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.
BRAT may offer some of the nastiest club floor-fillers of Charli xcx’s lauded career, but there’s also vulnerable reflections on loss and the daunting prospect of becoming a mother. The result is a rollercoaster of an album that makes a point of its dramatic shifts in tone.
Charli xcx is an artist most at home in the frenetic, sweaty confines of a busy London nightclub, her music bursting with punchy drum machines and oddball electronic samples that no doubt come into their own when accompanied by strobes and a packed crowd of revelers. She’s gained so much notoriety as a dance music-adjacent singer that her 2022 album, CRASH, had some critics lamenting that she’d finally succumbed to the alluring pull of Top 40 pop (actual guitars! verses and choruses!). In reality, that album’s stellar highlights – zinging 80s throwback Lightning, honeyed funk hit Yuck – hinted at a songwriting knack that Charli would always have up her sleeve, no matter the genre.
Alas, as BRAT emphatically proves, Charli xcx’s ability to produce some our time’s finest nightclub anthems remains alive and well. As if to prove a point, she puts a song called Club classics at track two, a pulsating, shapeshifting electronic track that sounds all the more dynamic after the curiously static and unexciting opener 360. “I wanna be blinded by the lights” and “I’m gonna dance all night,” come the chanted lyrics. They’re the sort of words we’ve heard in endless dance and disco songs ever since the genre’s genesis, but Charli knows there’s hidden depths behind that urge to blind and deafen ourselves on a night out. Why do we not only want to dance, but need it? What are we escaping from?
She spends the rest of the album offering her own, very personal answer to that question. BRAT turns out to be a strikingly intimate listen. She confesses she wants to “go back in time to when I wasn’t insecure,” on Rewind, a track which uses a fuzzy mix to acutely convey Charli’s gnawing anxiety, plus some clever tape rewind samples. “I don’t know if I belong here anymore,” comes the final line of I might say something stupid, a quiet confessional amidst the chaos, in which Charli’s typical heavy autotune becomes a knowingly imperfect mask – a desperate attempt to hide her own frailties. I think about it all the time goes a step further, seeing Charli reflect on her friend becoming a mother and whether “a baby might be mine.” It’s such a vulnerable, thoughtful set of lyrics that the music ends up feeling like an afterthought. Perhaps the same is true for So I, a touching ode to late fellow artist Sophie with a pretty chorus but a long buildup that promises a payoff which never quite arrives.
And yet, there are just as many examples of Charli portraying herself as an unassailable queen of the dancefloor, with no insecurities to unpick. Lead single and BRAT‘s central banger, Von dutch, is an infectious take down of all Charli’s jealous contemporaries. “It’s so obvious I’m your number one,” she boasts as siren-like synths wail and a snare drum – mixed loud and in-your-face – smashes through the mix. Mean girls reads as a modern, lightly tongue-in-cheek feminist anthem, and sports a wild piano breakdown which Charli skillfully works into one of this album’s most irresistible beat drops. The biggest flex of Charli’s producer muscles, however, comes with B2b, an oppressively heavy masterclass in infectious synth loops and expertly crafted hooks.
The result is a two-sided album that switches from intimate confessions to festival-ready anthems, sometimes chaotically – the tender orchestral intro of Everything is romantic sounds odd immediately after the boisterous Von dutch. Only a few songs – Sympathy is a knife, Rewind – attempt to marry Charli’s chagrin to singalong party choruses, and as a result listening to BRAT can feeling about listening to two albums at once, switching from one to the other at random intervals.
On the other hand, BRAT‘s huge emotional range makes for a dance album that unusually probes for some sensitivity behind the hedonism. The latter emotion seems to win out in the end. Closing number 365 is a reprise of the opening track, although this time with a full-throttle dance drop and deafeningly scratchy synth hook. It’s gloriously odd moments of pop excess like these that are ultimately BRAT‘s biggest strengths, but this album also succeeds in showing us the hidden depths lurking amidst all the stage smoke and flashing lights of the club.
A compelling tale of love and loss, Hit Me Hard and Soft sees Eilish embrace her sexuality on her own terms via knotty and unpredictable pop. The love songs are delectable and the showpiece moments titanic, although not every sonic experiment comes off.
There’s something admirable in the way Eilish casts aside any hint of lyrical subtlety in Lunch, the second track of her hotly anticipated third studio album, Hit Me Hard And Soft. “You need a seat, I’ll volunteer,” is one of the song’s many innuendos that will have no doubt raised an eyebrow when Eilish first presented it to her long-time producer and brother Finneas O’Connell. Eilish has long been known for resisting the sexualisation of young female pop stars that music executives seem to demand, gaining fame for her concealingly baggy oversized outfits. Her song Not My Responsibility, one of many Eilish tracks discussing body image, was an eerie spoken word piece about the demands of ogling magazines and relentless commentators. She was furious last year when Variety outed her as bisexual in a cover story, disappointingly still deemed a newsworthy reveal even in 2024. In Eilish’s words: “I like boys and girls leave me alone about it please literally who cares.”
For that reason, Lunch is a triumphant reclaiming of the narrative – Eilish’s first song explicitly about sex, and one not coy about mentioning the lover in question happens to be a girl. But beneath all the titillating euphemisms (“I could eat that girl for lunch”), there’s plenty of the singer’s trademark lyrical depth. The metaphor of eating has deep, dark connotations for Eilish and many of her young female fans, many of whom will have grappled with body dysmorphia and anorexia in today’s world of impossibly perfect Instagram models. Eilish’s sexual liberation nourishes her in the same way the unwarranted opinions of mass media starve her. “People say I look happy just because I got skinny / But the old me is still me […] and I think she’s pretty,” Eilish reflects movingly on Skinny, this album’s tender tone setter, a song which sounds like stepping into a warm bath after a long day.
Much of Hit Me Hard And Soft’s brilliance lies in Eilish’s uncanny ability to transform the complex feelings of young love and newly explored sexuality with a judicious synth choice or telling melodic turn. Album highlight Birds of a Feather, for instance, sounds every bit as unsustainably beautiful as a young love affair, Eilish singing with an unrestrained belt that sounds a far cry from the close-up whispers that made her famous. The washed out chords and sickly sweet melodies sound straight out of a Wham! classic, complete with a shimmering bassline and reverb-soaked vocals. For a singer who gained fame through tracks with names like You Should See Me In a Crown and All the Good Girls Go to Hell, Birds of a Feather is a shockingly lovely song that heralds an impressive sonic reinvention for Eilish.
Elsewhere, it’s not the complexities of fresh love that Eilish summons, but revenge. The Diner recalls an operation to break into her enemy’s kitchen via a plodding synth bass and distorted layered vocals that recall the Bad Guy days, albeit without any of the world-dominating hooks. A more compelling wander to the dark side comes on Chihiro, a track propelled by a disgustingly funky bass line that provides a muscular match to Eilish’s intimate vocal delivery. “Did you take my love away from me?” she demands as a swirl of synths begin to envelop her, successfully finding beauty amidst pained lovesickness. The track culminates in a compelling plot twist (“it’s all been a trap”) and a subsequent wall of electronic sound, although the payoff compares unfavourably to the same trick Parcels pulled off in their deeply underrated opus Everyroad.
Unusually for an A-league pop star, Eilish released no singles in the lead up to Hit Me Hard and Soft’s release, and her uninterrupted playing of the album in a listening party at New York’s Barclay Center last week suggested she sees this album as a single work, rather than a collection of potential chart hits. Indeed, Hit Me Hard and Soft is Eilish’s most narratively cohesive album to date, beginning with an ecstatic love affair and ending just as the heartbreak is beginning to numb. The cinematic turning point comes with The Greatest, a remarkable five-minuter in which Eilish’s pent up rage eventually erupts over arena-filling rock. “All the times I’ve waited / For you to want me naked,” she laments, but there’s a hint of self-deprecating irony in the conclusion that “man, am I the greatest”.
The self-deception continues in L’amour de ma vie, in which Eilish attempts to convince herself it was never love in the first place over a catchy pop hook. Again, Eilish’s anger bubbles to the surface in the song’s second half, although this time it’s via Hit Me Hard and Soft’s most contentious left turn: a pummelling four-to-the-floor kickdrum and, improbably, the sort of heavily autotuned Eurodance groove Finland might consider sending to Eurovision next year. Eilish has to be given points for her vagrant disregard for the pop rulebook, but her defeatist wails of “it’s over now” inevitably get lost in the silliness of it all.
A trendier synthy confection leads into the closing track, Blue, which features the sort of devastatingly catchy earworm a lesser artist could have quite happily used as the linchpin for a straightforwardly appealing three minute pop song. Instead, Eilish gives us a final creative flourish by turning the tempo right down and reflecting on how we tend to feel attraction to those who share our flaws. In the process, she deftly ties up many of the album’s lyrical loose threads, throwing in the beautiful strings melody that opened the album for good measure.
That said, for all Hit Me Hard and Soft’s thoughtful narrative and restless creativity, the 43 minutes do leave a lingering feeling that the most exciting elements of Eilish’s previous compositions – the body horror and masterful production of Bury a Friend or the apocalyptic finale of Happier Than Ever – are left largely unexplored in this introspective album, and bursts of experimentation are only pursued for a few wild minutes before a return to Eilish’s default spacey electropop. With its unapologetic queer love songs and impeccably nuanced lyricism, Hit Me Hard and Soft is a significant development in Eilish’s albumcraft, but there’s still a sense her best album is yet to come.
Jade Bird’s knack for an anthemic chorus and soaring vocals go largely unused on this mixed EP, which opts for introspective healing over the roof-raising Americana of Bird’s first two albums.
