A breathtaking title track is the climactic highlight of the Icelandic-Chinese artist’s second album, packed with enough gorgeous melodies and intricate orchestration to singlehandedly spur the revival of an entire genre.
TikTok has transformed the music industry in ways that are still becoming clear. Its sudden boom felt by everyone under the age of 30 has changed the emphasis for artists from writing well-rounded singles or albums for the expert ears of tastemaking radio DJs to coming up with marketable 20 second chunks to be listened to millions of times by many app users who may never hear the entire song. With the shortened time span comes new incentives for the artist – accessible hooks and instantly relatable lyrics will ensure instant results, and bright, funk-leaning pop music is the genre of the day (all the better to record a dance to). The big money in the now common phenomenon of charting TikTok songs has practically led to an entire new genre of Gen Z-pandering pop, doing away with bridges (no time for them in a short TikTok clip) and simply speeding up preexisting songs, providing an easy extra uptempo kick with the unfortunate side effect of giving the vocalist an uncanny chipmunk voice.
For that reason, the rise of Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir (say LAY-vay) has been improbable to say the least. Based in Los Angeles and London and with the unusual combination of Icelandic and Chinese heritage, she plies her trade in the notoriously unmarketable genre of vocal jazz, recalling classy melodies and smoky piano trio instrumentation that hasn’t seen mainstream attention for more than 50 years. She’s made steady progress on TikTok, posting quietly impressive performances on cello and guitar, each video invariably graced with her expertly enunciated vocals. A steady flow of new fans became a flood only in this past year with the viral success of Bewitched’s lead single, From The Start. An unusually peppy bossa number (Laufey once wrote that fast jazz makes her anxious), it was catchy enough to win the attention of the app’s mysterious recommendations algorithm and, a few months later, Laufey has the most-streamed opening week for vocal jazz album in history no less, a modest record to break given the lack of competition, but nonetheless a signifier of just how much Laufey is on her own when it comes to her preferred corner of jazz. Boundary-pushing instrumental jazz may continue to thrive both in the UK and the US, but for the moment it is Laufey alone who is fighting the corner of this more conservative, decidedly less cool subgenre with its familiar harmonies and straightforward melodies.
From The Start may be the song powering Bewitched’s success, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this album’s charm. Laufey already has a live album with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under her belt, and at its best Bewitched shimmers with unashamedly elaborate flourishes of oboe and swelling waves of strings. California and Me is so densely orchestrated that London’s Philharmonia Orchestra gets an official credit, providing momentum to Laufey’s enchanting melodic meanders. Elsewhere, the classical elements of Laufey’s style are more intimate. Serendipity, perhaps the most charming of this album’s many waltzes, sees Laufey trade bittersweet melodies with a sonorous string section and pensive piano. On slinky bossa nova track Haunted the effect of the strings is more an atmospheric shimmer. “I swear to myself as he leaves at dawn / This will end ‘til he haunts me again,” Laufey confides to us, almost whispering before breaking out into a sublime passage of hummed scatting the likes of which the Top 40 Albums Chart hasn’t seen for decades.
The biggest joy of Bewitched lies in witnessing Laufey fall gradually ever deeper in love, song by song. “Boys just make me cry,” she announces resolutely in the delightful opener Dreamer, a classic swing tune with a classy vocal performance that would surely have impressed Ella Fitzgerald, Laufey’s most obvious influence. By Lovesick, though, Laufey’s determination to avoid boys at all costs has evaporated. The central moment of turmoil of the record, Lovesick is the closest thing Laufey has ever got to a rock song, even if the chugging electric guitar is buried under a web of heart-tugging strings and sustained piano chords. It also happens to include one of her strongest choruses to date, replete with beautiful lyrics delivered with an urgency that sounds somewhat out of place on this otherwise soft album, but nonetheless could be a promising sign of more daring genre-mashing to come for Laufey.
By the time we reach palate-cleansing piano solo piece Nocturne, it is clear Laufey is well and truly besotted. Swooning, helpless love is the mood that Laufey has dealt with most comfortably in her career to date and true to form these final six songs offer the most assured moments of Bewitched. Promise, a heartbreaking tale of a long-distance relationship, is exquisitely teased out before a barnstorming, despondent bridge (“I’ve done the math / There’s no solution / We’ll never last!”). Misty, the only jazz standard on the tracklist, is even more enthralling, with Laufey flexing her vocal jazz muscles in a tasteful performance, even if there’s no space for an instrument to take the limelight for a solo.
And then there’s the title track. Bewitched’s opening orchestral flourish could hardly be more ornate, with strings, woodwinds and horns all tumbling over one another as if soundtracking the magical arrival of a Disney princess. Instead, there’s the gorgeous, softly sung voice of Laufey and a lonely guitar. The melodies and chord progressions are nothing short of exquisite, and the gentle reentry of strings in the chorus feels like quietly slipping into a steaming hot bath. Complete with gorgeous lyrics about “the world [freezing] around us as you kiss me goodnight,” Bewitched is the most complete musical depiction of romance I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear. Like all the greatest love songs, Laufey not only describes her love but invites you to feel it too, with all its profound, all-consuming ecstasy and a nuanced tinge of risk when it comes to “bewitching” and “spells”. Laufey has lost herself in love just as the listener loses themselves in the artistry of the soaring strings and timeless melody. With Bewitched as an album closer, Laufey’s tale of falling in love is immaculately wrapped up with a fairytale ending. It’s the pinnacle of an album like no other in the pop charts today, although judging by the success of this new, unorthodox formula for TikTok riches, Laufey may not be alone in her niche for long.
On a damp and dreary night in Glasgow, Theo Katzman showcased his exemplary songwriting and impressive technique despite a set bloated with solos in one of those gigs overshadowed by my own circumstances.
Another gig, another nervous train journey. This time I was gazing out the window somewhere on Scotland’s central belt, the outside world so uniformly dark it was genuinely difficult to tell whether or not the train was passing through one very long tunnel on the way to Glasgow. I’d already had plenty of excitement for a Tuesday night – I sprinted in a failed attempt to catch an earlier train in Edinburgh, my overnight bag bouncing uncomfortably on my back – but the biggest challenge was to come: making it to the renovated church of Òran Mór in Glasgow’s West End before American singer-songwriter Theo Katzman took to the stage bright and early at 8.15 p.m.. Glasgow was damp and gloomy but jogging through the dimly glowing backstreets in search of the flat where my friend Fionn was waiting for me felt enjoyably like a movie, at least until I soaked my trainers in a puddle. I buzzed in to find a nervous Fionn, and understandably so. He’d had to buy a dodgy ticket online in the days leading up to the gig and was, crushingly, denied entry on the door. Neither of us had the guts to do a runner – this was, in truth, hardly a high-security venue – so we just stood there stunned for a few minutes, waiting for a solution to reveal itself which never came. Only when we heard the cheers heralding Katzman’s punctual appearance were we triggered to say a sad goodbye and part ways. Fionn made the 10 minute walk home alone whilst I shuffled into the already stuffy Òran Mór to find almost nowhere to get a good view. I settled on a spot just in front of the bar, my view of the main man largely obscured by pillars, and tried to focus on the music.
