known for its inclusion during a particularly unsettling sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. In Gateshead, this was a reminder of why classical music is best enjoyed live – two groups of strings players sat directly opposite each other, and their battling, overlapping melodies made for a thrilling stereo experience. It culminated in the electrifying Allegro molto duel, each section leaning forwards as they dug their bows into the strings like fencers going in for a lunge. The strings joined forces for a jagged and impressively synchronised pizzicato passage, whilst pianist Benjamin Powell’s agitated exchanges with Fionnuala Ward’s celesta (essentially a piano that strikes steel plates instead of strings) proved that the piano, at its heart, is in fact a percussion instrument. Dinis Sousa’s conducting was uncharacteristically rigid throughout, and rightly so: this is a claustrophobic piece of music – a symphony in a straitjacket, albeit a straitjacket from which it is desperately trying to escape.
The choice of Beethoven’s Emperor piano concerto for Ólafsson’s visit to Tyneside was mysterious. The programme had originally listed Brahms’ second piano concerto as the headline piece (a convenient change for me, since I’d already seen Sunwook Kim‘s businesslike rendition of that one in 2023). One concertgoer I ended up asking about the switch to Beethoven said it was something to do with Ólafsson’s health concerns, but this concerto, a piece oozing with flair and self-confidence typical of late-era Beethoven, hardly seemed like an easy cop-out for the pianist.
Even so, perhaps for Ólafsson Emperor really is a cakewalk. It certainly seemed that way as he delved into the fiendish technical passages that open the concerto, sat back on the stool as if even he was stunned by the acrobatic feats his fingers were pulling off. This sort of musical showmanship is somewhat unchartered territory for Ólafsson, who in 2023 distinguished himself as a Bach specialist when he embarked on playing the Goldberg Variations for 88 concerts in a row in a world tour that took in every continent bar Antarctica. He’s adept at drawing out the hidden inner melodies of Bach’s knotty fugues, as well as tricky task of locating the deep springs of human emotion buried beneath the composer’s cold mathematical genius. Setting him to work at some relatively uncomplicated Beethoven then – one clear refrain per movement, repeated over and over like a pop song – felt a bit like taking a Ferrari to work.
Nonetheless, there was never a sense of superiority about Ólafsson’s impeccable playing, giving the opening movement’s radiant refrain all the vigour it deserved, then sitting back during the breaks and eagerly watching his melodies take flight in the violins around him, clearly delighted by the results. Emperor‘s dominant emotion is simple and persistent joy, although Ólafsson still found room for brief moments of reflection towards the end of the first movement, easing off on tempo momentarily before a delightful final flourish of quicksilver scales.
It was the slow middle movement where Ólafsson seemed most at home. Beethoven’s tranquil theme here is often likened to a hymn, but to me it sounds starkly contemporary, and even pop-y (is there a through line from Beethoven’s steadily rising refrain to the chorus of Becky Hill’s pop hit Remember?). In Gateshead, Ólafsson’s elegant piano melodies were superbly matched by Sousa’s RNS, the strings sounding delectable over the theme’s hushed rise and fall.
The eventual third movement, foreshadowed with subtlety by Ólafsson a few bars earlier, was pure elation. The bombastic refrain looked like terrific fun to play on piano, and Ólafsson did well to ensure even the very loud passages remained light-footed and playful. For a studious-looking pianist whose discography leans towards the austere, this was a reminder that he is still not one to take himself too seriously. A final symphonic prank from Beethoven – the dummy of a quiet ending on piano, followed by a blast of conclusive chords from the orchestra – cued five straight minutes of rapturous applause.
It took the insistence of Ólafsson himself for the applause to finally abate. After his charming chat about Newcastle United, the pianist had one last surprise in store: an encore of Jean-Phillippe Rameau’s The Arts and the Hours, dedicated to the late concert pianist and former RNS director Lars Vogt, who had in fact chosen this specific Steinway grand piano for the Glasshouse. The piece – a devastating tapestry of falling melodies and mellow harmonies – was the sort of music that words could never do justice to. The piece’s title and its dedication to Vogt made it a deeply moving meditation on the mortality of artists and the immortality of their art. This was Ólafsson at his most extraordinary; there can be few people in the world this good at communicating emotion so powerfully. Ólafsson had been a close friend of Vogt, and shared with us a text he received from Vogt just days before his death in 2022. The message was simple, but it haunted me all the way home after this scintillating night of music: “Don’t ever take the music for granted.”
Starry pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason’s Clara Schumann had crystalline clarity plus a stunning cello solo, but it was Dinis Sousa’s vigorous tackling of Beethoven’s most fabled symphony that had RNS operating at their genuinely world class best.
It’s 7 p.m. on an unseasonably mild February night outside the Glasshouse and a violinist is in a hurry. She dashes past me as I’m wrestling with my bike lock, already creating her own percussive rhythms through the frantic clip clop of high heels and the rattle of her violin case on her back. Her panic is understandable – tonight, of all nights, is not one to show up late for. Inside, the place is packed, with perhaps double the attendance of underrated Sunwook Kim‘s take on Brahms before Christmas. There are even – to my wide-eyed disbelief – a handful of fellow youngsters in attendance, apparently lured in by the youthful appeal of tonight’s 27-year-old pianist. The high turnout isn’t the only reason this concert feels special. The first person to walk out onstage is BBC Radio 3’s Linton Stephens, who opens with “Good evening everyone here in Gateshead, and good evening to everyone listening at home!” to the excited murmur of the audience, some of whom have already spotted the bulky camera taking up a cluster of seats at one side of the auditorium. The tardy violinist, thank goodness, is on stage with the rest of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, listening intently to Stephens’ preamble about the Schumanns whilst cradling her violin as if nothing untoward happened 30 minutes prior.
As Stephens made clear, big things were to come in the evening’s programme, but it started with a curiosity in Robert Schumann’s Zwickau symphony, a rarely performed piece. Schumann himself gave up on it as he was composing it, leaving behind two unpublished movements. The challenge for Dinis Sousa’s RNS was to justify playing such a work, especially since – as Sousa made sure to warn us at the start of the concert – it ends in such a blatantly unfinished way, the second movement’s subdued ellipsis begging for a lively and redemptive third movement. Soon the reasoning became clear: Sousa was simply having enormous fun, setting off rapid-fire melodies in various corners of the orchestra with a flick of a hand like a kid let loose on an air traffic control dashboard. When the symphony took a strikingly bleak turn in the second movement, Sousa went all in, conducting gut-punching fortissimo chords with a violent full-body thrust.
However, as in life, it was the subsequent Clara Schumann piano concerto (fittingly premiered by Clara alongside Zwickau in the 1835 concert where the two first met) that outshone her husband’s work. Quite possibly the greatest female composer of all time, in the 19th century Clara was acceptable as a high profile virtuoso pianist but not in the more firmly male-dominated world of composing. Today, the fact that this Piano Concerto – which she performed in Leipzig aged 16 – received little fanfare in its day is extraordinary. It is a remarkably fearless, ambitious piece overflowing with winning melodies that call for robust execution in some moments and careful nurturing in others. Melodic caretaker this evening is Isata Kanneh-Mason, a big name in British classical, the big names being the second and third in particular; the precocious Kanneh-Mason family have created a small dynasty in recent years, enshrining themselves in the mainstream when Isata’s cellist brother Sheku took a star turn at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018. Isata hasn’t simply got tonight’s gig playing Clara Schumann on a whim, though. Her affinity for the composer runs deep and she has long championed Schumann as a figurehead of criminally underappreciated female composers over the centuries.