Jade Bird was born in Croydon, but she has an American soul. Her folky songs and penetrating vocals have long had the biggest popularity in the country music-obsessed southern states of the US, and her career was forged on the awesome country rock choruses of her self-titled debut, a record which included, amongst other barnstormers, Love Has All Been Done Before, a song which saw Bird rightly indulge in two bridges and four choruses – each more explosive than the last. A move to Austin, Texas in 2021 was the inevitable next step, along with sophomore record Different Kinds of Light, which put a loved-up sheen on Bird’s earthy Americana and offered more signs of songwriting maturity and nuance, not least in the glorious, sun-kissed melodies of Now is the Time, one of the very best songs of that year.
The years since has seen another significant change in Bird’s circumstances with the end of the long-term relationship behind many of Different Kinds of Light’s sweetest moments. The result is a long-teased EP which sees Bird mellower, more pensive and less inclined to throw in a straightforwardly anthemic chorus just for the hell of it. The unlikely production credit of Guernsey electronic music artist Mura Masa signifies the shift away from gunslinging country bangers, although (thankfully) his influence is most felt on the EP’s tasteful, muted bass riffs, rather than any drum machines and synths.
The trouble with Burn the Hard Drive is that heartbreak has not stoked the fire of Bird’s already fiery compositions, but rather extinguished it. The opening title track is pleasant and competently produced but sounds colourless compared to the unadorned passion of Bird’s early songs. There’s an interesting bass line and thoughtful one-note chorus, but for a voice of Bird’s calibre it’s like taking a Ferrari to work. C.O.M.P.L.E.X possesses the EP’s best earworm, but Bird’s admonishments of her ex’s “God complex” sound out of place amongst gentle guitars and weeping violins. There’s more intelligent composition and another alluring bass line in You’ve Fallen in Love Again, but it’s all washed in a spaced-out reverb that blunts the sharper edges in Bird’s melodies and vocals and renders the song as forgettable as a dream.
C’est La Vie is the first glimpse of Bird’s rasping vocals in their full glory and features a textbook Bird chorus that demands to be sung at full volume whilst driving towards the sunset on a long road trip. Again, Bird stops short of the full country rock treatment of wailing guitars and pounding drums, but a stripped-back, acoustic guitar driven rendition offers a round-the-campfire authenticity that spotlights Bird’s winning chorus. The song sets up Breaking the Grey, an optimistic finish with a somewhat obvious gospel-tinged piano progression. “You can’t wish the feelings away,” Bird admits, in a small but pleasing narrative arc after the desperation she felt to erase the past in the opening track. “I finally feel like I’m breaking the grey,” she assures us in the end. It seems Burn the Hard Drive has been a necessary, healing songwriting exercise for Bird – let’s hope for album three she’s ready to return to the full-blooded rock and roll she delivers best.
Ticking off everything from electropop to metal, Indian folk music to club-ready dance numbers, the finale of Collier’s four-album extravaganza is eclectic even by his standards. It makes for a mightily impressive listen, even if the 26 featured artists might overwhelm even his keenest fans.
Now five albums into his career, it’s clear Jacob Collier is a once-in-generation musician. For anyone that’s been following him since he broke out via harmonically complex a capella covers on YouTube, that’s old news. In reality, it was clear from that very first album – Hideaway, toured solo with Jacob jumping around stage from drums to keys to double bass with the help of a loop pedal – that Collier isn’t like your average singer-songwriter, not even your average jazz musician. He plays everything brilliantly and effortlessly, all with Herculean powers of humility, and has an immense grasp of musical harmony in all its nuances. His insatiable urge to learn new instruments is matched by his appetite for a dizzying array of genres and a rare respect for music in all its nebulous forms: Djesse Vol. 4 has everything from choral ambience to cinematic pop and oppressive death metal – and that’s just track one. As a result, Djesse Vol. 4 is in turns awe-inspiringly virtuosic and discombobulating, as has Collier’s entire career up to this point.
This record, the final of a blockbuster four album cycle and the hardest of the four to pin down to one sonic palette, starts with Collier’s finest USP of recent years: the “100,000-person choir”. 2020’s Vol. 3 was followed by a world tour in which Collier perfected the art of ‘playing the audience’, orchestrating soul-stirring three part harmonies with hand gestures, often with improvisatory flourishes. Vol. 4‘s opener presents an astonishing overlay of audience recordings from every single concert on that tour (which means Undertone‘s voice is technically on this album too – there goes my impartiality). Moreover, 100,000 Voices is much more than just the heart-warming harmonies many Collier fans will have expected; soon Collier’s singing an up tempo pop anthem with an unusually unrestrained belt, a refreshing change from his usual choir boy undertones). He cuts through the chaos with a striking demand to “let me be happy! … let me be ordinary!” but alas, as with many a Collier song that has come before, he gets bored quickly, and soon he’s throwing in a distinctly unhappy and unordinary death metal interlude apparently just because he can.
There’s plenty of impatience elsewhere, but Collier’s core ideas are consistently solid. She Put Sunshine has a restlessly shifting electropop groove but a bulletproof hook and touchingly romantic lyrics at its heart; A Rock Somewhere is an utterly random yet atmospheric sitar interlude; in the other extreme, Witness Me features the definition of the Western pop mainstream in Shawn Mendes, and turns out to be a somewhat cheesy gospel pop number with a catchy chorus.
A common sonic thread is impossible to find in Djesse Vol. 4, but the record stands out in Collier’s discography by the unusually high number of actually comprehensible pop and rock songs. Lead single WELLLL debuted at Glastonbury and offered false promises of an incoming rock album, but it still includes impressively hard-hitting classic rock riffs for a musician that grew up singing Bach chorales in the living room with his family. Cinnamon Crush and Wherever I Go are both sumptuous R&B cuts, the latter containing a standout vocal performance from gravel-throated Clyde Lawrence. There’s also several much needed islands of calm. Little Blue, featuring a non-descript performance from Brandi Carlile, is serene to the point of being soporific. Summer Rain, instead, is the pick of the ballads, Collier showcasing the depths of his lovesick tenderness before a soaring, delightfully uncomplicated finale that evokes Coldplay in Fix You mode. It’s more proof that when Collier can successfully harness his immense talents into developing a single strong idea – like the Hulk trying not to smash everything he holds – the result can be stunning.
One gripe I’ve had of Collier’s albums so far is that he has an unfortunate habit of making the best song a cover. An orchestral All Night Long and a towering choral rendition of Moon River were the clear highlights of their respective albums, and a piano cover of Dancing Queen performed live in Stockholm remains on of the most affecting corners of Collier’s released discography. I’ve even made the claim that Collier is yet to create a genuinely great original composition, beyond perhaps Hideaway. Djesse Vol. 4 sets that right, but also includes another extravagant cover in Bridge Over Troubled Water, which foregrounds Tori Kelly’s extraordinary vocals. Unfortunately, the ample flourishes – namely Kelly’s bewilderingly ornate melismas – muddy the picture somewhat, and by the end it seems Collier has chosen showy vocal acrobatics over the simple beauty of the exceptionally well-written source material. Exceptional talent is useful at the right moment, but Bridge Over Troubled Water is an example of Collier’s difficulty in knowing where to practice restraint.
Given this album marks the end of the 44-song long Djesse series, Collier can at least be forgiven for indulging in a grand finale. Two-parter Box of Stars is the most Collier-esque piece he has ever produced, with each distinctive new guest vocalist wheeled in and out at a rate of knots. The result is, as Collier has admitted, utterly unperformable, since the guests’ rap verses and vocal flourishes are far too idiosyncratic for Collier to attempt, particularly given the variety of languages on display (Djesse Vol. 4 boasts featured artists from all seven continents – except Antarctica, but Collier claimed in an interview that there’s recording of Antarctic ice somewhere deep in the mix for good measure). Box of Stars Pt. 1 does at least boil down into a pulsating, hooky dance groove, although Collier only teases out four bars of it in its fully glory at the end of the song.
The very end of the Djesse experience, however, is a wonderful surprise. World O World is a choral hymn and nothing more – without even the drastic harmonic left turns that populate the many of Collier’s earlier choral pieces. Delivered with a gentle majesty akin to Hark!the Herald Angels Sing, the song is a poignant call to leave home and strive for something frightening and new. “Time is swift to come to pass / Nothing stays and nothing lasts,” the choir intones in buttery harmony, sounding not dissimilar to the a capella arrangements that launched 17-year-old Collier’s career in the first place. It’s a simple message, but it’s also perhaps the most deeply moving set of lyrics Collier has ever penned. As this anarchic album comes to a close with a final “goodbye”, all that’s left to wonder is just how Collier has found the time to attain such technical mastery in so many genres.
“When you become immersed in something that you care about in a deep, deep way, it doesn’t feel like practice any more,” Collier tells me, my friend Thomas and a few hundred others in a rammed Wardrobe on a Thursday night in Leeds. We’re here for an underpublicised album launch celebration, and in a Q&A section of a typically remarkable Jacob Collier gig. Surely the diminutive stage at the Wardrobe has never seen a performer of this calibre before. If four Grammys aren’t enough to go by (and the only time a British artist has won Grammys for all their first four albums), Collier soon provokes gasps by somehow playing guitar and piano simultaneously, this time without a loop pedal in sight. Later, he indulges in the musically literate crowd (he asks later to discover almost half of the audience attends Leeds Conservatoire), conducting his trademark audience choir, with added polyrhythmic clapping and impromptu covers. Constrained (mostly) to one instrument at a time, Collier’s renditions are far less overwhelming than the studio recordings, and melodies on some of Djesse Vol. 4‘s weaker tracks soon reveal their true beauty
Jacob Collier played to a rapt Wardrobe in Leeds.