It was in these circumstances that I first saw Theo Katzman in person. His was the third name on my bucket list of Vulfpeck members to see live after prolific guitarist Cory Wong and fabled bassist Joe Dart, who happened to be stood right next to Katzman in Glasgow, the glints from his customary sunglasses dazzling even in the short glimpses I got from the back of the room. A guitarist, vocalist and drummer for Vulfpeck, Katzman’s showmanship instincts have sometimes felt squashed in that band by the zany presence of frontman Jack Stratton, but whilst Vulfpeck have taken an extended hiatus Katzman has grasped the opportunity to show the world exactly what he’s made of. Showing up tonight sporting a skew-whiff oversized baseball cap and loose, exposing denim jacket, Katzman has always felt a little different from the rest of the Vulfpeck gang, even if he can funk just as hard as the rest of ‘em. His distinctive take on country rock has only the barest resemblance to Vulfpeck, the link most clear in those moments he opts for a particularly perky funk bass line or indulges in a gleeful, improvised falsetto run. Lyrically, Katzman’s solo discography is so smartly written and heartfelt it makes you wonder what heights that Michigan band might have scaled if they chose to sing about something more stimulating than self aware ducks and whales with feet.
Katzman arrived in this damp Scottish city after, like many of contemporaries, having undertaken something of a creative (and, perhaps, personal) reinvention during the pandemic. He spent much of his chat during this gig discussing a formative year or two alone in the wild woods of the American midwest, doing little else than simply “thinking”. He cut himself off from the Internet for long periods, becoming self-sufficient and discovering the counterintuitive yet ever trendy hobby of extreme cold water swimming. It all amounted to a spiritual awakening that seemed destined to result in either powerfully profound or powerfully pretentious new material. A monologue played through the speakers as the band took to the stage in which a disembodied Katzman espoused the “universal law” that “everything in nature has a cost” and insisted that “we ourselves are nature,” dangerously teetered towards the latter, although in the remaining brief speeches that would pepper the rest of the gig Katzman came across as far more a humbly passionate advocate of spirituality than a self-absorbed ‘enlightened one’.
That said, Katzman’s latest album, Be The Wheel, is hardly a George Harrison-level musical departure from his earlier work, the change instead making itself clear in a notable decrease in the specificity of his lyrics. The title track and Hit The Target got things moving in Òran Mór, and although Katzman’s calls to “be the wheel” and “put down the pistol” seem indecipherable to anyone other himself, there was plenty to love in the consistently interesting composition, particularly than it came to the writhing retro synth in the latter track. 5-Watt Rock was an outlier in its directness – an endearing, self-aware tale about wooing a lover despite an underpowered guitar amp – but was tellingly one of the most enjoyable tracks of the night, the harmonised group vocals in that unforgettable chorus sounding even more glorious in the flesh.
Katzman performed to a sold out Òran Mór.
Katzman was blessed with a stellar live band, not least when it came to Mr. Dart, who is as far as I’m concerned one of the finest bassists active today. They were kept busy with a daunting quantity of solos – almost every song found eight bars to lend to one of the musicians who, whilst clearly very capable performers, occasionally struggled to justify every departure from the standard rock formula. At their best these improvisations were transformative – Dave Mackay’s blues blast on piano on Trump-bashing You Could Be President was a thing to behold – but other times, like on 5-Watt Rock, the solos added little to the original. At least Dart’s superfluous diversion on She’s In My Shoe added a degree of interest to an otherwise uninspiring plodder. Still, we were left wanting more – the cutting of a few solos would have been a small price to pay had Dart or one of his bandmates been given enough airtime to fully explore his instrument within a single song.
The new material may have its fair share of duds, but there’s no disputing what an exceptional songwriter Katzman is – unmatched by any of his Vulfpeck peers. The remarkable What Did You Mean (When You Said Love) is his best song and he knows it, drawing it out in Glasgow with a pretty yet convoluted piano intro followed by a stripped-back, overly theatrical first verse that showcased both Katzman’s expressive vocals and the song’s undulating harmonic foundations. Virtually every phrase was followed by an increasingly dramatic pause, culminating in a lengthy silence that verged on mick-taking before the band’s entry. “Do it, ya bastard!” one unmistakably Glaswegian man couldn’t help but blurt out from the back, somewhat puncturing all the romantic tension Katzman had worked so hard to construct, even if he had been playful about it. He did, eventually, “do it”, throwing in a jazz piano solo and rampaging electric guitar solo for good measure. The song came out perhaps a little overcooked, stretching out into a six minute epic, but if any Katzman song can withstand this sort of abuse, it’s this one. The Death of Us came as a welcome contrast, the sticky funk groove light on its feet yet still offering an electrifying extended jam that had these five musicians operating at the peak of their powers.
Katzman’s unwaveringly earnest inter-song talks about the new worldview he acquired during that forest retreat were hit and miss. A speech about bravery before You Gotta Go Through Me was genuinely compelling, Katzman urging us to take that crucial first step outside our comfort zones, starting tomorrow morning; cue a muted applause. “Yeah, that one never goes down that well,” he admitted. It was a pity that all the oration came as a prelude to one of Katzman’s sleepier numbers, but at least the song gave me a chance to make the most of my back row spot and get hold of a queue-free delayed Coke. There were also a lot of ‘prayers’ at play: The Only Chance We Have was “a prayer for listening”, followed by Corn Does Grow, which was both a “prayer for nature” and “a prayer for us”. Really, Corn Does Grow was just a rollicking country rock song, delivered in Glasgow without the excessive vocal distortion of the studio recording. Instead, there was the most head-banging guitar solo of the night and plenty of intense riffing – by the end, the temperature in an already stifling Òran Mór seemed to have gone up a degree or two.
Rip-roaring new tune Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day was the best surprise of the night, Katzman asking desperately “but how long did it take to fall down?” as chugging drums and guitars gathered pace around him. The other uptempo Rome-themed song in Katzman’s canon, As the Romans Do, would have made for a worthy finale but instead we got That’s The Life, a disappointingly middle-of-the-road choice of closing number but a neat encapsulation of the Katzman appeal, with lyrics about searching for life’s purpose set to the sound of a light-hearted hoe down. Heads bobbed politely in the crowd in front of me, but there was a sense that we weren’t quite seeing Katzman at his uninhibited best.
It was still drizzling when I found Fionn waiting outside for me, needlessly apologetic. I joked that it had been a rubbish gig anyway, but it was true that Fionn’s absence hadn’t been the only disappointment of the night. Katzman remains a consummate entertainer – his free-wheeling falsetto feats were so consistently remarkable it became easy to take them for granted – but it seems when he found himself in the woods he partly lost sight of what made his music so much fun – namely uncomplicated, joyous rock hooks. Unlike a good deal of his contemporaries, Katzman has plenty of worthwhile things to say, but on this sad night in Glasgow I was left wishing he’d let the music do more of the talking.
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.
With rambling tangents and a confused mix of genres, Jack Stratton fails to deliver on an otherwise promising new identity yet again. Matthew Rowe gives a track-by-track rundown on why the latest album doesn’t live up to the potential harboured by Vulfpeck frontman.
To call Vulfmon interesting would be an understatement. Jack Stratton has always been known within Vulfpeck as a wildcard, not standing out musically like Joe Dart and his iconic basslines or Theo Katzman with his incredible vocal range but as a personality, known for doing the unorthodox. From this, you would gather any solo project of his to be very experimental and unlike most of Vulf Records, and you wouldn’t be wrong. The two albums he has released so far, Here we go Jack and the most recent, Vulfnik, do exactly this but have been quite a letdown. Unlike coherent albums where a full listen feels natural, listening to these albums often feels like you’ve hit shuffle on your liked songs, but they don’t hold up to the standard of the genres they’re exploring into.