Kanneh-Mason’s star continues to rise, so it was a testament to her humility that tonight she turned the focus primarily onto Schumann rather than herself, delivering the virtuosic flourishes with little fanfare and devoting plenty of thought to the elementary passages that some of her circus-act contemporaries might dismiss as pointless fluff between all the flamboyant fast bits. Indeed, it was the second movement, a piece achievable for any intermediate piano student, which shone brightest in this rendition. Referred to by Schumann as a nocturne, the movement evokes Chopin at his airy, moonlit best, complete with a haunting melody played with limpid ease by Kanneh-Mason. She was to be bettered by cellist Eddie Pogossion, however, who contributed his own delectable solo, wringing out a lament from his strings with a pained, yearning vibrato. A clattering finale to the third movement, with Kanneh-Mason powering her way through some fiendish passagework, made for a satisfying finish to a recital that was something of a revelation for me.
I was so immersed by the high-octane finish to the piano concerto that it was a surprise when Stephens appeared on my row a few seats away from me, primed with a big microphone to give the link during the interval. There was plenty to say about what was coming up in the second half. A survey of conductors by BBC Magazine saw Beethoven’s Eroica to be voted the greatest symphony of all time, beating out his instantly recognisable Fifth (duh duh duh duhhhh), which didn’t even make the top ten. Often described as the symphony that sparked the new Romantic era in classic music, Beethoven’s Third is the epitome of a hero’s journey and a musical expression of the democratic surge sweeping across Europe at the time (it originally had a dedication to the revolutionary Napoleon Bonaparte, which Beethoven retracted when Napoleon turned out to have more dictatorial aims).
It should come as no surprise that Eroica is a highly demanding piece to play for every member of the orchestra, but Sousa was characteristically fearless, launching into those thrilling first two chords at a notably faster tempo than the versions I’d previously heard. He passed the almost constant main theme around the ensemble like a burning torch, sometimes letting it flicker to nothing, other times stoking a roaring inferno. It turned out Sousa’s preference was more towards the latter, urging his violins on towards the first movement’s denouement with such a burning intensity one front row violinist ended up with a broken string.
A lowly fourth violinist was obliged to exchange their working violin for the broken one and spent the second movement backstage fitting a new string, but the waltzing Adagio assai sounded no less full-blooded than the first movement, lazily drooping double basses providing a rich base for a tragic melody. The alarming stabs of brass were spectacular, but the most exciting sound was the flutter of Sousa’s coattails, audible from my prime perch just above the orchestra in the breathless moments before one of Beethoven’s numerous symphonic explosions. A sprightly shiver of strings propelled a comic relief solo from Peter Facer on oboe during the Scherzo, and the finale was replete with solos, each as flawless as the last, with Charlotte Ashton’s turn on flute a standout. One of my favourite things about classical music is the unambiguous, utterly unapologetic way they tend to end and Eroica is a particularly thrilling example, with its rocky crescendo that accelerates towards oblivion. Now with his entire ensemble back, Sousa looked like he had had a whale of a time as he took long applauses and directed various instrument sections to stand for their own applause. In keeping with the democratic ideals Beethoven was voicing support for, every single member of RNS had put in an almighty shift, and there was never the question of whether this lofty masterpiece would prove much for an ensemble from little old Newcastle.
A cellist has already emerged from the back of the Glasshouse by the time I’m unlocking my bike outside. He quietly accepts compliments from a few concertgoers before joining the queue for taxis. For him, this was just another day at the office. Seeing him is a reminder of just how easy it is to forget how extraordinary this whole affair is – the magnificent Glasshouse, the buzzing auditorium, my perfect balcony seat (only a fiver for under 30s!), the fact I can cycle home in minutes. All of it makes me feel incredibly lucky to live where I do, but tonight proved one further surprise: on their day, the RNS really can compete with the London and Berlin Philharmonics of this world. I hope to never take such a musical feast for granted.
Two years after enigmatic Bath uni student PinkPantheress found instant fame with her nostalgic brand of dancepop, Victoria Walker is back with a rewarding debut album that fulfils the promise of that viral debut mixtape, writes Alex Walden.
get this feeling of excitement mixed with fear when alternative artists begin to gain popularity. It’s essentially a takeover of mainstream media, like the alt scene no longer has to hide on streaming services or small venue concerts any more. But what if it’s only a phase for the majority of listeners? What if these artists who are essentially pioneering new genres are left to fade out? I can remember feeling this range of emotions when I first heard Pink Pantheress’ Boy’s a liar Pt.2 on the radio. I was so happy for her but who knew if it would last?
Those who read my article on Pink Pantheress’ previous mixtape know that this was one of my biggest concerns for her. I thought that her first mixtape was a good start, but she had a long way to go to make her next project truly astounding. However, after two years of singles with some iconic artists such as Willow Smith, Kaytranada, Skrillex and Ice Spice, Pink Pantheress has officially released her first studio album. That’s right, she’s graduated from short mixtapes to just under 35 minutes of album-quality tracks, but is it enough to mark her place in the music industry permanently?
The music video for Mosquito includes cameos from Charithra Chandra, India Amarteifio and Yara Shahidi.
Numerous aspects of inspiration
One of my favourite elements of her previous work was that PinkPantheress wasn’t afraid to channel a sound from a time that often gets forgotten. With elements of garage, jungle and even nu metal littered throughout her mixtape to hell with it, it’s clear that she’s not afraid to take inspiration from the era of her youth. Any fan of this aspect of her music will love the fact that not only do we get the same amalgamation of sounds, but she also incorporates some new influences this time. In tracks like True romance and The aisle we get this crisp discotheque/pop sound but then with tracks like Bury me, we get this softened and heavily delayed 808 mix with a very ambient melody which gives us a somewhat psychedelic sound. This plethora of different sounds is mixed together incredibly well and gives the album a more polished feel that makes it sound longer than 35 minutes.
Lyrical progression
As far as musicians go, PinkPantheress has never really been labelled as a lyrical genius and it’s never really been a problem for her because her songs are so incredibly catchy that you barely pay attention to the lyrics anyway (despite her usually talking about some quite serious stuff). I have countless friends who could recite the entirety of Pain and I Must Apologize but if I asked them what those songs are actually about, they’d have to think about it before giving me an answer. But with this album it’s almost impossible to ignore the lyrics. It’s full of serious and quite dark topics ranging from being wanted for her career and not her personality, like being so crazily in love with someone she starts losing friends or her ongoing battle coming to terms with her fame and fortune. These themes are presented in an aggressively straight-up manner. I mean, seriously, I was completely astonished when I heard the line “because I just had a dream I was dead, and I only cared ‘cause I was taken from you”. It’s not every day you hear a lyric like that. There’s no heavy wordplay for you to decode at all, instead it’s very raw and hard hitting. In my opinion it’s amazing that she can be so blunt. We saw a glimpse of this in her EP but this time around, it’s a real step up.