What’s more, Collier is just an inspiring a speaker as musician. He has a knack of giving profound answers to tedious, surface level questions. For example, a somewhat technical question about harmonic dissonance (one of several such questions from a crowd hungry for just one percent of this genius’s powers) becomes a discussion on finding perspective in life. “Sometimes you might play one note over a chord and think ‘well that note doesn’t go at all’, but it’s not the note that’s wrong, it’s the chord. Whilst you can’t control the world’s ‘notes’, we can control the context within which we place those notes. We get to decide what matters. Music is a very great teacher.” Some may accuse nerdy young musicians of being in a Jacob Collier cult, but it’s hard not to become a convert when hearing him speak so eloquently about his life’s passion.
I’m not the first to want to put Collier’s music back in a box, to dream of a pop song with a verse and a chorus, or a jazz album that focuses on Collier’s seasoned piano improvisation skills, perhaps even an orchestral symphony. The wonderful thing about Collier is that he couldn’t care less. His stated, noble goal of Djesse was to simply experiment and learn about as much music as possible, recruiting world experts from T Pain to Anoushka Shankar, Chris Martin to Xhosa lyricist Kanyi Mavi, and the eclectic volatility of the resulting songs seem to indicate he has achieved his goals. Any Grammys that come along the way are nice bonuses. Later in the gig, one audience member asks him how to be successful, to which Collier advises the best measure of success is simply “contentment”. His best single piece of practical advice? “Don’t try to be cool, be warm.”
From chart-toppers to hidden gems, it’s time to reminisce about the most remarkable musical moments of 2023, as we countdown the year’s greatest hits. The rules are the same as usual: only one song per artist and no covers. Remember this is primarily a personal reflection on my own music habits this year; I don’t pretend to have listened to enough music to declare the best works of all popular music this year, and you might spot some songs that were released before 2023. This list is about sharing the best songs that I happen to have discovered in the last twelve months.
40.I See Myself
by Geese from 3D Country
It’s been a breakout year for lovable New York indie band Geese, whose unhinged, creative post-punk creations suit their throwaway nickname. Beyond the playful vocals, there’s a deep sense of groove to I See Myself’s half time strut, which oozes with tambourine and cowbell yet never feels cluttered – every last dink has earned its place in this mix. As for the hook, good luck forgetting the titular refrain – belted every time – any time this side of next Christmas.
Also try: Cowboy Nudes
39.impossible
by Wasia Project from how can i pretend?
Creative pop siblings Wasia Project look set for big things in 2024. The Guildhall students already have an impressive collection of stylish, instrument-driven pop under their name (plus an acting credit in hit Netflix series Heartstopper), and impossible is just one example of an intelligently written composition rich in potential. It lifts off in the final third, piano throbbing and Olivia Hardy’s vocals soaring skywards. Keep a close eye on them.
Also try: Petals on the Moon
38.Topless Mother
by Nadine Shah from Filthy Underneath
Nadine Shah delivers her chorus in Topless Mother with ample venom, hissing out every last syllable, backed by tribal drums and sudden deluges of cymbals. It’s just as well, because the words themselves are rhyming gibberish: “Sinatra, Viagra, iguana / Sharia, Diana, samosa” comprise the first two lines. It’s a startling approach that serves as a middle finger to her critics and a steadfast refusal to fit into the mould assigned to her. It’s a vicious reminder never to get on the wrong side of a skilled songwriter.
Also try: Twenty Things
37.HOT TO GO!
by Chappell Roan from The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
It’s been a breakout year for many artists, but few have had a trajectory as stratospheric as Chappell Roan’s, who started the year as one of thousands of aspiring young American pop stars and finished it with a global hit album and a support slot on tour with no less than the undisputed queen of young American pop stars, Olivia Rodrigo. HOT TO GO!, and its accompanying dance routine, accounts for some of Roan’s phenomenal success, typifying her bratty, entertaining brand of pop. Roan’s lyrics are hardly Shakespeare (she’s certainly not above spelling out the song title cheerleader-style), but the silly chorus comprises one of the most intractable earworms of the year – hear it once and it will haunt your dreams (and perhaps nightmares) for sixth months hence. Add some bouncy synths and a half-rapped pre chorus that veers precariously close to cheesiness and the result is a career-launching banger free of pomposity and absolutely stuffed with life-affirming glee.
Also try: Femininomenon
36.Then It All Goes Away
by Dayglow from People In Motion
Then It All Goes Away is one of the most satisfying examples of sunny indie pop that Texan showman Dayglow has come out with so far. Bright piano riffs and a very healthy contingent of cowbell make for easy listening, and spacey guitars hold gimmers of 80s pop at its dreamiest. A perfect soundtrack to your next daydream of summer.
Also try: Deep End
35.Glory
by Gabriels from Angels & Queens
Soul trio Gabriels were one of the standout performers of Glastonbury 2023, with Glory the peak of a heart-warming set. Jacob Lusk’s silky voice is as charismatic as ever, but its the driving percussion and insistent strings that make this foot-tapper such an exciting listen.
Also try: Love and Hate in a Different Time
34.Who Let Him In
by Obongjayar
What’s refreshing about Who Let Him In is not the strength of Obongjayar’s brags (being able to string together a few rhymes about how great and unique you are is more or less a prerequisite for today’s rappers) but in how justified they are. “I fear no one / Walk in the room like the owner,” he tells us, and by the sounds of this beat – a bubbling Afrobeat groove bursting at the seams with energy – he seems utterly believable. Obongjayar doesn’t just want to be a good artist, he wants to “take over”, and with tracks as inspired as this one, that’s exactly what he seems destined to do.
Also try: Just Cool
33.Dans Le Noir
by Free Love from Inside
Glasgow synth duo sound anything but Scottish on this largely French-language funk-pop belter, but the language gives this sticky dance number a flirtatious edge, regardless of the meaning of Suzi Cook’s words. An almost comically overblown synth bass is the main attraction, though, and the instrument is rightly given free reign to wobble around its rich upper range in an extended instrument section in the middle of this song. Cook’s vocal hook eventually returns us to solid ground in a song full of left turns from a duo quite happy to keep their audiences guessing.
Also try: Open The Door
32.Who the Hell Is Edgar?
by TEYA & SALENA
Sweden may have won it with a vaguely uninspiring pop song, but it was Austria that came to Eurovision 2023 with arguably best song of this year’s contest. Who the Hell Is Edgar? strikes the fine balance between loveable joke song and earnest work of art with a clear message in a contest where songs usually fall heavily into one of the two categories (think hard rock fancy dress monsters for the former, hymn for the deported Crimean Tatars for the latter). TEYA and SALENA’s playful chemistry is a joy as they summon the ghost of 19th century poet Edgar Allen Poe and the various threads of the song are knotted together cleverly after the bridge. Granted, TEYA and SALENA’s performance on the night left something to be desired and a slot as show opener can’t have helped votes, but in more favourable conditions Who the Hell Is Edgar? would have made for a worthy Eurovision champion.
Also try: Ukraine’s excellent entry, Heart of Steel by TVORCHI
31.(You) On My Arm
by Leith Ross from To Learn
Leith Ross hit viral success in 2023 with the acoustic guitar track We’ll Never Have Sex, the sort of throwaway almost-song (it’s only 100 seconds long) that would never be a hit before the age of streaming. (You) On My Arm stands out as both the only uptempo track and best tune on their debut album, a pleasingly understated indie rock number that features the ingenious line “I’d be better armed if you agreed to take it.” The songwriting fundamentals are handled so competently here it’s a relief that Ross doesn’t unnecessarily complicate things with a flashy backing, instead sticking to a muted bass tone and spacey guitars that complement her introspective vocals. It’s no wonder her humble approach to music making has resonated with millions around the world.
Also try: Monogamy
30.Love for the Last Time
by Leadley from LIGHT POP
There’s an unreality that goes beyond the usual popstar Photoshopping in West Midlands singer Leadley’s album covers, presenting her as a sort of celestial beauty of impossible perfection. Her songs have a similar immaculate quality, especially Love For The Last Time, a note perfect pop song blessed with crystalline production. A divine sax riff recalls Carly Rae Jepsen at her five star best, and enjoyably schmaltzy lyrics like “Hold me like it isn’t goodbye / Touch me like you’re never really leaving,” roll off the tongue like honey on freshly baked pancakes. The result is almost too sweet.
Also try: Love Me Like That
29.Hell
by Sleater-Kinney from Little Rope
“Hell is desperation / And a young man with a gun,” Corin Tucker informs us ominously in the minimalist start to Hell, her portentous lyrics the only sign of the melee of sound to come. It’s a contrast that works deliciously well when the chorus does eventually hit, a screaming electric guitar loud and salient in the mix like the whirr of a dentist’s drill. It’s one of the grungiest choruses I’ve heard all year and I can’t get enough of it.
Also try: Say It Like You Mean It
28.Dancer
by IDLES feat. LCD Soundsystem from TANGK
Dance and disco music may not be an obvious match for IDLES, Bristol’s ever popular post punk group helmed by the fearsome Joe Talbot, a man who seems to grow more grizzled and bear-like with every passing year. But, right from the opening swoop of disco strings, this collaboration with dance music luminary LCD Soundsystem comes off surprisingly well. Industrial guitar riffs open up for a pummeling chorus, Talbot’s descriptions of dancing “cheek to cheek” sounding uneasily violent rather than swooning and romantic. Their new album TANGK, due in February, promises to be something special.
Also try: Grace
27.Poor Madeline
by Daffo from Pest
Daffo came out with one of the finest indie rock EPs of the year with October’s Pest, which features a number of soulful compositions that have both a depth of emotion and proficiency of songwriting that many of her peers lack. Poor Madeline is just one of several potential picks for this list and shows Daffo’s typical urge to strive above and beyond the usual song structures associated with the genre.