With the announcement of Vulfnik, I didn’t feel the general excitement I had a few years ago whenever a new Vulf release was announced. Recently they have fallen short of my previous expectations of them, struggling to hit that old, funky minimalistic feel that helped them flourish (The Fearless Flyers being the exception). A while back I looked forward to their weekly releases, but the first song didn’t set my expectations high.
This was I Can’t Party, in which Jack tells us a story about getting hit on at a coffee shop and him having to turn down the offer due to the fact he can’t party. The issue with this song is that it sounds like he’s trying to make a song specifically to become popular with millennials on TikTok; looking this up, you’ll see several videos of millennials frankly embarrassing themselves. For reference, if you’ve heard “coffee shop bop”, it’s a very similar vibe. But you’ve got to give it to him: he has some serious leg strength in the music video.
In the same category of lacklustre songs in the first half, we also have Harpejji I and James Jamerson Only Used One Finger, both of which could not even be seen as songs. Harpejji I does what it says in the title, consisting of Jack playing a harpejji with a basic drum beat in the background. In comparison to the short list of artists who show off this instrument, it falls short of the standard given by artists like Jacob Collier. The latter of these two songs is three and a half minutes of Jack rambling on about Motown bassist James Jamerson. There isn’t much to say about this other than the fact that the Vulf compressor makes a seemingly random speech even worse to listen to, leaving zero replay value.
Listening to Vulfmon feels like you’ve hit shuffle on your liked songs.
There is some redemption in the first half. Louie Zong helped to make an upbeat, beautiful-game-era sounding song in UCLA, with a solid bassline, tight drum beat and fitting keyboard to serve as the hook. The music video for this is quite special since Louie Zong is involved. It’s only right he has complete control over the video, which consists of an animated bear dancing through UCLA and performing in front of a judging frog, who was impressed. With the positive tones the song gives and the good vibes from the music video, it makes for a redeeming second song in the album. This is followed by Bonnie Wait, a very solid song which reminds me of Here We Go Jack, showing Stratton’s ability as a vocalist. Lyrics in this song show both outwards melancholy towards Bonnie’s situation and internal anger and jealousy towards Bonnie’s fiancé but unfortunately this is the only strong instance of Stratton’s vocals in this album.
Unlike the first half of the album, the last 5 songs get released at the same time and during my first listen of this half it was obvious there were too many wildcard songs thrown in there, even for Vulfmon. This side of the album had its fair share of disappointing songs but does have some redeeming factors. The three songs that took me aback were Harry’s Theme (Lite Pullman), Nice to You and How Much Do You Love Me.
The ending brings celebration for getting through Vulfnik and being frankly upset with Stratton.
In the first of these, the first few minutes is a nice chill song made up of two guitars, a bass, and Jack playing the drums using his thighs, naturally. This segment of the song is reminiscent of Grandma and other older Vulfpeck songs. But this isn’t the only part of the song. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere we get Lite Pullman which would probably work as its standalone song given how out of place it is. After some research, a lite pullman is some sort of travel bag, but where is the correlation here to Harry’s theme? Nice to You follows. This is a punch to the gut and Jacob Jeffries’ only new vocal appearance on this album, and he isn’t living up to his potential. On the debut Vulfmon album, he sang How Much Do You Love Me which gave him an impressive start in Vulf. However, this song is a satirical take on the emo genre, where Jacob draws out a lot of words in an unbearable accent, which would probably work fine as a parodical YouTube video, but it doesn’t hold up on an album. As well as this, Bonnie Wait covers similar themes in a much better way.
This album is wrapped up with a new take on the Jacob Jeffries classic How Much Do You Love Me. Seeing this on the announced track list, I was excited to see what they could do with it, expecting a more fleshed-out band version of the song but was let down. I hadn’t done my research on who “Ellis” was before listening to this song and nothing could have prepared me. The song kicks off like the original before dropping into an EDM version. When this happened on my first listen, I was speechless for about 5 minutes. Afterwards, my mix of feelings was a blend of feeling like celebrating getting through Vulfnik and being frankly upset with Stratton for his choice of collaborator and song direction.
Thankfully to save this album from being a complete travesty we have some highlights in the second half. This half opens with some of Vulfpeck’s most influential collaborators – Antwaun Stanley and Joey Dosik – on Lord Will Make a Way. This duo brings much-needed revitalisation to the album and even with a tiny mic, Antwaun’s vocals shine like they usually do and gives a good improvement to the questionable vocal decisions of this album. On top of this, Joey’s sax solo is very well-fitting and brings some good jazz vibes into an otherwise jazz-free project. However, there are drawbacks to this song as, much like a lot of recent Vulf, it’s a cover and I find the Al Green version to have much more impactful instrumentals where Stratton has dulled them down significantly. Another decent song in this half is Blue, is a relatively simple jazzy/blues song. The piano, performed by Jacob Jeffries, slightly redeems his efforts in this project.
I have found that this album is successful in branching out into areas Jack would most likely be too cautious to lead Vulfpeck into. However, in these attempts they haven’t reached the levels I hoped they would, often being too satirical or going too far to fit the theme of Vulf. Comparing this to the first Vulfmon album, it also doesn’t live up to that, with the first album being much more consistent. Stratton needs to pull off a miracle to bring Vulf to its former glory.
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.
A favourite for hardworking students the world over, the relaxing tones of lo-fi hip hop make it a hidden giant of the music industry. Alex Walden traces the origins of the genre through its underappreciated founding father Nujabes and gets to the bottom of the unlikely link with anime.
One of the best things I’ve discovered about going to university is the complete melting pot of people you’ll meet. Naturally, as an utter music nerd, I love finding out about what music people listen to. I mean seriously if you would’ve told me when I started that I’d be rekindling my love for Led Zeppelin and would swap listening to Kanye West for The Vacations, I’d be surprised. Despite all these new genres and artists I’m discovering from people, there’s one genre that everyone listens to: lo-fi hip hop.
Even when his label began to take off, Nujabes still found time to DJ.
Ah yes, lo-fi hip hop, whether you’re cranking out a huge dissertation or just relaxing on your bed, it’s there for you. If you’re a nonstop livestream viewer or playlist organiser once again, it’s there for you. Lo-fi is one of the biggest genres among young people right now yet often with new genres we tend to associate the fact that a music genre is new with the concept that it has no history yet we can easily trace. One prominent figure who played a vital role in the creation of lo-Fi is Nujabes. Despite being critically acclaimed as “The Godfather of Lo-Fi”, in the grand scheme of things I can’t help but see Nujabes as the unsung hero. Despite his career and fanbase, there’s just an incredible impact this man had on the music scene that I think was forgotten too easily. However, being my usual fan-boy self, I’m going to attempt to do the impossible and break it down for you.
A star is born
Jun Seba was born on February 7th 1974 (many hip-hop heads will recognize this as the birth date of iconic producer J Dilla as well) in Nishi Azabu, Tokyo. Growing up, Seba was a huge fan of music and began to dabble with the art of DJing. After reversing the order of his name to make his iconic stage name, Nujabes was officially born. While DJing and producing on the side is fun, it rarely brings in the big bucks in the beginning, so Nujabes decided to make a name for himself through a more corporate method and during his 20s, he opened two record stores, T Records and Guiness Records. After a few successful years at the shop, Nujabes decided he wasn’t done yet and set up the record label Hydeout Productions in 1998. The label was moderately successful with its roster of local legends such as Uyama Hiroto while also acquiring overseas talent such as American artist Emancipator. Sadly, Nujabes’ story ended briefly due to his unfortunate death in 2010 due to a car crash. While he is still missed today, his legacy arguably grows more every day.