Ice Spice collaboration Boy’s a liar Pt. 2 is a certified hit, reaching number 2 in the UK earlier this year.
Finding a balance
After Internet baby (interlude) the album begins to take a slower pace for the next five tracks. We can hear a range of standout melodies accompanied by these beats that come across as borderline ambient like in the tracks Blue and Feelings. It feels like this half of the album was inspired specifically by the songs All My Friends Know and Nineteen from her mixtape in 2021, but it doesn’t have the same soothing sound that those tracks do. With those two tracks we got rudimentary melodies matched by a calming tone from PinkPantheress singing about her struggles with her love life, growing up and loneliness, while the lyrics had no hidden meaning or crazy harmonic drive. Not that that was an issue – her melancholic tone fused together with the beats so effortlessly that it gave us this schematic “less is more” feel which worked well as a method of giving your mind a break from the fast paced drum brakes and overall feel-good/hype songs earlier in the tape.
Yet with this album the beats are all a bit too well structured. It’s not every day that I find beats that feel overdone but in this case the tracks feel a bit too heavy in places. For example, in the track Capable of love you’re unable to fully let the music take hold of you like in her previous work because there’s just so much going on. You’re constantly waiting for the next hook, the next drum fill, the next thing to happen which clashes with her soft voice making it feel lacklustre in some parts, almost like a supporting instrument rather than the star act.
Final thoughts
The only real negative thing I had to say about PinkPantheress’ first mixtape was that I thought that it was too short. It felt like you couldn’t really get into it because as soon as your mind starts to escape with the music, it was over. I’m glad to say that with Heaven knows, I can eat my words with this album as PinkPantheress has shown amazing improvement in both quality and quantity, there’s a very clear progression in terms of production quality in this album as well as none of the tracks feeling short at all. While I still think that in some areas songs sound a bit overdone, overall this is another great step forward for PinkPantheress. She has shown that she can keep that classic sound we all adore while still experimenting with other ones to give us a more refreshing sound. PinkPantheress has clearly been working hard since her ‘To hell with it’ days and has proved that she’s got what it takes to stay in the spotlight.
Playing to a half-capacity Glasshouse, Sunwook Kim’s admirable account of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto was technically dazzling if lacking in nuance before the RNS found lift off with an invigorating Schumann symphony.
The receptionist at the box office of Gateshead’s newly renamed Glasshouse seemed puzzled when I arrived shortly before a concert on this frigid late November night. The concession ticket I was after wasn’t in her pile, and she looked worried before exclaiming “ah, under 30!” before apologetically asking for my ID. Looking around, it seemed perfectly possible that I was the only concertgoer this staff member had encountered that was eligible for the Glasshouse’s generous under-30s discount. It’s a fabulous, futuristic, indulgent venue and easily the finest concert hall in Tyne & Wear; schemes like these should in theory attract more youngsters, but their effects are yet to be felt.
Tonight, there doesn’t seem to many over 30, either. Perhaps there was an iota of disappointment detectable in pianist Sunwook Kim’s eyes as he took his initial bows to a half-empty seated section and muted applause. What’s more, something in the way he threw his hands down by his sides at one point during the opening exchanges of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 worryingly suggested tiredness. This was only the second night of a two night tour, but Kim has an excuse – this concerto is a unique symphonic undertaking. Running at around 50 minutes, the work is the Hamlet of classical music and ranks amongst the longest and most complex piano concertos in history, demanding big, flexible hands and serious stamina. Brahms famously insisted on calling it “a tiny, tiny concerto”, perhaps to downplay its significance as successor of his disastrously received First Piano Concerto and the 22 year long build-up for its follow-up. In fact, nothing about this work is tiny. Instead, it is often viciously loud and fast and even includes an extra, fourth movement in a break from the three-movement concerto tradition. It seemed to take a few minutes for Sunwook Kim to fully settle himself into the first movement (no bother, since that movement alone is nearly 20 minutes long), but the time we reached the staccato pounding at the piece’s heart both Kim and the audience seemed enthralled.
Pieces as bold as this one call for some showmanship from the pianist – an irate shake of the head, a flick of the hands skyward with every sharp chord – which Kim delivered on, but there was also plenty of humility on show too. He was more than happy to stoop to some thoughtful call and response with the orchestra, his phrasing meticulously matched with the strings’. Dinis Sousa was on vivacious form, barely visible from behind the piano save for his restless, often airborne feet. He proved an expert navigator of the third movement’s meanders in which the piano concerto briefly becomes a cello concerto, and Kate Gould’s lyrical cello solo came across strikingly heartfelt and human. Here too, for an all too brief moment, Kim found some calm in the eye of the storm, patiently teasing out a quiet melody as if beckoning a kitten into his arms.
The second movement sees the concerto at its fiercest and most expansive, although Brahms was nonetheless at pains to call it a “tiny wisp of a scherzo”. It was here where Kim’s playing showed a few blemishes. The wistful melody struggled under a heavy-handed treatment, played with a blunt-force violence particularly in the upper registers; there’s a thin line between a rich, full-sounding forte and reckless jabbing at the keys. Meanwhile, the movement’s quieter passages, including a few enchanting moments of solo piano, were demoted to pretty interstitials between the ‘real’ action, Kim apparently not seeing their relevance in the grand scheme of this epic concerto.
After Kim’s otherwise impressive Brahms, the second half of this concert was something of a curiosity. This was especially true for a rendition of chamber piece Elongation of Nights, written by Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė in 2009. It’s an intensely Baltic piece, almost to a fault. Dissonant, icy strings swelled and fell away in an intriguingly ambient ten minutes that might have set the mind wandering to tomorrow’s breakfast or my route home had it lasted much longer. Nonetheless, it was an effective conveyance of the long and lonely winter nights that envelop northern Europe every year – like a spooky, skeletal Baltic forest, Dinis Sousa remarked beforehand – if little else. Most impressive in the RNS’s performance was the extreme quietness that bookended the piece, Sousa letting a slender sheen of strings melt into silence like frost at dawn.
Robert Schumann’s exciting Fourth Symphony, a relatively compact work at 29 minutes, closed the concert. It’s a restless work – no theme or motif sticks around for long, and moments of respite from the torrent of notes are few and far between – but this seemed to suit the RNS, not least Sousa, who seemed in his element firing off an exciting new entry from a section of his orchestra virtually every bar. The RNS gained momentum alongside Schumann’s magnificently detailed score and were light on their feet for the electrifying scherzo as well as the blistering final presto, which had the strings operating at peak velocity.