Also try: Seed, Good God and Collector are all Poor Madeline‘s equal
26.New York Transit Queen
by Corinne Bailey Rae from Black Rainbows
Corinne Bailey Rae’s September album Black Rainbows marked one of the most astounding artistic pivots of the year. For the woman behind the smooth, sunshine-filled R&B hit Put Your Records On, lead single New York Transit Queen could hardly have been more shocking. There are no tinkling triangles or cheery Hammond organs to be found here – this track is an unreservedly grungy pastiche of 60s rock and roll in all its swaggering glory. The opening guitar riff, which has all the blunt-force simplicity of You Really Got Me, hits like a truck and Rae’s vocals are strikingly distorted and unhinged. What’s most remarkable is that the track doesn’t end up sounding like a cover or parody. The grit of the blaring instrumentation here feels organic, the drums hammered out with what feels like genuine fury. Appropriately, a vodka shot of a song like this comes and goes in a frantic 109 seconds. It’s just as well – even at this length, New York Transit Queen has a tendency to leave you breathless.
Also try: He Will Follow You With His Eyes is a remarkable, completely different sonic experience.
25.Theatre
by Etta Marcus from The Death of Summer & Other Promises
Etta Marcus made the list two years ago with a melancholy, nuanced ballad with Matt Maltese, and Theatre starts in much the same vein before revealing itself to be a much different beast. Far from a sweetly romantic tune about moving to America, Theatre is a rock rager about crushing, desperate loneliness, with the volume turned up to the max. It’s propelled by a gut-wrenching set of lyrics in which Marcus plays a twisted version of herself hell bent on love, demanding someone, anyone, to “call me baby / let me die on the stage / let the orchestra play”. The melodrama is matched by a barnstorming vocal performance, Marcus almost audibly dropping to her knees in anguish. Like an enthralling stage performance, this song is impossible to ignore.
Also try: Snowflake Suzy
24.Phone Me
by CMAT from Crazymad, For Me
2023 was a year in which Irish singer-songwriter CMAT finally fulfilled her potential with a rewarding second album of charismatic indie rock that married inventive songwriting with thinly veiled self-mocking humour. Phone Me was the catchiest of the bunch, with a cracking bass line and a chorus that leaned into the strengths of CMAT’s formidable vocals. “Does my affliction turn you on?” she belts with trademark matter-of-factness. It’s this fearlessness that has seen CMAT’s career flourish this year, and there’s a sense that 2024 will likely be more of the same.
Also try: California and Have Fun! are similarly great tracks that bookend CMAT’s new album, while Rent is the mid-album showpiece.
23.5-Watt Rock
by Theo Katzman from Be the Wheel
Theo Katzman’s fourth studio album Be The Wheel was not short on earnestly profound reflections on a pandemic spent largely alone in the wilderness (the eloquent title track very nearly made it on to this list), so I could forgive Katzman for feeling disappointed that the record’s comic relief is what I’ve selected here. Sure, this tale of a humble songwriter overcoming the inadequacies of his small guitar amp is not overtly thought provoking, but it’s still a sweet story expertly delivered and a fine example of Katzman’s knack for satisfying rhymes. The chorus is one of the earworms of his career – you can practically hear the band’s smiles as the group vocals reach ever upwards, urged on by a genius chord progression even by Katzman’s high standards. No doubt Katzman spent many more sleepless nights crafting the dense lyrics found elsewhere on the album than for this light-hearted ditty, but perhaps Be The Wheel would have benefitted from a little more of 5-Watt Rock’s simple joy.
Also try: Be the Wheel and Hit the Target provide a bit more food for thought and also showcase Katzman’s adroit songwriting.
22.One That Got Away
by MUNA
There’s only been one song from Los Angeles pack leaders MUNA this year following the triumph of last year’s Silk Chiffon, a glorious collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers, but boy is it a good one. On One That Got Away, the band lean into full-blown 80s art pop, the angular synths almost blinding vibrant, the aggressively clipped snare drum sounding colossal. Katie Gavin’s hook is a winner, and a climactic bass fill almost feels cribbed from that moment in You Can Call Me Al. This ever popular trio aren’t going anywhere.
Also try: Silk Chiffon is an essential piece of not just MUNA’s discography, but modern pop in general.
21.Clashing Colours
by Quinn Oulton feat. Monica Martin from Alexithymia
A reworking with incomparable soul singer Monica Martin elevated this track from South London multi-instrumentalist Quinn Oulton in April. A sublimely rich bass is a spectre looming over the mix and a nice match for Oulton’s tip-toeing breathy sax, which eventually finds its place in the track with a meandering jazz solo. It makes for an impossibly cool jazz-funk stew – a groove to savour with every listen.
Also try: Lately
20.New York
by The Kills from God Games
“Why should hip-hop be future-forward and guitar music always looking back?” the Kills asked in an NME interview before their recent album God Games, and it’s only when you hear the inventive brilliance of that album that it becomes how clear just how behind the curve the rest of today’s guitar music is. New York in particular succeeds in being unlike any rock song you’ve heard before, in large part to a heavy use of orchestra hits, which lend the track the grandiosity of the opening scenes of a spy thriller. Bare bones percussion and wall-shaking bass make for a suitably industrial-feeling portrait of the Big Apple. This isn’t a repeat of Alicia Keys’ or Frank Sinatra’s romantic visions of American Dream New York, but perhaps something more realistic: dirtier, angrier, with rats scuttling from gutter to gutter and taxi horns blaring. New York’s most compelling aspect, however, is its roof-raiser of a guitar riff, destined to be sung passionately by thousands in the vast concert halls that no doubt await this daring rock duo.
Also try: Wasterpiece
19.Begin Again
by Jessie Ware from That! Feels Good!
Begin Again formed the pinnacle of Jessie Ware’s April album That! Feels Good!, which largely built on the sound established by its predecessor What’s Your Pleasure? – no bad thing since What’s Your Pleasure? was nothing short of a modern classic. It’s a towering five and a half minute epic that earns favourable comparisons to Stevie Wonder’s Another Star. The descending bass line holds similar gravitas, as does a stellar horn contribution from trendy London jazz group Kokoroko. It’s Ware herself, however, that crowns it, sealing a cinematic crescendo with spine-tingling high notes that exemplify the huge strides she’s made as both an artist and a singer since her debut 13 years ago.
Also try: you can’t go wrong with Ware’s latest album, but Pearls and Freak Me Now are two of my other favourites.
18.Everybody’s Saying That
by Girl Ray from Prestige
Girl Ray’s live show may have disappointed in November, but there’s no denying Everybody’s Saying That is a glorious little disco single. There’s a loveable awkwardness to Poppy Hankin’s vocals and the mix as a whole, which trades the glossy sheen of something Dua Lipa might release for the air of three friends simply having a good time in a studio. There’s plenty of fun to be had on that bulletproof chorus hook, and the trio don’t miss the opportunity for a slightly silly clavinet breakdown. The result is a simple joy: funk at its euphoric, uncomplicated best.
Also try: True Love and Tell Me provide plenty more disco joy.
17.Birth4000
by Floating Points
Try to explain to someone in a sentence what sort of music Floating Points makes and you’ll find yourself giving five more sentences of qualifiers and explanations before you can get close to fully conveying the extent of this artist’s musical creativity. A good place to start is his astonishing work with London Symphony Orchestra, Promises, which is a transfixing, 46-minute long ambient classical piece that features the murmured incantations of late sax giant Pharoah Sanders. Fittingly, Birth4000 is just about the complete opposite: a steamy, in-your-face trance banger that writhes and throbs the way only the most compelling dance music can. The drops are titanic, with the kick drum turned up just loud enough to become slightly distorted. This is a piece of music that kicks you by the backside into the hypnotising strobes of a euphoric, thronging nightclub. You won’t want it to stop.
Also try: devote an hour to Promises and thank me later, or try trippy single Vocoder for a completely different side of Floating Points.
16.Running Out of Time
by Paramore from This Is Why
Beloved punk pop group Paramore could be forgiven for calling it quits at this point, their late-noughties hits like Misery Business and All I Wanted now increasingly old enough to enter nostalgic classic territory. Instead, they released one of the best albums of their career so far with February’s edgy, quick-witted tour de force This Is Why. The call-to-action title track that opens the album was easy to love, but I’ve gone with funky Running Out Of Time for this list. A playful number about always being late (“There was a fire! (metaphorically) / Be there in five! (hyperbolically)”), there’s also a touch of social commentary on our productivity-first culture for any listeners looking for some food for thought. More importantly, there’s some delightfully nasty guitar riffs, plus Zac Farro letting loose on a swaggering drum groove. Paramore’s golden era hits may be untouchable but make no mistake: this band isn’t fading away any time soon.
Also try: This Is Why‘s title track makes for a killer album opener.
15.Go Dig My Grave
by Lankum from False Lankum
Irish drone-folk group are no strangers to gothic tales of doom and misery, but Go Dig My Grave, the masterful opener to their lauded March album False Lankum (the Guardian’s Album of the Year, no less) reaches new levels of chilling. It begins with a breathtaking two minutes of solo vocals from Radie Peat, who possesses an earthy, sorrowful voice unlike any you’ve heard before. She unravels a disturbing narrative as storm clouds gather in the form of industrial clatters and a sinister strings drone. Each member of Lankum is a multi-instrumentalist and the fact that most of the instruments in the ensuing dirge are tricky to identify adds to the disorientating horror, lending the climax a supernatural intensity. This is folk music at its most sickening, the terror of Peat’s lyrics realised potently in the incessant rise and fall of detuned violins. Go Dig My Grave is Lankum at the peak of their witch-like powers.
Also try: there’s plenty of treasures on False Lankum. Master Crowley’s successfully turns a Gaelic jig into something hellish, while On a Monday Morning is one of many drone-free moments of peaceful melancholia.