What made Nujabes so iconic?
Samurai Champloo’s refreshing blend of hip hop and samurai is a must-watch even for non-anime fans.
To describe Nujabes as the godfather of lo-Fi sounds like an outrageous take to someone who doesn’t know who he is, yet after learning about his work and listening to his projects, the influence is clear as day.
Nujabes’ music was the definition of perfect chill music: it doesn’t control you, it works with you.
Around the 90s era of hip hop, the trend of sampling had completely exploded. Behind every major hit, there was a producer who had taken a slither of a soul or jazz song and had completely reworked it to the point where you couldn’t even recognise the sample in some cases (producer J Dilla is very well known for this). Nujabes was no different to any other producer in the fact that he sampled too, but the way he would sample would be so different. Nujabes didn’t want to take a piece of music and completely flip it on his head so you could try to work out all the secret little differences to the original sample. Instead, he wanted the sample to effectively take the lead on the whole song, letting his production take a back seat. The reason for this is as clear as day (and you can find it throughout the Luv(sic) Hexalogy album). It’s because Nujabes is just like me and you: he appreciates music for what it is. He doesn’t want to rework it and put his spin on it but he wants to show you the beauty behind the sound. It’s as if he’s managed to tame the music and in doing so has trained each instrument to stand out in their own specific way. You can piece together every little detail at your own pace. That’s the true definition of perfect “chill” music to me: it doesn’t control you, it works with you.
The anime connection
Although I could talk about how his music is legendary for ages, it’s not enough to justify the take that he’s the “Godfather of Lo-Fi”, after all, there’s more to lo-Fi than just chill beats. It’s a whole culture in nowadays. When I mention the word “lo-Fi” to you there’s a strong chance you think of the famous lo-Fi girl, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that little anime girl who’s been studying non-stop is arguably the face of the lo-fi hip-hop scene. That’s very important because I feel that the anime influence in lo-Fi hip hop often gets overlooked when examining the genre, but where did it come from?
Luv(sic) Hexalogy is regarded as one of the most influential Japanese hip hop albums.
Nujabes’ music has a few ties with anime culture. In 2004, Nujabes’ and Shing02’s song Battlecry premiered as the theme song for the anime series Samurai Champloo, and he got production credits for the outro song beat Laments the World. Often when hearing that an artist you like made the theme song for an anime, you think that it would be your favourite musical thing about the show. However, I find myself saying that it’s the show’s fine details that truly make it a show for hip hop fans. Throughout the show, there’s a plethora of lo-bap/jazz beats that can be heard when scenes escalate or fights inevitably break out, as well as this the cutaway sound to signify a change in scenery is a literal DJ scratching. It’s a nice to make an abrupt change in scenery be smooth yet also keep that abrasiveness to it.
The show Samurai Champloo falls into the category of all-time great anime that got a US distribution on the late-night Cartoon Network channel Adult Swim. Surrounding itself with shows such as Full Metal Alchemist and my personal favourite of all time, Cowboy Bebop, it’s no wonder that the show’s anime/hip hop fusion completely took off and resonated with future artists of the lo-fi genre.
Nujabes never got to see his full legacy take shape. I hope he can see it from a better place.
I feel like there’s a sense of comfort that is similar to the nostalgia of thinking back to staying up late watching Adult Swim TV shows that is prominent in lo-fi hip hop and that is what makes it so great. It’s great at capturing that comfort while also stripping away the nostalgia so you can focus purely on music instead of constantly trying to think back to a better time.
Nujabes’ tragedy
Honestly, I can’t help but feel sad when thinking about how Nujabes had so much potential. Like many artists who die young, he didn’t get to see his full legacy take shape. Combined with his jazz-inspired beats and his anime soundtracks, it’s clear that this man had a gift that was only just beginning to take shape during the peak of his short-lived career. However, it is good to know that what he made what became essentially the building blocks for one of the most popular genres among young people today. I just hope that he can see it from a better place.
After releasing the best album of their careers last year, the Beths are reaping their rewards with bigger venues and an ever more affectionate fanbase. Improved on all fronts since their visit to Leeds last year, all that this gig needed was a bit of extra bite.
The ceiling lights in Manchester’s swish New Century Hall are so remarkable it wasn’t long before they were a topic of extensive onstage conversation from four-piece Kiwi rock outfit the Beths. Each of the perfectly uniform bulbs were framed by thousands of geometric slabs of smooth matte metal, creating an impressive array of shapes and shadows that could pass as one of the less noteworthy works in a spacious gallery of Tate Modern. “Does anybody know how many there are?” bassist Benjamin Sinclair wondered, to which an overly lubricated man beside me shouted “at least 12!”. But authoritative guitarist Jonathan Pearce – who radiates the musical expertise of a man who knows his vintage Fender Stratocasters from his Gibson Firebirds – had done the maths. 1,250 according to his assessment, having divided the ceiling into smaller, countable subsections. When he cued a “special message” written in the lights for one night only I’m convinced I wasn’t the only one that looked up with complete faith in his abilities.
Liz Stokes and Benjamin Sinclair of the Beths, with Tristan Deck behind on drums
The Beths can be forgiven for getting a little carried away with a venue as glitzy and capacious as New Century Hall. It’s been little over a year since frontwoman Liz Stokes was getting self-conscious over a poorly angled mirror above the bar at Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club, a decidedly more intimate venue that seemed to underplay the quality of her songwriting. Tonight they’ve graduated Leeds and are now filling out one of the trendiest venues in the city’s big brother to the west, an expensively refurbished hall that once played host to the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and the Bee Gees in its heyday. 2022’s exemplary third album Expert In A Dying Field is surely driving the surge in support; an album that more than makes up for a lack of the cutting-edge with a glut of indelible chorus hooks and some of the most brilliantly crafted guitar solos of the year. As the crowds gathered ahead of the Beths’ entrance in Manchester, it was reassuring to see that good music can simply propel good bands onwards; for all the complaints about modern music’s “industry plants” and stadium-filling megastars pumping out one lazy album after another, a feeble musical meritocracy still stands firm.
A Passing Rain followed the hard rock formula to a tee: four good chords, played loud and fast, over and over.
Filling out the heart of the band’s set this evening, it was that batch of fresh material that provided many of the gig’s highlights. Head In the Clouds‘ wonderfully choppy bridge gave way to an anthemic chorus that had the crowds pointing to the ceiling bulbs in euphoria; lilting delight When You Know You Know had Stokes dusting off her acoustic guitar for the most exquisite chorus melody she’s ever penned. Given deserved late billing in the set list, all-rounder Expert In A Dying Field was greeted by the audience like an old friend.
Of course, this performance necessarily extended beyond all the great new songs, and the old essence of what first made the Beths worth listening to remained. It was telling that Future Me Hates Me – the title track from their debut album – was chosen to open the show ahead of recent, more obvious options. It worked well as the band’s introductory theme song, those four words in the title nicely encapsulating Stokes’ relatable lyrical style of half-serious self-deprecation. An endearing routine with the band members introducing one another in turn also remained, giving a sense of their individual personalities and providing a golden opportunity for Sinclair to plug his travel blog, which he sheepishly took.