I made sure to say goodbye to the couple sat next to me before leaving, who had asked me what I’d thought of Kim’s Brahms during the interval. I’d tried to talk intelligently about the piece but felt like I was unconvincingly rolling out all the fail-safe lines to get by in a conversation with an avid football fan; “Brahms was also overshadowed by Beethoven, wasn’t he?” was a bit like “Arsenal always try to walk it in, don’t they?”. Still, he seemed to believe I knew more than I truthfully do about classical music and appeared somewhat confused by my attendance, alone and conspicuously young-looking amongst the best seats in the house. It was understandable. Despite the Glasshouse’s £5 scheme for under-30s, people my age are sadly still an oddity in these sorts of venues. I left them with a promise I’d be back soon – perhaps Isata Kanneh-Mason doing Eroica in February. After Kim’s brilliant rendition of Brahms it wasn’t clear why more aren’t hooked on the genre. For me, visiting the Glasshouse for a pleasant evening is a no-brainer. Concerts of this calibre are simply too good to miss.
This seasoned popstar knows what she’s doing when it comes to delivering a night out for the ages. This deeply uplifting evening came replete with flawless disco sing-alongs, nut-tight choreography and even a stellar Cher cover to boot.
Jessie Ware doesn’t do halves. She tackles the pulsating dance number What’s Your Pleasure? sparkling in a pearl-studded bralette – her fourth outfit of the night and by no means her last – and clutches a microphone attached to a thick white whip instead of a stand, which she duly twirls around her head and lashes theatrically towards her backing dancers. It’s a rendition that leans into the kinky side of the title track of Ware’s career-defining lockdown album, which had many critics grasping for the appropriate superlative to convey its rush of steamy, exquisitely produced disco that caught the zeitgeist in a society clamouring for a return to the dance floor. What’s more, Ware has already told us her mother Lennie is in attendance tonight (beloved by the crowd as co-host of their hit mother-daughter podcast Table Manners), plus Auntie Monica. When the two male dancers, wearing tight shirts and even tighter unflinching smiles, gracefully bend over and present their backsides to the audience, a line seems to have been crossed. “Sorry, Monica!” Ware manages to blurt out between lyrics, doling out a pair of hearty spankings all the same. The choreography has been rehearsed for a reason, after all.
It’s a moment of hilarity that nicely sums up what makes a Jessie Ware gig such a unique hoot. Five albums and 13 years into her career, the 39-year-old is entering pop veteran territory, and there’s a wizened confidence in the way she effortlessly endears herself with organic chat between songs, speaking in the loving tone of an old friend. It seems over the years Ware has learned to drop her guard and never take herself too seriously. “When I first played in Manchester I just stood still, sang my songs and that was it,” she admits to us at one point, in between chatting to a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary and gushing about how she met Marcus Rashford yesterday (“I invited him to come but I think it might not be his kind of thing”). That said, Ware knows when to assume a more formidable posture when required of her, like when whipping her bandmates on What’s Your Pleasure? or on the opening number That! Feels Good! during which, after introducing monikers for her bandmates – Steady Eddy on bass, Sweet Pea on backing vocals, The Oyster for one unlucky dancer – she pronounces herself as Mother, arms spread wide and head held high. Make no mistake, for tonight this venue is not just Victoria Warehouse, but Victoria Ware-house.
A tightly choreographed What’s Your Pleasure? was one of the many highlights.
Mother may have been a reference to the recent Gen Z trend of giddily calling any vaguely authoritative female figure on a stage “mother”, but it was literally true, too. Ware is at an age at which women in the music industry are encouraged to gradually recede from the limelight and into the afterlife of Radio 2 to make way for the next cohort of trendy twenty-somethings. A mother of three isn’t supposed to bring in the numbers Ware is pulling today, let alone with unequivocally erotic songs about sexual empowerment and dancing. Instead, 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure? turned Ware from a faltering M.O.R. popstar into a household name, and it’s that album which forms the bulk of the set list tonight, along with if-it-ain’t-broke follow-up record That! Feels Good!. In fact, the only pre-2020 song that gets more than an allusion is Say You Love Me, a poignant remnant of a past era for Ware, delivered with a sombre piano accompaniment to contrast the bombast elsewhere in the show. It’s a touching singalong with a fine vocal performance, but even this ballad has been bettered in recent years, namely by the gorgeous Remember Where You Are, which soon follows and provides necessary respite from all the feather boas and glitter. A song title to live by, Remember Where You Are’s message of bittersweet hope hits even harder in the flesh, a relatively calmed group of swaying backing vocalists delivering the chilling line “the heart of the city is on fire” as Ware begs for someone, anyone, to “take me home”. It’s her most profound song and perhaps greatest artistic achievement.
That song formed the end of a run of Ware’s slowest, sweetest ballads, which were all lumped together for an obvious reason: to leave a second half bursting with non-stop dance crowd-pleasers. The uber camp showstoppers soon piled up: Ooh La La’s bass line alone could have torn the roof off; Begin Again built spectacularly towards a thrillingly belted high note; Bananarama-referencing Mirage (Don’t Stop) was hypnotic and impulsive, the only flaw being that it had to come to an end. When the source material gave an opportunity for some fun onstage amateur dramatics, Ware went all in. Shake the Bottle, for instance, features plenty of coy interactions with the two backing dancers, who hysterically played the roles of Ware’s former love exploits, making absolutely sure the audience missed none of the many cheeky double entendres sprinkled throughout the lyrics. She hardly stopped moving during up-tempo dance banger Freak Me Now, her drummer delivering a thrilling performance at a DJ station at the front of the stage. Beautiful People provided a ready-made slice of crowd choreography in the lines “Stand up / Turn around / Take a bow / Because you look so good right now”. It could have been corny had the music itself been lazy, but instead we got a cracking bass riff, punchy horns and an all-out vocal performance from Ware, gleeful architect of the ensuing chaos. We were all, as Ware insisted, “beautiful people” and as the few thousand punters crammed into Victoria Warehouse spun around and jumped up and down to the beat, it was impossible not to agree.
Say You Love Me provided the night’s only acoustic moment.
Every song was a winner, but Ware had one more surprise up her sleeve. After a suspiciously long costume change, we might not have figured out the source of Ware’s disembodied vocals had one of the dancers not gestured to the back of the room. A disbelieving cheer rippled through the crowd as it transpired that Ware was perched in a corner of the mezzanine floor at the back of the room, now wearing a riot of pink that dazzled under the spotlight. What’s more, she was getting stuck into the verse of Cher’s cheese-smothered classic Believe, which the audience duly belted along to. She proceeded to weave through the standing audience Jesus-like, blowing kisses and holding hands of devotees all whilst belting out the chorus in full voice like the rest of us.
She was ushered back onto stage just in time for a final rendition of Free Yourself, a riotous ode to self-acceptance and perhaps Ware’s quintessential song. The track was one of the highlights of the lavish opening sequence to last year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool and in Manchester it was no less extravagant, the sashaying dancers visibly perspiring under many layers of sequins. It was silly and unedifying but in an honest, unapologetic way; Ware understood that you don’t need a reason to have a good time – just wanting to dance is enough. The extended cut of the track was glorious, Ware never losing an ounce of enthusiasm even as the final chorus looped back into another repeat. All around me, the ecstatic crowd lapped up every last note.