14.Sleepwalker
by Ava Max from Diamonds & Dancefloors
It seems the intensely mainstream sound of Ava Max has caused to her music to be largely dismissed as chart-ready pop candy floss, primed to keep company with the countless other indistinguishable female pop acts destined to be forgotten in a few years’ time. Indeed, Max’s vocals are hardly exceptional, and Sleepwalker’s lyrics about making a guy obsess over her are at best functional and at worst clunky, but the fact is no other pop song this year has matched this one’s instant appeal. Flawless chorus hook aside, what other charting track this year features a synth solo this brazen? In a genre plagued by impersonal corporate hitmakers, crafting pernicious hooks behind the scenes like evil scientists, there’s a frisson of playfulness in the longer than necessary solo that suggests Max is genuinely having fun beyond her quest for a global pop empire. That’s not to say Sleepwalker shows much daring, but it does deliver the pop formula for success in a way so impeccably you’ll find yourself humming along to the chorus before your first listen is even over. Max has had much bigger hits than this and will no doubt push Sleepwalker further into obscurity with another slew of smashes in 2024, but I maintain this little pop gem is criminally underrated.
Also try: Maybe You’re the Problem, Ghost and Hold Up (Wait a Minute) are all bangers, not to mention Max’s energetic contribution to the Barbie movie, Choose Your Fighter.
13.The Abyss
by KNOWER from KNOWER FOREVER
Inimitable US funk artist Louis Cole has played some nut-tight grooves in his time, but few are as exquisitely precise as The Abyss, the face-melting highlight of his superb project with Genevieve Artadi under the name KNOWER released in October. Sam Wilkes delivers a particularly monstrous performance on bass, purring tiger-like under Artadi’s clipped vocals and Cole’s trademark sharp-edged synths. The rhythmic discipline all round is immense – not one note comes a fraction too late – and that’s before mentioning the ensuing chaos of the track’s unfettered second half: not one but two whirlwind Cole drum solos, a screaming distorted sax solo and a showstopping blast on keyboards all provide an assault on the ears before Artadi coolly brings it home with one last chorus. It’s KNOWER at their ruthless best: astonishing, cut-throat electro-funk from start to finish.
Also try: I’m the President is a thoroughly satisfying album opener, while Nightmare descends into a cosmic electrofunk jam.
12.Phlox
by Emma Rawicz from Chroma
Emma Rawicz is gaining a reputation as one of the more cerebral new exponents of UK jazz, serving shape-shifting, rhythmically complex compositions that are often hard to pin down. Phlox is a song that avoids any aimless wandering via the oldest trick in the book: a no nonsense riff, repeated over and over. Granted, it’s a very Rawicz sort of riff – that is to say, dazzlingly complex – but it’s delivered with such flair and precision it’s hard not to get whipped up in the stormy brilliance of it all. Rawicz is also on fine form for a delightfully impolite solo, but it’s drummer Asaf Sirkis who steals the show with a marvellous closing drum solo that both neatly fills the gaps made by that riff whilst sounding utterly chaotic. Rawicz’s jazz has never felt so vital.
Also try: Middle Ground is a perfect example of Rawicz’s softer side.
11.You Are Not My Friend
by Tessa Violet from MY GOD!
One of the great underrated albums of the year in my books was Tessa Violet’s midsummer release MY GOD!, a leitmotif-laden opus that excelled in every genre Violet had a crack at, from the bombastic hyperpop opener to Swift-esque Again, Again or the folksy singalong Kitchen Song. You Are Not My Friend was an apt closer, wrapping up the emotional complexities of the earlier tracks with a straightforward pop punk sound as unapologetic and self-assured as its title. Here, as in virtually all of Violet’s songs, the songwriting is exceptional, with the interlocking vocals in the technicolour finale evidence of Violet’s considerable pop nous. The lyrics are gold dust for anyone looking for reassurance after a messy breakup, but even for the rest of us the quotable nuggets come thick and fast (“You say I’m insecure? / You’re twenty-eight with a teenager” will go down as one of Violet’s sharpest take downs). It’s a testament to the strength of You Are Not My Friend that you don’t need to directly relate to any of the lyrics in order to share Violet’s sweet, sweet taste of retribution.
Also try: MY GOD! is an album that rewards front to back listening, but start with BAD BITCH or Breakdown if you want to dip your toes into it.
10.Up Song
by Black Country, New Road from Live at Bush Hall
Up Song is responsible for one of the most memorable live music experiences of my life so far. It happened not this year, but in May 2022, in a feverish Brudenell Social Club the day Leeds United narrowly avoided relegation. Black Country, New Road were a band in a unique turmoil: just five days following the release of their instant cult classic Ants From Up There, their lyrically gifted yet troubled frontman Isaac Wood abruptly left the band. Up Song marked the beginning of the remaining six members’ intimate gig in Leeds which, astonishingly, comprised of an entirely new album worth of unreleased material. New lead vocalist Tyler Hyde proved she was not one for introductions, soon interrupting a quiet opening with a typically unpredictable onslaught of sound, May Kershaw prominently hammering away behind her on piano. It ended up being an inspired reflection on the band’s turbulent recent history; the climactic line “Look at what we did together / BCNR, friends forever,” might sound trite on paper, but belted in a sudden a capella unison from every band member it was uniquely moving. The rest of the gig (and 2023’s live album) had more than its fair share of interesting post-Wood creativity, but it was Up Song that announced BCNR’s rapid reinvention in glorious style.
Also try: Dancers holds the album’s best vocal hook, but it was cinematic epic Turbines/Pigs that had the BCNR fans really swooning.
9.But leaving is
by Matt Maltese from Driving Just To Drive
Reading balladeer Matt Maltese is no stranger to a good old fashioned love song. These days he’s got a slew of bittersweet tracks to his name, from the formative breakout hit Even If It’s a Lie (the sort of superb songwriting that demands no more than a simple piano accompaniment to shine) to the viral epic As the World Caves In, a spectacular song which changes complexion somewhat when you learn it was written about Theresa May and Donald Trump spending a steamy night together before nuking the planet. Even by Maltese’s standards, however, But leaving is is an utterly heart-wrenching ballad. The central punchline – “Love isn’t a choice / … but leaving is” – might be the finest lyric of his career, a smart one-two that manages to encapsulate much of the lovesick emotion that Maltese has devoted his music career to thus far. He seems to know he’s got a winner on his hands, too, delaying the payoff in two exquisite choruses, which are lifted by tasteful strings and his trademark melancholy piano. It’s a stunningly emotive arrangement of the sort Maltese’s starry peers like Lewis Capaldi and Dean Lewis simply can’t match with their cookie cutter four-chorders.
Also try: Hello Black Dog has a sickening, dark edge, whilst Florence is a lovely, rare uptempo number from Maltese.
8.All Life Long
by Kali Malone from All Life Long
All Life Long has the power to bend time. It’s a piece of ambient music that gets under my skin, stops me in my tracks and leaves me feeling invariably different – calmer, more in tune with my surroundings – than when I started it. Like most of Kali Malone’s work, it is a piece of solo pipe organ music, and the most obvious image evoked is that of a funeral; the achingly slow tempo brings with it palpable gravitas as notes slowly float downwards the same way a coffin might be carefully lowered into a grave. But All Life Long deserves also to be felt outside the context of the Church. Through her music, Malone has made it her mission to decouple the majestic organ from the dogmatic domain of religion and worship, and what makes All Life Long (and much of Malone’s work) so interesting is how starkly different it is from the organ music we know: more patient, nuanced and imaginative than the music we tend to associate with a church organ. Bach’s mathematically precise masterpieces for the instrument may be rightly venerated, but he never brought us intimacy with the instrument the way Malone does, never highlighted the way the notes aren’t constant but in fact a breath-like wave (which Malone leans into in a 70-second long final note here), or showed us how each note begins with a little whistle as the air shifts direction in the pipes, plus the tactile click of a key being pressed. The organ is a uniquely magnificent instrument. As All Life Long argues convincingly, it’s time it left the cold confines of the Church.
Also try: Thought-provoking lockdown album Does Spring Hide Its Joy weighs in at a daunting five hours but rewards an open mind, whereas The Sacrificial Code provides more of All Life Long‘s ruminative, secular organ music.
7.Bewitched
by Laufey from Bewitched
It’s easy to imagine Laufey landing into Bewitched Mary Poppins style, floating down gracefully via umbrella just in time for the first verse. Such is the love-it-or-hate-it Disney feel to the ornate orchestral arrangement in this track, the likes of which the mainstream pop charts hasn’t seen for generations; the Icelandic-Chinese jazz singer would have certainly had a number one album on her hands if a certain Olivia Rodrigo hadn’t released a slightly better album the same week. Lean into the intense sweetness of Bewitched’s orchestration and you’ll no doubt be as besotted as I am. Laufey’s gentle vocals are gorgeous yet charmingly unshowy, singing as if a song of this delicate beauty might fall apart if she were to overexert for a high note. Not that she needs any vocal flourishes – every melody here is a beauty, the luscious strings supporting Laufey like a warm, cosy bed. Laufey’s lyrics are deeply romantic, framing love not as a choice but a sort of benign curse, an uncontrollable desire to lose yourself in its “all-consuming fire”. It may sound like there’s an uncurrent of unease in all the talk of “bewitching”, but make no mistake: Bewitched is pure, unrestrained love in music form. Love songs just don’t get any lovelier.
Also try: Lovesick is Laufey’s rock moment and comes off surprisingly well; From the Start is her record-breaking bossa nova smash hit.