At other times the Beths were perhaps a little too sheepish. More a musician than a performer, Stokes was not the sort of frontwoman to dictate any crowd participation beyond a knowing smile at any organic audience-clapping and moshing was out of the question. Sure, jumping around like a maniac has a time and a place, but there were a few songs that were heavy enough to deserve the full monty, not least A Passing Rain, which follows the hard rock formula for success to a tee: four good chords, played loud and fast, over and over. It didn’t help that Sinclair’s bass – used judiciously in this song to make its eventual impact in the second chorus all the more earth-shattering – felt weedy and undercooked, and the crowd seemed indifferent to the track as a result. It was this mixing issue that held back the Beths when delving into the punkier corners of their discography, with killer single Not Getting Excited also lacking crucial bite.
Each of Pearce’s guitar solos was a phenomenon, the crowd hooked on every twang and twiddle.
Even Pearce’s countless guitar solos felt a little restrained as a result of their conciseness, but wisely so. A majority of tracks were graced with his solos, each one its own phenomenon teased out one by one to a crowd hooked on every twang and twiddle. A lesser guitarist might be tempted towards directionless improvised shredding over such a juicy bounty of solid rock tracks, but Pearce’s guitar solos were meticulous and intelligently crafted, each one neatly wrapped up the moment before Stokes’ vocals rejoined. A refreshingly ingenious yet humble lead guitarist, it was Pearce that shone as this band’s outstanding talent.
Backed by a giant inflatable fish head, Jonathan Pearce’s guitar solos were consistently remarkable.
By far the evening’s most memorable moment came late on with Dying to Believe, which saw audience member Abi supplant Sinclair after the band spotted her banner requesting to play bass for a song. She performed it with complete conviction, and the audience erupted. There was something joyful about witnessing a person seize the moment with such aplomb, and a confidently delivered bass solo towards the end had the crowd rightly giving one of the biggest roars of the night. Sinclair somewhat amusingly became a spare part, microphone still in hand as he watched on. “I discovered quickly that I don’t know any cool ways to hold a microphone,” he would later write on that blog.
By the end of the night, it seemed confirmed that the Beths will never be the sort of rock band gunning for stadium-sized gigs as a result of their relatively lowkey and conservative approach to indie rock. And nor should they be: Stokes’ introspective lyricism doesn’t deserve to be lost to a melee of chucked beers and wayward limbs. The utterly heartbreaking acoustic encore track You Are a Beam of Light provoked a dumbfounded silence and stillness from the audience that was as emotionally potent an experience as any mosh pit. There is evidently still a space for subtler displays of emotion in today’s indie music, and the Beth’s trajectory remains upward; it was a symptom of their success that their latest album necessitated a cutting of some fine material from their live set (Whatever, Uptown Girl and River Run: Lvl 1, all highlights of last year’s gig in Leeds, have since been culled). Still, there’s work to be done. “They’re Australian, right?” I overheard one concertgoer ask a friend as we left the venue and almost tutted. These New Zealanders have come so improbably far already, but you get the sense there’s still a little more room to grow.
On a first night in a glistening Piece Hall, the three individually lauded American songwriters brought almost unprecedented star power to humble old Halifax. Euphoric rock anthems and heartbreakingly fragile ballads had the superfans in raptures during a gig almost derailed by mass faintings.
For the most part, there was little remarkable about the list of boygenius’ tour dates this summer. For an act so widely popular – the trio may have only one album under the moniker boygenius but Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus each have well-established solo catalogues, particularly serial Grammy nominee Bridgers – the magnitude of the supergroup’s bookings is hardly surprising. There’s a few arena stops in Denmark and Germany, a healthy contingent of A-league festivals (Paris’ Rock en Seine, Belgium’s vast Pukkelpop) and a night each at expansive open air park venues in London and Dublin. And, in the midst of it all, there’s a two night residency in… Halifax? It looks like a copy-paste typo. The fact that these bona fide global superstars have any time at all for this West Yorkshire town of 80,000 is remarkable enough, but the fact that they are staying for two nights (the only repeat billing of the entire tour) seems utterly bizarre.
The only explanation is the Piece Hall. The historic Georgian cloth hall and enduring architectural marvel was only adapted into an eye-catching summer music venue last year and its wide courtyard, nestled amongst the looming Calderdale hills, has already attracted plenty of big names including Sting, Madness, George Ezra, Noel Gallagher and Jessie Ware, who said it was like playing in Venice. It seems she may have over-egged that one for the crowd – there are no Titian masterworks to see here – but still the sense of grandeur that comes with the Piece Hall has increasingly drawn the world’s biggest artists away from the traditional arena venues in adjacent Leeds and Manchester. Now with two sold out nights from boygenius wrapping up a summer of 21 headliners on the giant, Glasto-style canopy stage, Halifax is cementing its position on the global touring map and a tempting contender for any artist’s obligatory north of England date.
Fans lined the hilly streets of Halifax long before the band took to the stage.
It wasn’t just in the diaries of boygenius trio that this Halifax concert stood out. For me too, this was clearly one of my premier gigging fixtures of the year. Besides the remarkable venue and excellent company of my friend Isaac (who, like all the best concert companions, came to Halifax just as paralytically excited as I was) there was the small matter of the band themselves who, two releases into their joint careers, simply have yet to release a bad song. I have already waxed lyrical about Phoebe Bridgers’ intimate songcraft on this blog, but in boygenius she is only one third of the appeal. Bridgers’ silky soft vocals are complemented by Lucy Dacus’ sonorous baritone that purrs like a cello. Then there’s the punky flavour of Julien Baker’s contribution, whose vocals inveriably teeter between a vulnerable whimper and an embattled roar, best served on top of a thorny mess of electric guitars. If boygenius fans come for one thing, however, it’s not the music but the words. All three band members could double as poets and deal in lyrics that are both poignant and thoughtful but strikingly specific and direct. It scarcely takes a second listen for the full emotional weight of a boygenius song to hit home, perhaps surprisingly considering how bookish the three of them are; a trip to London a day before tonight’s gig wasn’t complete without a visit to Brick Lane Bookshop, where they emerged with tote bags bulging with Tolstoy and Camus.
As Ethel Cain’s rather one-note supporting set came and went, I clearly wasn’t the only one in the venue feeling overwhelmingly excited for what was about to unfold. The first fainting happened a short distance from us in a dense area of the crowd, forcing Cain to pause and wait for the medical crew to shoulder their way into the crowd just as she was going up through the gears of showpiece epic Thoroughfare. Perhaps there was something in the air: I consider myself quite well accustomed to a touch of pre-gig hysteria, but 20 minutes before the trio finally took to the stage I was shaking so uncontrollably I genuinely wondered if I’d be the next embarrassed visitor to the medical tent. At one point during the several hours of waiting a few spots of rain threatened to become a shower. “I would be here even if it was snowing,” Isaac told me with complete conviction.
Without You Without Them worked as a sort of pre-match national anthem, every last word bellowed proudly by the thousands in attendance.