The sad truth was that Ware had to leave the stage eventually, prompting boos which briefly switched her into stern mother mode (“we don’t boo in this house!”). When she left the stage victoriously to the strains of Candi Staton’s Young Hearts Run Free the crowd simply kept dancing, oblivious to the stewards who were rapidly trying to cordon off sections of the standing area for cleaning. I would soon regret not joining in. Instead I watched and took a moment to appreciate how far I’ve come and how special this moment was; or, as Ware would put it, remember where I am. Jessie Ware had been the figurehead for tonight’s fabulous celebration of life, but as I watched punters twirl one another around and laugh uncontrollably, it seemed clear that this gig belonged to all of us.
Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi and an incredible collection of collaborators have crafted an album elevated far above any of their past music, shaping a promising future for the electronic funk duo, writes Matthew Rowe.
Agood few years ago I was playing GTA with some friends when I first heard F—k The Makeup, Skip The Shower on FlyLo FM, and ever since I have been obsessed with LA’s experimental funk duo KNOWER, the main driving factor for me getting into funk music (thank you rockstar). It has been seven years since Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi and their array of ridiculously talented musicians released an album under KNOWER, but you can tell they never stopped.
Cole, Artadi and friends are often found touring with their respective bands and solo projects. For example, Louis Cole’s tours often include a full entourage of artists, having a huge overlap with those included in KNOWER FOREVER. This is evident with how tight all of the songs feel, with every member able to fit seamlessly into the funk pocket, no matter how convoluted some of the melodies are.
KNOWER FOREVER is the product of a band where each member has refined their act so finely that their sound has evolved significantly, moving from a more unhinged dubstep feel to well put together funk. As an album, this was a brave move from Cole and Artadi, releasing it on Bandcamp back in June before it got released on streaming services, but listening to it on Spotify, I wish I’d caved in and bought it via Bandcamp.
Admittedly, at first I was a little worried about how the album would turn out, and that the rest of the songs would struggle to hold a candle to the three released before the rest, those three being I’m The President, The Abyss and Crash The Car, all of which set the bar high. On the release of specifically the first two, they were all I could listen to for a good week. The risk of the rest not being as good was one of the reasons I was put off buying the Bandcamp version but now since the Spotify release, I can’t stop listening. This project is easily the best funk album I’ve heard this year and is in contention for my album of the year, alongside Black Country, New Road’s Live at Bush Hall.
This project is easily the best funk album I’ve heard this year.
KNOWER has always been known for pushing the boundaries of wacky and ridiculous, but I believe that in KNOWER FOREVER they have successfully balanced this with producing nicely subdued songs in comparison. In the previous album, Life, there were songs like The Government Knows and Pizza which I’m sure some people will miss, but I think it’s a very welcome change for them to focus more on the synergy of the band rather than making rather nonsensical music. The new sound is very similar to two of their most famous songs, Overtime, and Time Traveller, the Overtime live session being one of my favourite videos of all time.
In this project, it’s also clear that inspiration has derived specifically from Cole’s other endeavours. Louis Cole is part of a duo that goes by Clown Core and in It’s All Nothing Until It’s Everything it’s clear to see with the drum beat that it is heavily inspired by them. This album also hosts a wide range of musicians; despite being a project by Cole and Artadi, it feels more like a revolving collective of pure talent. On top of this, some big names have been bought in: Jacob Mann and MonoNeon, just to name a couple. The only problem I have with this project is MonoNeon’s lack of bass soloing on The Abyss and despite his insane bass lines, I was left feeling that there was untapped potential.
As a drummer, I love nothing more than hearing new Louis Cole tracks, and he delivered. I have found, after several hours of trying, that his sound is very tough to replicate. Every song on KNOWER FOREVER seemed to bring a different style with it, but I for one find it very impressive how easily he can fit technically complex drumming and fills seamlessly into the rest of the band without overstepping. This has developed with this album. In the past, in songs such as Like A Storm, the contrast with the melodic singing of Artadi clashed with Cole a bit too much, but the new album has perfectly mixed her vocals depending on the song. Pair this with Sam Wilkes’ stank-face-inducing basslines and Sam Gendel’s sax riffs; you can’t go wrong.
It’s not only Louis who displays range in his playing; the entire band is capable of completely different soundscapes depending on the song. Just in this one album, we are blessed with ethereal melodic songs that focus on the range of the soft-spoken lyricism of Genevieve, fast bouncy funk in Nightmare and hardcore dubstep funk in It’s All Nothing Until It’s Everything. The band’s ability to adapt to any subgenre is inspiring and gives me a lot of hope for the future of KNOWER.
The band’s ability to adapt to any subgenre is inspiring and gives me a lot of hope for the future of KNOWER.
One thing I really appreciate about this album is the use of the full house band. This is classic Cole: a house full of musicians, all somehow in perfect sync with each other. This has been done in the past, but to my knowledge, has never made it into a KNOWER album, often being made as fun projects after the songs have had official releases. This opens up a whole new dimension to the song I’m The President, making it more of an epic orchestra rather than just a band, and the result is all of these talented musicians coming together, with perfect mixing to help realise a song, that otherwise would have been incredible, but is greatly boosted up by the theatrics of the brass and choir.
KNOWER FOREVER was worth the seven year wait. Even though I only started listening to them after Life came out, I have been waiting to see what else they could do. This has set the bar very high for future projects, but if there’s a group of people who can maintain quality, it’s these guys. All members involved contributed greatly, and all of them had their chance to shine, creating solid music with well-suited solos. They are able to take on any genre they feel like, and I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do next.
No Bach Preludes were to be found here, just consistently thrilling African beats propelled by Selaocoe’s fierce bowing and awesome throat singing. In between show-stopping dance numbers and a spellbinding percussion solo, it was the audience participation that lifted this gig towards something spiritual.
Abel Selaocoe doesn’t just play the cello, he consumes it. At the start of what will be a special night in Newcastle he strikes an imposing figure, appearing in a huge rose red toga with gold patterns flowing all around him, somewhat upstaging his three plainly dressed bandmates who comprise the Bantu Ensemble, a group fashioned specifically for this tour. Stood up or sitting down, Selaocoe is a bear of a man, but the lovable, cuddly kind: he starts his show with a heartfelt thanks to the audience, his broad smile only encouraging lengthy cheers in response which he patiently waits to subside. Like most musicians, he writes his music about love, but a love deeper than the coffee shop crushes and sickly clichés that might take your average popstar to the top of the charts. Instead, Selaocoe speaks about love for one’s friends, love for humanity in general and, most importantly, love for one’s home. Indeed, this concert is devoted to his homeland of South Africa, with its hypnotic, percussive grooves and ingrained emphasis on the power of community. The cello is Selaocoe’s tool of choice for celebrating his culture, his playing zippy and playful, lending a new sense of soul to an instrument so often confined to the sanitised world of European concert halls. Perhaps Selaocoe is less consuming his cello, then, more giving it a much needed hug.