6.A Month Or Two
by Odie Leigh
Every so often, a song comes along that seems to tell you exactly what you need to hear. Odie Leigh’s charming ditty A Month Or Two was that song for me, an unfussy waltz on acoustic guitar broadly about growing up. Leigh’s repeated progression on guitar might have outstayed its welcome if it weren’t for a glorious string quartet that patiently weaves its way into the fabric of the track. The tension is held for a moment before the exquisite payoff, the luscious interlocking melodies sounding like a warm bath at the end of a long day. Leigh’s repeated assurance to “give it some time” is beyond comforting. It’s obviously a vague lyric that will resonate with many listeners in different ways, but there’s some magic in Leigh’s cooing vocals or her lullaby-like guitar plucking that makes it feel like she’s speaking directly to you, and only you. A Month Or Two is a cooling balm of a song I’m convinced everyone needs in their life from time to time.
Also try: Crop Circles, or Big Thief’s Change which was a similar comfort song for me this year.
5.My Love Mine All Mine
by Mitski from The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
To get a hooky, upbeat pop song about, say, being “hot to go” in the charts is tough enough, but getting the masses hooked on a quiet, subtle two-minute country ballad about the moon is a Herculean challenge. Of course, if anyone could pulled it off, it would be America’s favourite troubled genius Mitski, who took over the Internet in September with this jewel from her divine seventh album. Every second is a meticulously crafted moment of bliss, from the lazy, last-orders-at-a-jazz-bar piano inflections to the silky wisps of slide guitar that seem to weightlessly hang in the mix like a plume of cigarette smoke. Mitski’s lyric sheet is as poetic as ever, but more optimistic than usual, celebrating the preciousness of both her lover and, more importantly, her capacity to love. As is customary for a Mitski song, this track briskly comes and goes with little time for rumination. The good news is that My Love Mine All Mine is not a song that loses its emotional potency with repeat listens – trust me.
Also try: When Memories Snow includes one of Mitski’s strongest metaphors, whilst I’m Your Man memorably depicts the artist being eaten alive by hounds, sound effects and all.
4.Nothing Matters
by the Last Dinner Party from Prelude to Ecstacy
Arguably the most exciting development in British indie music this year has been the rise of the Last Dinner Party, a London five-piece who continue to amass a cult following despite having released only four songs. In fact, they’d already signed to Island Records and scored a support slot for the Rolling Stones at Hyde Park before they’d released their first single, prompting perhaps justifiable claims from hard-working independent artists of being an ‘industry plant’. The good news is, organically successful or not, every one of the Last Dinner Party’s four singles has been exceptional, each introducing their carefully presented brand of baroque rock. Live shows involve band members (and audience members) dressed in elaborate Edwardian-style gowns and corsets whilst frolicking amidst regal candelabras. Their visit to the intimate, famed stage of Brudenell Social Club promises to be one of the most thrilling occasions for Undertone in 2024.
Debut single Nothing Matters is perhaps the most majestic of the four songs and a masterclass in endowing a straightforward two note chorus with as much emotional weight as it can possibly sustain. Abigail Morris’ lyrics are poetic and layered, yet unafraid to unleash an embittered expletive when the time comes in the chorus. What turns Nothing Matters from a good song into a great one is how the band negotiate the denouement. Emily Roberts’ dovetailing guitar solo evokes Sam Ryder in full Eurovision saviour mode, and a fanfare of horns and strings provide a sense of scale and pathos unlike any debut single I’ve heard before. It’s an instant masterpiece for a band that thus far hasn’t put a foot wrong. Industry plants? If the music is this good, I say let the industry keep planting.
Also try: the three other singles so far, in order of greatness, are My Lady of Mercy, By Your Side and Sinner.
3.vampire
by Olivia Rodrigo from GUTS
Almost no one reading this will need reminding of Olivia Rodrigo. She’s had an astonishingly successful 2023, finishing up with six Grammy nominations and a potential Oscar next year for her song in the new Hunger Games movie. Increasingly, it seems like everything she touches turns to gold. That was certainly the case for her second album, GUTS, one of those precious music releases that was both listened to by everybody and adored by everybody. It was earthier, wittier and just generally better than her 2021 debut album and almost every track was worthy of this list, but the lead single was the most obvious choice of album highlight. vampire is Rodrigo’s masterpiece, opening with a gentle Beatles-esque chord progression and crashing to a halt with a spliced up piano bashed with maximum rage. In the intervening three and a half minutes Rodrigo steadily ramps up the intensity, dissecting a toxic relationship with some of her sharpest lyrical slights to date. Behind her, an accompaniment thrillingly gathers pace, eventually snowballing into a compelling gallop that lifts the track to new, mesmeric heights. Rodrigo started her career with a blockbuster bridge (on Drivers’ License), and vampire’s is perhaps even better, the galloping backing sounding relentless, her melody inevitable. With vampire, Olivia Rodrigo rightly took over the planet once more. When she visits Manchester on her world tour next year (which, to the detriment of my bank account, I have tickets for), she will be greeted like a queen.
Also try: GUTS, probably my album of the year. all-american bitch, bad idea right? and making the bed are all essential listens in the unlikely case you’ve navigated 2023 without coming into contact with them.
2.Not Strong Enough
by boygenius from the record
The boygenius trio are friends before bandmates. It’s a fact clearer than ever on their soaring country rock number Not Strong Enough, which finds the three American singer-songwriters, who formed boygenius as something of an indie supergroup and released their debut album this year, trading verses and eventually coalescing in stunning harmony. Their imagery is particularly thoughtful (joyriding through a canyon, disassociating whilst staring at the ceiling, a quiet drive home alone) but it’s the proudly belted “I don’t know why I am the way I am” that lingers longest, a lyric as simple as it is wise. It’s delivered with the sort of fist-pumping melody that compelled hundreds to lose their voices (and their consciousness) singing along when Undertone caught the group in Halifax on a memorable midsummer’s night. boygenius’ layered lyrics about feminism and friendship have plenty of depth, but really Not Strong Enough is a wonderfully simple song and one of those pieces of music that makes you smile without exactly knowing why.
Also try: Cool About It and True Blue were my fourth and fifth most listened to songs of the year. Not Strong Enough was my number one.
1.Any Time Of Day
by the Lemon Twigs from Everything Harmony
I am a believer that our musical preferences are often determined by the cultural prevalence of certain styles during our formative teenage years, which partly explains why soft rock – a genre that had its heyday in the 70s and, unlike its disco cousin, is not yet considered cool enough for a modern revival – is often synonymous with the somewhat derogatory term ‘Dad rock’. These days much of soft rock feels dated, now replaced by the myriad of more courageous and forward-thinking rock subgenres that could never have thrived during an era where the idea of accessing virtually all recorded music in a few clicks was science fiction.
The Lemon Twigs, New York brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, are the exception. Their six years of releasing proudly revivalist soft rock came to a head in May with their fourth album and magnum opus, Everything Harmony. As a staunch musical defense of Dad rock, it was difficult to refute – from elegant melodies to imaginative song structures and harmony, Everything Harmony managed to point out all the most flattering aspects of soft rock that have been somewhat overlooked in recent decades. The crème de la crème was Any Time Of Day, a truly titanic ballad. It may be fairly brief, but every inch of this song is genius, especially when it comes to the fantastically interesting chord choices (and buttery smooth key change), which sound miles more sophisticated than anything in the charts today.
There’s a timelessness to the lyrics, which are dreamily romantic (“you can make it bright / any time of day”) without pinning themselves down to a specific era or circumstance – like all the best songs, Any Time Of Day is an accommodating blank slate on which to imprint any meaning or emotion you like. The lines are delivered with in a heavenly falsetto which seems to get more and more euphoric with every line until the utterly glorious musical fireworks of the finale. The bass purrs, the backing vocals flutter, the synths scintillate; by the two minute mark you’ll be transported into a wholly different, blissful realm. I usually dismiss soft rock fans living in the past who may tut at the current state of the charts with lines like “they don’t make ‘em like they used to”. Comparing the majesty of Any Time Of Day to the rest of the competition in 2023, I’m beginning to think they might have a point after all.
Also try: inspired songwriting is abound on Everything Harmony, but When Winter Comes Around and What Happens to a Heart are two of my other favourites.
Playing to a sparse crowd in Belgrave Music Hall, Girl Ray’s undercooked hour of straightforward disco-pop had highlights but suffered from a muddy mix and was ultimately upstaged by their support act.
To be fair to me, the passage from the neon-lit buzz of Belgrave Canteen to the upstairs Belgrave Music Hall isn’t immediately obvious, particularly upon arriving relatively early on a Tuesday night. Not for the first time at this venue, I accidentally managed to skip the queue via a promising unmarked door next to the pizza stand, and located a toilet before approaching the security guards, receiving a slightly mean chuckle when they pointed out I had toilet roll stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Once in, I did at least have first dibs for the bar and for Belgrave’s limited seating, plus unfettered access to the merch stand. It wouldn’t be manned until after the gig three hours later, but I made sure to leave the venue sporting a bright red Girl Ray tee nonetheless.
Twenty minutes later came that sinking feeling that comes with watching a support act take to the stage to a nearly empty room, and tonight was a particularly tough draw for Kuntessa, whose audience numbered around 20 for her opener. She did at least seem to have three dedicated fans supportively bobbing up and down to the beat near the front, until I realised these were of course the Girl Ray trio willing on their friend. Astonishingly, the Italian electronica songwriter seemed unfazed, posing and preening joyfully across the stage and hilariously introducing zany songs that ranged from rants about her time as a bartender, her love of Kylie Minogue prosecco and a showstopper about wanting to become her crush’s bike saddle – all from her recent Pussy Pitstop EP, as she was at pains to remind us. It was a showing easily profane enough to prove the crudeness of her stage name is no mistranslated coincidence.