At long last, at 9:20, the “boys” took to the Piece Hall stage to the sound of deafening screams. The trio could have hardly made a better start with a capella stunner Without You Without Them, sang into a single mic and performed just behind the stage curtain with a live video of the group beamed onto a giant LED screen. It was instantly sublime, the song working perfectly as a sort of pre-match national anthem, every last word bellowed proudly by the thousands in attendance, hands on hearts. A moving hymn to ancestry, here it was repurposed as a statement of intent, with audience and performers promising each other to “give everything I’ve got”. In a brief moment of calm before the storm our eyes were glued to the screen as Baker closed her eyes in utter concentration and Bridgers rested her head on Dacus’ wide shoulders in apparent bliss. No sooner had the final notes been sung did the camera jerkily follow the three women briefly through some backstage rigging and, lo and behold, boygenius stood before us, in the flesh. They ripped straight into earthy rock banger $20, a transition that sounded electrifying enough on their recent album. In person, it made for one of the most exhilarating opening one-twos I’ve ever witnessed. A swift switch into a thunderous rendition of Satanist, another of the band’s riff-heavy rock numbers, rouned off a breathtaking opening ten minutes.
Whilst the stream of rock anthems weren’t to last, what did endure throughout the set was the undeniable and frankly adorable chemistry between the three performers. Here was a trio so close to one another that they had no qualms releasing a song squarely titled We’re In Love, and it only takes watching one hilariously aloof interview with the three of them to realise just how much they mean it. In Halifax they were wise to avoid the temptations of any sort of script between songs, instead joking casually about Halifax being the lesbian capital of Britain (“so that’s why there’s so many of you!”) and gamely allowing themselves to be mocked when the usual “YORKSHIRE!” chant didn’t quite get through (“is that like a college or a state or something?” Baker ventured).
The chat was a necessary tonic to the introspective and serious songs, which only became more emotionally draining as the night went on. Cool About It, a tasteful interpolation of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer, was an early highlight, with the singers taking a verse each before finally joining in crisp harmony. Bridgers got the final and most tragic verse about taking a friend’s medication and realising just how bad things have got. “Now I have to act like I can’t read your mind,” Bridgers sang in near-whisper before being joined by a banjo and her two bandmates in a final crescendo as restrained and understated as all the secrets Bridgers seems to be struggling to hide. Emily I’m Sorry, another gentle heartbreaker with Bridgers’ songwriting fingerprints all over it, was similarly exquisite, her lilting melody ushered along by a comforting shimmer of electronic toms.
$20 made for a sensational curtain raiser
In fact, boygenius’ performances may have gotten a little too good for the obsessed fans near the front. It may have been the pristine harmonies and the countless tattoo-able lyrics that had audience members dropping like flies, or more likely the gruelling ten-plus hours of standing required for the best spots, but either way all the fainting stripped boygenius’ set of all its momentum on multiple occasions. Both Anti-Curse and breezy Souvenir had to be interrupted for several minutes, leaving awkward silences that even these three best friends struggled to smooth over with filler chat. Of course, stopping the songs at the first signs of distress is absolutely the right thing to do – post Astroworld disaster, artists can’t and mustn’t take any chances – but there was no getting away from the building disappointment for the average, adequately hydrated boygenius fan. There were unrelated sound issues too at one point when the band took a few minutes to realise their mics had suddenly cut off, and a promising up-tempo unreleased song came out muddy and thick, with vocals buried deep beneath an out of control kick drum.
Increasingly, it was a relief when a song was played in full, without incident. Mercifully, True Blue emerged unscathed, a shimmering slow burn love song led by Dacus that serenely flowed out and over the crowd like a warm summer’s breeze. The twisted indie rock of Bite the Hand also built with alluring patience. A song ostensibly about obsessive fans and the perils of parasocial relationships, it proved to be fitting for tonight’s audience and was smartly paired with live camera feeds of the front row fans passionately singing along. “I can’t love you how you want me to,” they chanted on the big screen, hanging on every word and yet not seeming aware that the song was about them.
Togetherness, connection, unbridled joy: Not Strong Enough is why I go to concerts.
A well-judged set list – although boygenius couldn’t go far wrong by playing every single song they’ve released, plus three more from their solo discographies – ramped things up as the darkness thickened over Calderdale with both the most intensely loud and quiet songs of the night. Fan favourite Me & My Dog was most definitely the former and saw Bridgers belt out some new high notes at the climax, thrillingly edging towards to the upper limit of her range in an exhilarating change from her trademark dreamlike whisper. Bridgers also led the way on that song’s far more delicate sister track Letter to an Old Poet, urging the crowd to put down their phone cameras just for one song and largely getting obeyed. It was a well timed request and helped crushing lines like “you make me feel like an equal / But I’m better than you” cut deep into the soul. With none of the glitz of flashing stage lights or a sea of paparazzi, Bridgers suddenly looked completely exposed, badly hurt but resolute in search of hope. “I can’t feel it yet, but I’m waiting,” she concluded, pausing for several seconds on that final word and leaving this delirious crowd of fainting fans in a precious stunned silence, if only for a moment.
Letter might have been the highlight of the whole show had it not been followed by Not Strong Enough, a belting, sunkissed country rock number and strong contender for song of the year. As that ecstatic chorus arrived, Isaac and I were lucky to find ourselves in a pocket of equally thrilled fans to jump up and down alongside. Suddenly it was as if we were staying still and it was the world that was bouncing along to the beat. The words had the sort of lines that we didn’t scream along with just because we knew them but because we believed in them too. The chorus’ subtly profound declaration of “I don’t know why I am the way I am” seemed to be echoed by thousands of fans all coming to the freeing realisation that not all of their flaws and idiosyncrasies have to make sense. Togetherness, understanding, unbridled joy: this is why I go to concerts.
A live audience cam was a clever addition to Bite the Hand
Perhaps at this point the three should have quit whilst they were ahead, taken a big bow and headed backstage to start planning tomorrow’s day trip to the Brontë Parsonage. There was still Salt In The Wound left to be played however, both the slowest and loudest track the three have up their immaculate matching blazer sleeves. It provided an over-the-top finish (stage smoke billowed, guitars wailed, two of the trio tried an uncomfortable looking crowdsurf) but beneath the showmanship the band seemed tired, especially Bridgers whose vocals frayed at the peak of the crescendo and who never quite gave all the gusto that a track like this demands. Still, it did the trick of unequivocally wrapping things up with smooches all round from the three performers, much to the delight of the disproportionately LGBTQ crowd.
You can imagine the designers of Halifax station didn’t have a boygenius concert in mind when they devised the narrow platform that Isaac and I soon found ourselves on along with hoardes of fans bound for Leeds and Bradford. As it happened, a slice of luck earned us two seats at the end of the next eastbound train, complete with good live entertainment of the sardine action whilst the driver lamented over the telecom that the platform was so choked with people he didn’t feel it was safe to pull away from the station. It seemed clear that – at least before the Piece Hall launched as a large venue last year – Halifax station has never seen crowds like this at quarter to 11 on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday night. boygenius’ set had been occasionally extraordinary, but there was a sense that even better nights await for the newest musical destination in the north. Let’s hope next time these fans remember to bring plenty of water.
Jet Set Radio was once long forgotten, but following recent news that the game could possibly be making a return, Alex Walden is here to analyse the musical side of the game and the soundtrack’s cultural significance.
I woke up and ate some cereal and began checking the news like any other day. It wasn’t until I opened YouTube and watched a video reviewing an alleged leak from SEGA headquarters that my day began to change. After over 20 painfully slow years, I couldn’t believe that one of my biggest influences on me as a kid Jet Set Radio was supposedly getting a new addition to its catalogue. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if no one who read this had even played the game. I had forgotten about the game until earlier this year. It was a cool game but it lost its popularity very quickly so you can understand why I wasn’t jumping around my room in excitement yet. I was still interested though so I thought I’d see the footage and it wasn’t until I heard that classic tune of Hideki Naganuma’s Humming The Bassline that it all came flooding back to me. It was like a flashbang of nostalgia had blinded me, the rush of how the game used to make me feel came back so suddenly. I instantly knew I had to put on the soundtrack again while I tried to find my PS Vita to play the game one more time.