That’s not to say Selaocoe’s music is all sunshine and lollipops. He opens with an expansive reworking of his track Qhawe / Hero, launching boldly into a capella vocals, standing tall and closing his eyes so as to maximise the power of his bone rattling voice. Therein lies the first surprise of the night: Selaocoe is a great cellist, but his vocal abilities are just as remarkable. The several passages of a capella singing in this show have a primal quality, and despite being almost entirely sung in his native Sesotho, there’s something about his abrasive transitions from lion-like throat singing to shamanic growl that require no translation. Besides, watering down his lyrics to appease an English audience would forgo the many wonderful qualities of his mother tongue, most notably Sesotho’s extraordinary click consonants, which give his faster passages of singing a fascinating percussive edge. Selaocoe does offer translations for his song titles, but otherwise we must simply enjoy how his words sound rather than what they mean, and his performance is all the better for it.
Abel Selaocoe often stood to sing.
The best songs were the ones that managed to cram in all the many aspects of Selaocoe’s offering as a performer. Hlokomela / Take care was one of several roof-raisers, starting with gentle singing and plucking before bursting into joyous life, Selaocoe standing up at one point, leading claps for the crowd as if they needed any encouragement. This form of tribal African music seems to dig a layer deeper into our urge to dance as one community than most Western music, and a rowdy Newcastle crowd didn’t require much introduction to get their feet moving and heads bobbing, a few giddy yelps emerging from the audience to greet any particularly acrobatic new bass line from Alan Keary. Mohamadou Kouate was the engine in the centre of stage, kneeling amidst a playground of various percussive wonders but spending most of his time striking a calabash, an upturned dome that, when struck with a firm fist, released the earthy pulse at the heart of Selaocoe’s uptempo crowd pleasers. Hewasn’t merely a beat provider, though; exquisitely gentle Ibuyile l’Africa / Africa is Back sounded like the giant sun rising over the savannah at dawn, complete with birdlike whistles from Kouate, plus a shimmer of beads like a rattlesnake emerging for another day on the plains.
Quite what sort of music we were hearing was difficult to pin down. To English ears it sounded fresh and exotic, but it may not have sounded especially familiar to many of Selaocoe’s South African compatriots either. Some passages veered towards jazz, especially when Fred Thomas’s piano flutterings came to the fore, and Keary was even offered a wild jazz fusion solo on the opening track, an opportunity which he took with aplomb. Other times, Selaocoe played the role of spiritual leader, and an astonishing one at that. Several songs were elevated by two-part harmonies sung by an impressively full-throated Boiler Shop crowd. On the faster numbers the singing just added to the fun-filled chaos, but on slower compositions crowd participation added something deeper. The sound of several hundred strangers singing loudly and proudly will always be moving, but when applied to Selaocoe’s timeless melodies, the effect was transcendental. Ancestral Affirmations provided one such moment, our shared melodies falling like leaves. Most powerful was the fact that this clearly wasn’t just a song about joy – swelling piano chords and murmuring bass gave the music a dark, religious quality, Selaocoe our sombre funeral leader. Ancestral Affirmations truly was not just a song, but an experience, the sort that I’m convinced is impossible to properly convey in words.
“Dudu knows the cosmos better than the rest of us,” Selaocoe told us in his delicious baritone speaking voice between songs at one point, referring to percussionist Kouate. What followed was the most extraordinary percussion solo I’ve ever witnessed. It was not a drum solo in anything like the traditional sense, more a fascinating show-and-tell: here was a strange dark cylinder emitting a sound like waves; a black tube looped around the neck which Kouate blew into; two flexible corrugated plastic tubes which Kouate flung around his head like a football hooligan. Strangest of all were two pipes with cut-open water bottles taped to their ends, which Kouate dipped repetitively into a basin of water as if a plumber trying to dislodge a blockage. It was all inescapably absurd (there were plenty of confused laughs from the crowd, particularly after Selaocoe’s cryptic introduction) and might have devolved into silliness had the actual sounds produced not been so surprising. The hooligan plastic tubes, for instance, were spun at various speeds so as to produce – miraculously – a discernable melody which Thomas later picked up on the piano. The plumbing element initially seemed like a highbrow way to recreate the sound of watery footsteps, until Kouate used the air rushing through the tube and the partly-covered hole as its end to produce a sound like a wind instrument. Kneeling back down at his station, he delved into a tintinnabulum of shiny trinkets, producing a dazzling flurry of tinkles, even if it did occasionally sound like what happens when you open that precariously stacked kitchen cupboard full of saucepans.
By the time Ka Bohaleng / On the Sharp Side came along at the end of the gig, the crowd was in raptures. Destined to be not quite as thrilling or rhythmically impeccable as the brilliant studio recording, there was still a fantastic piece of call and response crowd work in the feverish finale, Selaocoe’s great clapping palms ushering bedlam. Kouate’s climatic solo on talking drum – a two-sided hourglass shaped drum tucked under the arm – had the added thrill of interpretive dance, Kouate’s arms flailing wildly at impossible speed, all silhouetted against a background of pulsing white lights.
It was all a far cry from the gig I had been expecting. Yes, Selaocoe’s debut album contains Ka Bohaleng, but it also contains strikingly restrained accounts of a Platti cello sonata and a few movements from Bach’s cello suites. It makes for a fascinating and perhaps uneven record, and I’d arrived at Boiler Shop prepared to critique Selaocoe’s attempt at marrying Western baroque music with its African antithesis.
But there was to be no such challenges: Selaocoe’s show was devoid of tranquil (and perhaps sleepy) baroque pieces and instead stuck to unchartered territory. I have no doubt Selaocoe’s passion for Bach runs deep, but it’s hard to imagine any music delivered as passionately and compellingly as Selaocoe’s own compositions. Crucially, rather than hearing interpretations of some other composer’s ideas, we got Selaocoe’s own soul. As a result the crowd required little thought before falling in love with it all, judging by all the shouts of joy during the grooviest passages and the staggeringly loud singalongs.
The applause was so fervent it made you wonder if the encore really was planned this time, or if the band, like me, had been awed by the sense of occasion. Either way, Selaocoe was not one to get carried away in the moment, standing calmly as the applause quietened before telling us, monk-like, that “with this energy we’re gonna take over the world out there.” The breathtakingly quiet Infinite Love rounded off the night, a delectable waltz that rose elegantly into the Boiler Shop rafters like smoke from an incense stick. Both Selaocoe’s vocals and cello sounded silkier than ever but, not for the first time, it was Mohamadou Kouate’s work on percussion that was most spellbinding. This time his bowl of water played the role of a sonorous kick drum, Kouate floating a smaller, upturned bowl on the water’s surface and deftly striking the top with his palms. Woody crunches like footsteps and sparkles of kalimba, all emanating from Kouate’s encyclopaedic ring of small instruments, completed a stunning soundworld. As his fellow musicians drew the song to a peaceful close, Kouate filled his bowl with water and purposefully poured it back out, his other hand tickling a set of chimes. Some may say the sound of water sloshing isn’t really music, but Abel Selaocoe’s concert had already ventured well beyond the traditional boundaries of music and into something more artful and poignant. As Selaocoe’s last stroke of the cello strings receded to nothing, Kouate shook out what was left of the water, the last drops falling like tears.