Support act Kuntessa played to an almost empty room. I positioned myself at the front during the final build up to Girl Ray’s set and had expected the wide empty space behind me to fill up with latecomers. Instead, there remained a six-feet radius around me and I ended up uncomfortably feeling like part of the show, feeling too exposed to slip back into the crowd; I was closer to frontwoman Poppy Hankin than any other audience member. It was perfect for dancing, yes (and it had been no problem when a similar thing happened for Los Bitchos last year), but also mildly embarrassing.
It was a shame, because this has been a big year for Girl Ray. Mirroring Jessie Ware, although on a much smaller scale, the trio has pivoted from serviceable indie pop to energising disco through their rewarding recent album Prestige, which presented a sort of raffish charm that suited a genre accustomed to not taking itself too seriously. Faultless pop tunes like Everybody’s Saying That and True Love have no doubt already fueled wild nights in Girl Ray’s familiar North London haunts but, like a hungry young football team contemplating an away day to Stoke, could they deliver the goods on a drab night in Leeds?
The answer was, sadly, not really. Opener True Love immediately fell flat when Hankin’s crucial rhythm guitar was rendered inaudible by a messy mix, and over the course of the next few songs the balance hardly improved even when Hankin repeatedly asked the sound engineer to turn her up. Unlike Kuntessa, Girl Ray seemed understandably a little deflated by the poor turnout on this, the penultimate night of a sizeable UK tour. The gave it an admirable good effort, but lyrics like “baby, get down with me,” simply don’t work without maximum gusto.
In the end, that was what condemned this brief gig: Girl Ray’s performance was never simply bad, just consistently unremarkable. Solos were unambitious, never venturing far from the original recording and lacking any sort of technical dazzle needed to wake up a tepid crowd. Hankin’s vocals sound endearingly rough and ready on the record, but here they just sounded ordinary and slightly held back, like a shy friend delivering a relatively impressive showing at karaoke, good enough for a few raised eyebrows, if not quite a free drink.
Nonetheless, there were highlights to be found once the worst of the mixing issues had been resolved. Tell Me was easily the band’s most exciting song and provided a workout for Sophie Moss on bass plus Girl Ray’s most pleasingly silly couplet: “baby, we were hot like a cigar / but here I am crying in the back of my car”. Hold Tight arrived with a bouncy electronic drum beat from Iris McConnell at the back of the stage and Hankin’s acoustic guitar strumming was buoyant and peppy, even if it seemed to take perhaps a little too much inspiration from George Michael’s Faith.
Give Me Your Love, Prestige’s 7 minutes, 43 seconds closer and arguably the only song in Girl Ray’s catalogue to show some genuine creative ambition, closed the set. I had found it underwhelming on the record but was hopeful it would come alive in person. The entry of a severely overblown kick drum, engulfing all other instruments with every beat, put a swift end to those hopes. It was so deafening it even seemed to startle the three band members at first – good for clearing out my sinuses, less good for closing out a pop concert. It was fitting for this gig that a final, potentially interesting crack at the vocoder from Hankin was almost entirely lost to the din.
I had hoped to meet one of the band at the merch stand afterwards, but having lingered for ten minutes I settled on telling Kuntessa how much I admired her confidence before attempting my exit, trying a door I’d been through on previous visits to Belgrave for investigative purposes. I quickly turned around when the same security guard as earlier told me in no uncertain terms that I had to leave the same way I came in. Feeling sheepish, I decided a bus home would be a solo adventure too far this time and called an Uber. For me as for Girl Ray, sometimes it’s just not your night.
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.
Eclectic was the word for this remarkable new project from Manchester Collective’s Rakhi Singh and Alan Keary. Singh’s Bach and Keary’s Reich were each fantastic in their own ways, but it was a chilling closing piece that had audience members either enthralled or clamouring for the exit.
Alan Keary is a man who knows his way around a loop pedal. Watching him construct a dense soundscape with only his voice at the start of haunting original composition Shattered Creek felt a bit like watching a passionate painter get lost in their work, each vocal loop a delicately judged brushstroke that contributed to an emerging whole. He told us in advance the song had been written in response to the news story of a man finding himself stranded in a deep Peruvian cave system for three days, and Keary was adept at recreating that lonely, echoey environment with eerie rumbles of bass and floods of reverb. Then, a new sound: two alternating tones, harsh and loud in the mix, apparently cued by Keary with one of the dozens of electronic buttons and knobs at his fingertips. For a moment, it seems like an odd addition to the mix, perhaps a misguided attempt to take things in an unexpected direction. Then Keary looks up to the back of the room, smiles and takes his hands off his electronics. It is, of course, just the Star and Shadow’s pesky fire alarm; the plumes of stage smoke had been atmospheric but evidently a bit over the top. Refreshingly humble despite the seriousness of his composition, Keary simply abandons Shattered Creek and starts harmonising with the alarm. Rakhi Singh promptly joins in with him on violin in a moment of improvisation that hints at the immense musical nous these two possess. When the alarm persists Keary even throws in some lyrics (“Fire alarm / You’re my best friend”) and the place erupts in laughter.
That was only one of the incidents in a rocky start to this memorable concert; Keary had to stop the previous song twice and apologise when he miscued his loop pedal during a particularly fiendish rhythmic passage. But, if any performers are up to the challenge of overcoming song-ruining technical difficulties and mistakes, its these two. Both Keary and violinist Rakhi Singh, two members of the sprawling Manchester Collective (of which Singh is Musical Director and Fergus McCreadie one of this season’s pianists) are immense professionals, more than self-assured enough to not let a few slip-ups disrupt their mojo. Their willingness to laugh rather than sulk or attempt to hide the errors is typical of a group in which the stuffy old world of classical music increasingly struggles to contain them. Their releases never fail to surprise, offering daring, fascinating and often challenging sounds that sit right on the modern extremes of what classical can be. Forget the well-documented styles of 20th century classical music – Manchester Collective explore the unchartered territory of 21st century classical. It is groups like these that will define how our era of the genre is remembers in the decades and centuries to come.
Alan Keary was an impressive multi-instrumentalist, playing bass, guitar, violin and electronics.
That’s not to say Manchester Collective shun music of centuries gone by in favour of more fashionable sounds. This gig started with the distinctly unfashionable music of Hildegard von Bingen, an 11th century philosopher and mystic as well as composer of deeply religious medieval music (remarkable not least because she was an exceedingly rare female academic) whose potent, deeply spiritual compositions were centuries ahead of their time. An opening rendition of O virtus Sapiente is given life by a Shruti box, a simple wooden box containing bellows that emit a constant, hypnotic drone, tonight powered by Singh gently stepping on an attached foot pedal. The one note instrument is traditionally used in music from the Indian subcontinent, but in Newcastle it made von Bingen’s ancient melodies sound strikingly alive, the hinge of the box softly opening and closing as if breathing, the drone fading gradually into nothing in the seconds after Singh stopped pumping the instrument.
That enchanting opener was only the beginning of this duo’s eclecticism. Von Bingen was followed by two Bulgarian folk songs in unusual time signatures, Keary offering nimble bass lines under Singh’s sprightly violin playing. The challenge was to make these strange rhythms feel natural and danceable rather than needlessly intellectual and complicated, a task which Singh and Keary’s vivacious playing mostly succeeded in (at least when Keary wasn’t missing his cues on the loop pedal). A pre-recorded percussion track was a good idea to elevate the particularly bouncy tune of Buchimish, even though the drumming came across as a little underpowered in comparison to the two outstanding players giving it their all in front of us.
The real meat of the programme came with solo turns from each performer in the middle of the concert. First, there was Singh performing J.S. Bach’s Chaconne, a notorious piece due to its demand for both the melody and bass line to be played simultaneously on a single violin. Singh made a point of prefacing her performance with the bass line played in isolation, explaining how Bach simply repeats it, only with a multitude of creative variations. Her care towards bringing out that bass line was clear throughout the subsequent rendition, the piece crucially never losing its musical guiding star. Chaconne is a fierce piece of music and Singh was its equal, striking her bow across the strings in those famously ferocious opening notes as if wielding a sword. It was an unremitting intensity that occasionally came at the expense of a handful of subtler moments in the piece, but when Bach’s melodies rose to their most stormy Singh’s playing was a tour de force. Such was Singh’s immense passion for the piece it was easy to miss the vast technical ability and extraordinary feat of memorisation on show – Chaconne may be 16 minutes long, but Singh is not the sort to seek comfort from sheet music.
Rakhi Singh played violin whilst pumping a Shruti box with her right foot.
Similarly engrossing was Keary’s moment in the spotlight, a movement from Electric Counterpoint by 20th century composer and defining figure of minimalist music Steve Reich. Unshaken by his earlier slip-ups, this was a masterclass in loop pedal skills. One by one, Keary stacked dozens of intricately plucked guitar melodies on top of one another, creating a musical house of cards that could have easily tumbled down had one addition been played ever so slightly too fast or two slow. Instead, he was metronomic, impressively able to apply exactly the same tone to every melody, resulting in a fascinatingly balanced tapestry of interlocking twangs. It may have been less emotionally compelling than Singh’s Chaconne, but Reich’s music doesn’t call for individualism but rather rigid discipline in pursuit of a mathematical sort of beauty. Keary was less a musician, more a machine-like music generator, and the brilliance of Electric Counterpoint shone as a result.