After playing I realised that Jet Set radio is the same as any action game to come out of the 1990s/2000s era of video games, in being that it includes an incredibly awful set of controls (seriously, the camera controls are almost rage-inducing), no ability to explore without a timer over your head and the equalizer that makes everything bad about it not seem so bad after all: an absolute banger of a soundtrack, courtesy of composer Hideki Naganuma.
Jet Set radio was renamed to Jet Grind Radio in the US due to licensing issues. The US market is also why the game features the New York-based Grind City map.
As I played through the tutorial, all I could think was “damn I used to want to be these people so bad”. I paused and looked around my room. I realised that if young Alex could see himself now, he’d be pretty impressed with how the influence of Jet Set Radio is still rooted within me. But what makes this game so incredibly influential? I mean I played hundreds of video games as a kid yet for some reason this was one of the few that helped shape my life.
The soundtrack – a melting pot of sounds
Don’t get me wrong, tearing around the streets of Tokyo-To on magnetically driven inline skates tagging every wall I see with my own custom graffiti is incredibly cool, however, much like anything I do today, it’s no fun unless I have a killer soundtrack, and Hideki Naganuma takes care of that problem with ease. Yes, the self-proclaimed “CEO of funky fresh beats” manages to gather up numerous genres and cram them into a tiny little mix. For a video game soundtrack, it does an amazing job of putting through your main character’s thought process. It sounds erratic and high intensity, yet it also has this smooth undertone that keeps you collected as you hope and pray that your character skates land on that rail without falling over on the ground incredibly hard. The soundtrack has a good clash of songs that keep you hyped up (e.g., Let Mom Sleep and Grace and Glory) as well as songs that keep you chilled out (e.g. That’s Enough and Moody Shuffle).
Funk, electronica, hip hop, rock and acid jazz are squashed together, fighting for their chance to be admired.
There’s a nice balance of songs that give off a futuristic vibe as well as keeping in style with that classic hip hop sound. A good example would be when the character Combo is introduced and you play your first mission as him. The game’s soundtrack gives you a smooth simple beat on the track Everybody Jump Around that fits well with his 80s New York hip hop reminiscent style, but the song is filled with scratches and chops of audio samples to throw you off. By doing this your brain becomes scattered on what to focus on and gives you this psychological rush to match your character who’s racing down the streets of Tokyo-to.
It doesn’t just stop at hip hop though. Throughout the soundtrack you can notice elements of funk, electronica, hip hop, rock, acid jazz and many more. It feels like this cluster of genres that are all squashed together fighting for their chance to be admired, making the soundtrack sound erratic and abrasive, yet Naganuma is able to make all this work through the magic of sequencing all the songs together one by one so the party in your ears doesn’t stop. This feature is a subtle one, for first-time players you’ll hardly notice it because you’re too busy rolling around the speed of sound trying not to be shot by police. But when you notice it, you can’t help but realise how much it assists in creating a different world that only you and your console are in for a short period of time. You begin to realise that these are no longer just a bunch of street rat vandals whom you get to play as; these are artists who are making their own paths in a city where what they do is not tolerated and they do this by throwing all their interests together and seeing what comes out of it. It feels like you’re hanging out with the cool kids in high school TV shows who smoke behind the schoolyard. You know that they’re kind of bad news but they just look so cool you can’t resist. It’s not often I say this, but as someone who DJs in their spare time, it actually has me looking forward to the end of each song, in a good way of course. Now can you tell me a soundtrack that makes you feel like that? I thought not.
JSR didn’t just break barriers with its soundtrack, it was one of the first video games to use use the now iconic cell shading art style.
Why Jet Set Radio will never die
Although Jet Set Radio had been put away for the past 20 years, the game’s culture, along with the era of the 2000s, lives on – you just have to know where to look. It’s all underground, baby.
Considering the game tapped into cultures like techno music, graffiti and action sports marketed to a bunch of impressionable kids and young adults, it’s no wonder the game has a die-hard fanbase that many artists take inspiration from. A genre of music that resonates heavily with JSR fans today would be the genre breakcore. The genre takes a page out of the book of Naganuma by combining jungle and techno, bringing back this cyber personality to its music that was thought to be long forgotten along with its hard-hitting drum breaks and smooth melodies. With artists like TOKYOPILL, Star Trash and black balloons taking over the scene by storm, we can be assured that music-wise you’re in good hands.
It feels like an insight into the world we were promised as kids but never got because life got in the way.
While I think breakcore captures the cyber aesthetic of what Jet Set Radio was offering us, I have to be honest and say that no matter how amazing and well-crafted the song is, breakcore doesn’t give us that upbeat feeling that we get from the JSR soundtrack. Instead, I’d say that breakcore captures the futuristic unknowing of the 2000s better than the Jet Set Radio Vibe. The beauty of the JSR soundtrack was that it was upbeat but also light-hearted. Yes, you were running around avoiding police, helicopters and in some cases tanks, but it never felt too intense or pressuring. The soundtrack made it seem fun but when I listen to breakcore, I don’t feel like part of a group; I feel like my headphones are my only companion it feels like an exclusive experience just for me, not for anyone else. If you’re looking for something that sounds fresh from your Sega mega drive, look no further than 2Mello’s Memories of Tokyo-to. If having the name of the city where the game is located in the title isn’t enough to convince you, then you only have to listen to hear the odd Jet Set Radio sample here and there. Also, make sure to look out for the soundtrack for the upcoming game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk to hear songs produced by Hideki Naganuma throughout the game’s soundtrack coming August 18th.
The JSR influence is very heavy in BRC, and we’re here for it!
Looking to the future of JSR
Whenever I talk about Jet Set Radio, I always feel a little bit upset or sentimental, though this may have just been a game for some people that they played as a kid. For me, it feels like a reminder of the 2000s era and the culture surrounding it: everything ranging from music and fashion to attitudes towards the future. It almost feels like an insight into the world we were promised as kids but we never got it because life got in the way.
At this point I was going to talk about how not all hope is lost and that the release of JSR’s ‘spiritual successor’ Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was going to save us, but the day after I finished writing this article that whole story got thrown out the window entirely with the news of the new JSR leak. However, I recommend looking into Bomb Rush Cyberfunk if you are looking for some more high-speed combo-building action, Hideki Naganuma decided to bless us with his skills for parts of the soundtrack of that game too. Despite the game not being released yet, fans are already excited about what’s to come.
We can tell from the trailer alone that Mr. Naganuma never stopped perfecting his craft. The way that the drums of the song spit viciously across the track while robotic-sounding lyrics wrestle their way through the song’s techno melody felt as if like all those years that the Jet Set Radio had been forgotten about. All those grooves, those drums, those melodies made me feel as if it had come back with a vengeance and had punched me square in the face. It feels like an explosion of 20 years’ worth of culture that was waiting for me and had just had enough of waiting around.
I feel like the news of the Jet Set Radio leak as well as the announcement of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk best described a comment under Bomb Rush Cyberfunk’s trailer ‘My brain is saying “Nice to meet you” but my heart is saying “welcome home”.’ I can’t wait to rekindle my love for the Jet Set Radio soundtrack once more thanks to Naganuma and Team Reptile. I can look forward to what the future holds, just like how I did as a kid. That’s more than enough for me.