Equally packed with punk rock instant classics and beautifully understated piano ballads, Olivia Rodrigo’s bravura second album is somehow fiercer, wittier and altogether even stronger than her Grammy-sweeping debut.
It takes about 52 seconds for the brilliance of Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album to hit. It begins with a delicately plucked acoustic guitar and semi-whispered vocals as Rodrigo sweetly delivers disingenuous lines about being perfectly socially aware and having “sun in my motherfuckin’ pocket”. It’s an expletive that foreshadows the rage that’s about to unfold: a clatter of drums followed by an implosion of distorted guitars and bratty, Avril Lavigne-esque vocals, matching Rodrigo’s rage at having to conform and look effortlessly pretty as the fawned-over young American pop star she is. all-american bitch is not just a smartly executed satire but simply a great rock song, with unusually fierce and unhinged guitars for a pop album so deeply in the mainstream, plus a rebellious shouted chorus that lands with all the impulsive force of a teenager’s bedroom door slammed shut.
It’s a bracing opener that sets the tone for what should become one of the great pop-rock albums of the decade. Where her generally excellent debut record SOUR outstayed its welcome with increasingly underpowered wallowing in the same formative breakup, GUTS sees Rodrigo venture (partly) beyond the world of misbehaving boys, in the process diving deep into the full throttle punk music that lingered dormant within the highlights of that first album. Raucous banger ballad of a homeschooled girl perhaps best exemplifies Rodrigo’s evolution and sudden maturity as an artist as she sings about social anxiety and unease at settling into a crowd after her unique upbringing as a child actor at Disney. What makes this song about awkwardness so brilliant is just how confident the music sounds as Rodrigo sings of “social suicide.” This song is not self-pity but a vivid recreation of Rodrigo’s (and, as it happens, much of her generation’s) anxiety in the form of a rapid torrent lyrics and a restrained bridge that promptly collapses upon itself into an electrifying finale.
Interestingly, a newfound willingness to be a little silly on GUTS is all part of that new maturity. Where SOUR occasionally risked slipping into melodrama, GUTS is mellowed out with wry anecdotes from a turbulent love life and jokes at Rodrigo’s own expense. “Yes I know that he’s my ex but can’t two people reconnect?” she quips on gritty Wet Leg-esque number bad idea right?, a song about willingly doing what you absolutely know you shouldn’t – far from the only unifying feeling of adolescent life that Rodrigo has comprehensively unpacked in her two albums already. get him back! is even more fun, a sharp-witted tale of getting a spot of light revenge on a clueless ex complete with a killer singalong chorus and an irresistibly groovy drum groove.
When Rodrigo gets serious, though, she doesn’t hold back. Lead single and perhaps this album’s finest achievement vampire steadily crescendos towards the condemning lines “bloodsucker, fame fucker, bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire,” delivered with enough conviction to void any previous criticism that 20-year-old might be throwing in swear words just for cool points. There’s no mistaking that vampire’s vehemence is whole-hearted as the drums build into a canter and a twisting chord progression tugs on the heartstrings with accumulating urgency. At the heart of it all is the best vocal performance of Rodrigo’s career so far, transitioning from exquisitely quiet opening to bell-clear belted high notes that slice through the mix like a hot knife during the second utterly flawless middle eight of her career (after drivers license, of course). It all comes crashing down satisfyingly in a wall of spliced piano chords and deafening cymbals, triumphantly wrapping up what may be Rodrigo’s greatest three minutes of pop.
On lyrics alone, however, it’s hard to beat making the bed, an artful standout ballad that grapples with the uglier aspects of the celebrity life that Rodrigo has inadvertently created for herself. “I’m playing the victim so well in my head,” she admits as a mire of electric guitars and washed out piano chords inexorably begin to subsume her. Much of the detail on GUTS is inevitably difficult to relate to given it draws directly from the truly bizarre upbringing of a young global celebrity, but on making the bed there’s something strikingly universal about Rodrigo’s deep-seated guilt and cognitive dissonance. There’s similarly exceptional lyrics on classy piano ballad logical, where Rodrigo tells of falling for a dishonest lover “like water falls from the February sky.” She ends up concluding that nothing about love makes rational sense with the ingenious “the sky is green, the grass is red / you mean all those things you said,” making a mockery of the superficial ‘roses are red’-style love poems she must have received from countless desperate boys over the years. It’s rounded off with a sense of self-awareness typical of GUTS’ maturity, Rodrigo admitting in an introspective bridge “I know I’m half responsible.” This isn’t just a case of mining a flawed relationship for witty comebacks and one-upmanship. This is the intricate, pained unravelling of both party’s flaws set to ruminative piano and beautiful melodies.
In terms of sheer songwriting quality, GUTS never loses an ounce of momentum during its 40 minute runtime. In other years and on lesser albums, love is embarrassing could quite easily be a smash hit and worthy song of the summer with its joyfully self-deprecating chorus and pulsating synth beat. On GUTS it’s just another underappreciated deep cut, as is smooth and catchy indie pop number pretty isn’t pretty, which covers the well-documented topic of unrealistic beauty standards with a new clarity. “Fix the things you hated and you’d still feel insecure,” Rodrigo bluntly points out at one point, reminding us it’s something deeper than the supermodels and sunny Instagram posts that are making young people feel so insecure.
Most of all, it’s Rodrigo’s age that runs a thread through this album, with the singer both grappling with intense fame at such a young age and the jealous, patronising put downs that she receives from her invariably older critics. The opener’s semi-earnest declaration of “I know my age and I act like it,” proves to be self-deception by the time the stunning closer, teenage dream, is reached, when Rodrigo asks “when am I going to stop being wise for my age and just start being wise?”, sounding almost defeated. There’s also the uncomfortable question of whether committing her entire young adult life as an actor for Disney was wise. “‘Got your whole life ahead of you’ […] / But I fear that they already got all the best parts of me,” Rodrigo reflects in a line that must resonate with any young person unfortunate enough to come of age during a pandemic. Therein lies the great magic trick of GUTS, an album that has the raw intensity of Rodrigo’s singular life experiences but is equally adept at speaking on behalf of an entire generation of Gen Z-ers. For me, like many other 20-year-olds the world over, this album has quickly become part of my identity, a work of music to scream and dance along to in vigorous catharsis or confide in during quiet moments of overwhelm. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Challenging and ambitious, Emma Rawicz’s polymorphous jazz sought to tread new ground on a yearly return to the Brudenell. Epic solos and an extraordinary closing number had the audience baying for more, not least because her 90-minute set contained just six songs.