Maria Włoszczowska’s laidback approach to the combined roles of soloist and conductor gave mixed results, but the splendour of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto remained largely intact. It was Bartók’s lively Divertimento that saw the RNS at their most dynamic and engaging.
No venue makes me feel special quite the way Sage Gateshead does. An enormous, glistening bubble of curved glass on the south bank of the Tyne, my approach in the early evening sunlight on this Friday night took me over the equally impressive Tyne Bridge, which provides fantastic views not only downriver but down to the busy, historic streets below. The view from directly above the rooftops was so remarkable I almost lost control of my bike as I attempted to peer over the edge whilst riding by. Inside, the Sage feels just as special. I was greeted by a plush cafe well stocked with fluffy muffins and a range of non-alcoholic drinks that far outdoes the usual gig venue offering Coke and possibly J20. Inside the main concert hall the walls are lined with glossy wood and the balconies accented with a tasteful dash of blue lights to give the room a strikingly futuristic, sleek feel. Just like the last time I attended a classical concert, I felt unusually out of place when it came to demography – there were only a handful of faces that looked under 50. I took a second glance of my ticket to confirm the astounding prices; my bargain £5 rate was not just for students, but anyone under 30. It’s a fantastic idea – and necessary when considering the alarming long term prospects of a place like the Sage – but tonight it seemed disappointingly few youngsters had taken the opportunity.
The twenty-somethings with something better to do missed out on witnessing a violinist on the up in Warsaw native Maria Włoszczowska, who is indeed young enough to qualify for the concession tickets herself. She led an engaging and concise evening that may have convinced the handful of the classical-curious in the crowd (Undertone included) that the genre need not be slow, boring or mystifying. That said, the pared-back and solemn quartet opener Cavatina made for a strangely slow-paced start, although perhaps its early inclusion shrewdly avoided a snore-inducing rendition later in the evening. The tempo may have felt glacial, but once the four musicians had settled into the piece, Beethoven’s deep melancholy materialised beautifully. Amongst the final compositions of his life, Włoszczowska introduced the piece as “one of Beethoven’s most personal and emotional works,” and the quartet lived up to the challenge of recreating that strong feeling with sweeping dynamic movement and gently weeping vibrato. Every note rang out with such synchronised expression from the four players that at times they sounded like a single accordion, contracting and expanding with every stroke of the bow, the music breathing in synchrony. Beethoven’s Cavatina is an unflashy piece – even Włoszczowska’s score would do little to stretch the abilities an intermediate violinist – but this quartet revealed a depth and mastery of sound that requires much more creative expression than the dots and lines on a piece of paper could provide.
At times, the quartet sounded like a single accordion, contracting and expanding with every stroke of the bow.
At seven minutes, though, the Cavatina was only the night’s starter. The show began in earnest with an assured rendition of Bartók’s Divertimento, a muscular suite for string orchestra that felt every bit a main course. Perhaps tired of waiting through the Cavatina, the lower strings launched into the chugging opening notes with so much gusto that their strings slapped loudly against their fingerboards for several bars, producing an inadvertent element of percussion that was as distracting and ugly as it was genuinely exciting. Here, Włoszczowska took a relatively low profile role as principal violinist, with the emphasis instead placed on the spectacle of seeing two dozen musicians respond to one another in real time, impossibly producing one coherent work of art in the process. The tightly intertwining call and response sections were a highlight, with lead second violinist Eva Aronian proving every bit Włoszczowska’s match in playfully answering all her musical questions. The Divertimento was also an excellent choice to show off the RNS’s electrifying dynamism: one particularly discordant crescendo tumbled like a waterfall before landing on a single, decisive chord. At other moments, the razor-sharp edges of Bartók’s crunchy staccato chords landed like a bolt from the blue. It was a shame that the visceral feeling of togetherness couldn’t quite last the course, and a fiddly violin pizzicato passage towards the end was so poorly coordinated that Włoszczowska let out a rueful smile.
Tackling Divertimento, a piece written for string orchestra, without a conductor is one thing, but undertaking a full blown concerto with woodwind and percussion would be Włoszczowska’s primary self-imposed challenge for the night. She began the evening with a mission statement, arguing that it was not only possible to convert any piece into conductor-less chamber music, but that there was something to be gained from a more free-flowing, collective performance. In the end, rather than backing up her claims, this showing of Beethoven’s renowned Violin Concerto left a sense that Włoszczowska had merely got away with the gamble. Returning after the interval in a shimmering silver kimono so dazzling it wouldn’t have looked out of place at the following night’s Eurovision final, Włoszczowska was clearly there to lead the troops, although her style of leadership turned out to be surprisingly laissez-faire. Instrument sections embarking on a new phrase were largely left to cue themselves, often including Włoszczowska’s own violin section. Even in the long periods of rest from her solo violin part, Włoszczowska somewhat awkwardly just turned around and watched her colleagues do their thing, letting the group dictate the entire direction of the piece.
The third movement’s jaunty little refrain sounded catchier than most pop songs.
To some extent, the added element of live musicianship did indeed give this Beethoven an exciting new edge. Rather than looking up to a commanding conductor, the musicians’ eyes were instead on each other, coordinating the specifics of rhythm and phrasing with a focussed glance or twitch of the bow the same way jazz musicians might communicate semi-telepathically. This borderline miraculous synchronicity was most obvious in the concerto’s smooth, layered passages, but the juxtaposing loud blocky chords of the first movement impressively kept their fierce tautness without the flick of a baton.
Where a conductor may have come in handy was in the more reserved second movement, which sagged without a driving force to propel the orchestra forward. This movement’s tiredness at least provided a good foil to the bubbly third movement, with its jaunty little refrain sounding catchier than most pop songs (indeed, I overheard numerous audience members cheerily humming it to themselves as we left the auditorium). After a programme somewhat heavy with intense emotions, this finale was a chance for the RNS to show their lighter side, and the refrain felt sweeter and more delightful with every repeat – and there were many repeats; I left convinced that Beethoven’s Violin Concerto would make a good classical starter for pop fans like me who can feel a bit lost in a piece of music without the guiding compass of a really solid hook.
It should go without saying that Włoszczowska – young but already with appearances at the BBC Proms and London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall under her belt – made for a consummate soloist. She was at her most astounding when recreating the entire orchestra on her four strings during the first movement’s breathless, devilishly difficult solos, even if she was occasionally tempted by a little too much destabilising rubato. An unlikely to-and-fro solo battle with the timpani (in which the violin narrowly came out as victor) was also one of the evening’s highlights, and earned timpanist Jude Carlton a deserved dedicated round of applause at the end.
For £5 – my cheapest gig out of the scores on this blog – the evening had been such good value that any criticism of the performance seems null and void. It had been a definite bargain, but whether Włoszczowska’s decision to go it alone had paid dividends – especially when it came to the bill-topping Beethoven concerto – was less easy to determine. Indeed, I left feeling that the potential in Beethoven’s score had not quite been milked for all its worth, and that this rendition was ultimately excellent in spite of, rather than because of, Włoszczowska’s input. Sometimes, though, the imperfect concerts are the best ones. This time, on crossing the Tyne Bridge I stopped and hopped off my bike to look down onto the streets still busy with double deckers busses and ant-sized students bound for the nightclub, the cast iron ceiling of the High Level Bridge hanging not far beyond the rooftops above them. I was quite happy to stand there for five minutes, watching the world go by. Musical imperfections aside, I had nothing to complain about.