“Proper” jazz music – that is, music that isn’t strictly rehearsed, with the length of each section negotiated on the fly via nods and gestures between bandmates – brings with it two big risks when it comes to live performances. The first, and most obvious, is that it all unravels in miscommunication, perhaps with a disagreement about who should solo first or which chord they should be playing. In practice, however, a good ear and a knack for fast thinking in resolving any musical disagreements in an instant is a minimum requirement for any professional jazz musician. Less talked about, but far more common, are the perils of an open solo. Picture the scene: you’re a few minutes into a tune in front of a few hundred patrons of Brudenell Social Club. Emma Rawicz – a much talked-about bright spark in UK jazz – wraps up a final saxophone lick and turns to give you a knowing nod, and suddenly all eyes are on you to come up with something to play. For once you have the spotlight; you step to the front of the stage and revel in the complete creative freedom of being able to play more or less anything, for as long as you like. After a while you consider relinquishing to the patient pianist looking your way in the corner, but there’s still a particularly clever tangle of notes left in your fingers that you’re desperate to get out with one more repeat of the chords. A two minute solo becomes a five minute solo (a very different prospect), and before you know it there are audience members heading for a loo break and Emma seems to glare at you as she shoulders her way back into the song. Of course, it’s hard to play a harmonically interesting, technically impressive solo for five minutes straight, but it’s even harder to play for just one.
It was consequently a pleasant surprise to have seats for Emma Rawicz, owing Brudenell’s secondary venue a far more relaxed atmosphere compared to the last time I was there, not knowing my luck to see Parcels as my first ever gig back in 2018. It was a shrewd move from the organisers too – with currently only one album to her name, last year’s strong but underappreciated Incantation – 21-year-old Rawicz has only just joined her first record label, and the Brudenell would have felt underwhelmingly half-empty if it weren’t for all the tables and chairs. She did at least have the gravitas to warrant a dedicated introduction over the PA system from the sound guy at the back, in an endearing first for an Undertone gig.
Emma Rawicz backed by Conor Chaplin and Ant Law
A first half of entirely unreleased music started slowly. Patience-testing opening number Rangwali was carefully assembled like a sort of free jazz jigsaw, and a tedious one at that. A lopsided shuffle seemed to be implied by the drummer, but the grooves were too fickle, the chordless interlocking melodies too nebulous to give the unfamiliar listener any chance of finding solid ground in all the shifting textures. An assured piano intro into the second track promised more, but still the melodies remained frustratingly slippery and the solos overly tangential, eventually wheeling back to an apologetically short head thrown in at the end seemingly because Rawicz felt obliged to repeat the ‘hook’ at least once.
Nonetheless, it was engagingly daring opening 45 minutes, the highlights being Rawicz’s dazzling solos. Launching up and down the octaves – embracing every nook and cranny of the tenor saxophone’s magnificent range – Rawicz sounded more than capable of carving out her own niche in the contemporary saxophone world, her preferred style nimbler than Nubya Garcia and more delicate than Shabaka Hutchings. Seasoned touring guitarist Ant Law’s solos meanwhile contained the grandest narrative arcs. At one point he apparently tried to pull a string right off his instrument, the resulting clang prompting audible shock from the crowd. Asaf Sirkis’s brainy drum solos, on the other hand, were neither restrained enough to sound succinct and sharp nor wild enough to impress on technique alone.
At one point a sudden cloud of stage smoke appeared to quite feasibly rise from Rawicz’s restless fingers.
After just three songs of intensive jazz exposure, an interval came with all the relief of finding shelter from the gusts on a windy day. I caught my companions Thomas and Rob checking the time a little nervously: it was 10 p.m., and all signs pointed to at least an 11 p.m. finish before a somewhat gruelling three-leg journey home. At least Rawicz seemed full of beans, spending the entire break personally selling CDs and chatting with fans, only hopping backstage to grab her sax in time for the second act.
The second half was much the better of the two. Voodoo, at last a familiar song at least to me (and sadly the only inclusion from Incantation for this gig) got things underway with punchy guitar chords, a nippy bass-and-piano riff and a taut melody delivered with impressive synchronicity by Rawicz and Law. Rawicz’s solo was even fiercer than usual and at one point a sudden cloud of stage smoke appeared to quite plausibly rise from her restless fingers. Nerdy rhythmic trickery behind the guitar solo triggered knowing smiles between those in attendance swatted up on the concept of metric modulation, but was an otherwise unnecessary distraction. By contrast, Sirkis’ explosive closing drum solo was less thinking and more thrashing, and the result was thrilling. He almost fell off his stool by the end of it.
Ant Law’s solos provided some of the evening’s highlights.
Middle Ground happened to be released on the very same night of Rawicz’s performance at the Brudenell and provided a much needed element of calm and meditation to the night’s proceedings. The chord progression was stunning, and Rawicz’s contemplative, beautifully drawn out melodies were as breathtaking to hear as they must have been to play. The accompaniment was unflashy – Law provided a smattering of fade-in guitar chords, bassist Conor Chaplin produced a woody rumble at the back – but the result was a gorgeous concoction of sound. Ivo Neame, this evening’s pianist and still a professor at Rawicz’s not-so-old haunt of Chetham’s School in Manchester, also gave one of the performances of the night. His sophisticated, kaleidoscopic solo had Rawicz shaking her head in blissful disbelief, before a rousing and unusually catchy closing refrain.
I felt a tingle of excitement as Conor Chaplin played the opening bars of Phlox, the sixth and final song of the night and Rawicz’s recent single which I had been eager to hear live. It features the meatiest, most rhythmically engrossing riff I’ve heard all year, served up with the unassailable momentum of a heavy metal showstopper. Rawicz’s furious, high-octane solo was a whirlwind of honks and screeches before Neame’s intricate and eventually clamorous bluesy riffs and immense chordal runs. The finale found Sirkis at last in his element, causing utter havoc on the skins as that angular riff continued to gain momentum. At the Brudenell it felt like the first track of the night with a palpable sense of purpose and urgency and, at least until her sophomore album is released, Phlox is the clear standout song of Rawicz’s career thus far.
Phlox featured the meatiest riff I’ve heard all year, served up with the unassailable momentum of a heavy metal showstopper.
Groans of “more!” came seconds after Sirkis’ last triumphant strike of the cymbals and were so persistent that the MC at the back had to grab his microphone and mumble something about the 11 p.m. live music curfew to get everyone to calm down. Part of the appeals for more must have surely stemmed from the fact Rawicz had played just six songs, leaving plenty of solid material from the first album unaired. “We prepped twelve, we’ve got more!” she was eager to tell us at the end, mentioning that they’d all had “too much fun,” but perhaps wishing there had been at least some songs that weighed in at less than 15 minutes a piece.
It wasn’t just the length that made this a gig suited to the hardcore jazzheads only. This rendition was far wilder, stranger and more polymorphous than the manageable, if occasionally unoriginal fusion cuts from Rawicz’s debut. Rarely did grooves settle into a recognisable form, and determining a time signature invariably required a diploma in jazz musicianship; in other words, attempting to dance along or even bob your head to this music is an exercise in confusion. It’s tempting to scold Rawicz for leaving behind the familiar, accessible world of funk-informed fusion music, but these bold steps forward into the unknown are exactly what jazz thrives on, even if not all of the experiments are going to land. Indeed, the fusion side of Rawicz’s sound could become something very lucrative – Snarky Puppy have filled the Royal Albert Hall on songs with the same DNA as Rawicz’s Wishbone or Incantation – but it takes genuine guts to unleash a set as challenging as this one. The mainstream, even in jazz terms, remains some way away from Rawicz, but her ample creativity and individualism looks set to thrive as a result. All she and her colleagues have left to do is play a bit less.