However, in the end Chaconne and Electric Counterpoint were really just preludes to the extraordinary work that closed this set. LAD, written by American composer Julia Wolfe in 2007, was originally written for nine bagpipes and, although there sadly wasn’t a band of pipers waiting behind the scenes at the Star and Shadow, Singh and Keary had plenty of tech to recreate an unassailable wall of sound with just two violins in Singh’s own arrangement of the piece. And what a sound; the blaring tones of LAD more closely resembled a spiritual out-of-body experience than a piece of music by any of the usual definitions. Singh herself prefers to talk of it as “an ancient cleansing ritual”. It was here that Singh’s fearlessness as a violinist really came into its own. Her opening notes – a lurching upwards slide, heavily thickened by effects and distortion – was followed by gaping silence, Singh pointedly glaring into the whites of the audience’s eyes, making a few seconds feel like minutes. Stood in the front row, I found myself averting her unflinching gaze, pulse quickening. She returned to those sliding notes, sounding somehow even more sickening than the first time, before staring in silence once more. Never before have I been so utterly floored by the opening to a piece of music. Soon a drone emerged and Keary joined in with the mounting cacophony, the excruciating tension rising impossibly via a particularly gut-churning use of the Shepard tone. Eventually, haunting folk tunes arose from the din like zombies from a grave, sounds of a past era back to haunt us. The noise became so horrific, so viscerally intense that not everyone in the room could handle it: two old ladies sat near me rather huffily gathered their things and left midway through, triggering a chuckle from Singh. Another couple near the front also vacated just as the piece was reaching its apex. A few minutes of chaos marked the finale, Singh and Keary playing a non-sensical tangle of notes that was so avant-garde it almost made this powerful work of art feel silly. Nonetheless, by the time they had finished (remarkably ending this rhythm-less piece perfectly in sync) it felt as something in the air had changed. The applause from those of us that remained was loud, long and deserved – I’ve never experienced anything quite like Manchester Collective’s LAD. This leg of their autumn tour may have had a shaky start, but it could hardly have ended more strongly: modern classical music at its enthralling, inspiring best.
A dejected, overwhelmed Lincoln set the scene for a thoroughly unprofessional showing from Penelope Scott, whose pitchy vocals and underwhelming songs made the hour feel like two.
Somewhere between Leeds and Manchester, the knot of anxiety in my stomach tightened. As the light outside the train window weakened, my apprehension of what was to come – namely a solo traversal of Manchester city centre by bus – strengthened. I am lucky to have travelled to far more exotic places than this, but something about the task of negotiating a ticket on the number 1 towards Wythenshaw from a no-nonsense Mancunian bus driver sent shivers down my spine. An egg sandwich bolted at a shady bus stop felt like battle fuel. Of course, as is almost always the case, there was absolutely nothing to worry about, although I had cut things finer than I anticipated, joining good friends Ewan and Isaac in the Deaf Institute’s bar queue with just enough time for hugs and Coke orders before the crowd cheered the night’s first performer onto the stage.
I wasn’t the only one feeling anxious that Wednesday night. Lincoln, a singer-songwriter from Ohio dealing in neatly packaged emo rock and painfully poetic lyrics, is the man responsible for what remains the finest EP I’ve ever heard, 2017’s A Constant State of Ohio. At five songs and 16 minutes long, there isn’t a single minute on Ohio where Lincoln loses his burning sense of creativity, with consistently thrilling songwriting and staggeringly stylish rock arrangements that belied the fact that it was his first – and for many years, only – official release, produced when he was still a teenager. It was this set of five tracks that caught the imaginations of 14-year-old Ewan and I, and we took to playing it in our high school’s only practice room, me bashing out the chords and bass lines on piano, Ewan playing guitar and singing along with all the heartfelt devotion that lyrics like these demand.
The fact that, somewhat out of the blue, Lincoln had booked a brief debut UK tour in support of Penelope Scott seemed too good to be true, and for those initial few minutes settling down in the beautifully restored Deaf Institute it still seemed ridiculous that this random American artist, adored by us and (more or less) us only, was just a matter of metres away from us. But there he was, plodding onto stage alone, head hung low and letting his now chest-length scraggly brown hair fall away in front of him, covering a wiry moustache that almost made Lincoln unrecognisable from the few, aged photos Ewan and I had seen of him online. Immediately, alarm bells were ringing. “There’s a lot of you here and… I’m not ready for this,” were his first tentative words, the crowd’s reaction gradually switching from laughter to intermittent cheers of encouragement as it became clear Lincoln wasn’t joking.
Right from those first words, it was obvious that Lincoln wouldn’t have the conviction to produce a satisfying support set, although circumstances didn’t help. Sat down and hunched over a guitar, he looked crushingly lonely on stage and needed other musicians not just for more visual interest but to beef out his songs – opener Smokey Eyes was a different song altogether without the spectacular drum fill intro that lights the touchpaper of the studio recording. Instead, Lincoln battled on alone, admirably pushing through what seemed like a genuine personal crisis but leaving little musical substance for the few fans like Ewan and I to cling to, even if Ewan proudly belted out every lyric in support anyway.
Lincoln had to battle through his set at the Deaf Institute.
Instrumentation aside, the lyrics remained extraordinary even if Lincoln often didn’t seem to enjoy delivering them. Lines like “quiet lies that you’re telling to those black and screaming skies” were appropriately spat out with disgust from the singer, as was Lincoln’s poetic assertion that “the sky is what we leave behind” on Downhill, which wrapped up this set powerfully as it did on the original EP. Not that Lincoln seemed at all aware of the effortless flow of his rhymes, instead rolling his eyes to the ceiling when they weren’t glued to his feet. He didn’t realise it, but they were songs that he had every right to be proud of.
It soon became clear exactly what he meant by “not ready”, too. Part of Lincoln’s apparent terror was the fact he had walked onto the stage without a plan, improvising a set list and often forgetting his lyrics. Every song seemed like a challenge to be overcome, and with awkward gap came the genuine risk that Lincoln might no longer be able summon the courage to continue at all. He needed the direct help of Ewan – easy to hear over a meek guitar intro – to find the opening line of Banks, a song that shouldn’t have been so difficult to remember; the stunning final four lines about the power and limitations of music and art in general remain etched in my memory since I first heard them years ago. As I would have the chance to insist on Lincoln later, if I was into tattoos, the lyric sheet of Banks would be my first point of call.
It wasn’t just Ewan unwaveringly powering Lincoln through this set, although they made up a big proportion of the most vocal supporters. Every song was cheered, every mumbled apology batted away with whoops and laughter and shouts of “we love you!” dotted around the room. When Lincoln cut his finger whilst strumming, one audience member even offered a plaster, symbolic of the band-of-friends atmosphere that had emerged in the Deaf Institute as we watched what felt like a mutual friend crumble in front of us. Of course, Lincoln declined the offer.
He finished the set with a subversion of the usual showman’s routine of lines like “I’m so sorry we’ve ran out of time” or “I can’t wait to see you all again soon!” Instead we got “I’m gonna get down off the stage. Can I do that?” It was a measure of the crowd’s sympathy that instead of the usual pantomime groans, the audience gave a loving, appreciative yes. With that Lincoln wiped his brow a final time, unplugged his guitar and slunk backstage.
Then something remarkable unfolded. Improbably, Ewan had acquired Lincoln’s personal email address in a thorough online trawl of the deepest corners of his elusive online presence in the weeks leading up to the gig, and had managed to persuade Lincoln into an exclusive interview for Ewan’s YouTube channel. After such a forlorn performance, the three of us wondered if he would appear after all, but sure enough Lincoln snuck out from a side door five minutes after leaving the stage, trailed by a lowkey stage manager. Venue security prohibited us from going outside, so the Deaf Institute’s atmospheric, gloomy stairwell would have to do for an interview venue. Lincoln Lutz from Cincinnati, Ohio is hardly Ed Sheeran, but meeting the creator of one of my most treasured works of art felt special. Ewan asked the questions (just as disbelieving as me), Isaac filmed and I positioned myself in a corner, trying to take it all in. Conversation veered chaotically from allusions to years of drug addiction and a sharp decline in mental health (about which Lincoln described himself as becoming “not a person”) to his newfound appreciation of the Manchester fruit juice delicacy Vimto. He was so addicted to nicotine that the transatlantic flight to the UK was a huge struggle, he would later tell me. When asked for wise words from Ewan, “don’t do crack!” was the half-jokey response, a sadness detectable in his muted laughter.
Ewan managed to grab a signature on their vinyl sleeve of Ohio before returning to the concert hall just in time for the appearance of the night’s main act, Penelope Scott. She is one of a new breed of TikTok star, unusual for having gained millions of monthly listeners with little to no mainstream coverage. Perhaps her wild success is down to just how much the Internet age dominates her music, which sounds like a corrupted, freakish video game soundtrack, restlessly lurching from punk rock to cutesy acoustic guitar to plodding 8-bit synths with a joyous disregard for the traditional rules of hit making.
There’s a limit to the mind-boggling numbers, though. The Deaf Institute, for one thing, is a humbling venue, housing just 250 fans at its capacity. Artists with her volume of streams – albeit largely coming from American shores – can at least aim for Gorilla’s 550 capacity, or perhaps even the 1,500 capacity O2 Ritz across the road (incidentally a venue which hosts the abysmally named Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs at the end of the month, a traditionally established metal band with a poxy 60,000 monthly listeners on Spotify). Alas, it seems streaming numbers aren’t everything in today’s gigging circuit. In fact, often they can be completely misleading.
Penelope Scott was in desperate need of a band to support her songs.
Scott’s lack of a backing band was perhaps even more underwhelming than Lincoln’s, largely neutering the tumultuous edge of much of Scott’s louder tracks. Feel Better, for instance, is home to Scott’s most impolite punk riff and was duly screamed in Manchester, but ended up sounding impotent with minimal support behind Scott’s vocals. More often the songs resembled a campfire singalong on a school residential trip, complete with awkward chat between songs and a proudly singing crowd that often drowned out Scott’s weedy amplification. The whiny vocals, invariably pitchy and occasionally nauseating, would have been acceptable from an overconfident middle schooler, but at a show like this were simply below the bare minimum required from a headline act. It was a shame there was no supervising schoolteacher to tell Scott that maybe it was time to give it a rest.
It didn’t help that the songs Scott was singing lacked much of Lincoln’s depth, often reading like stream of consciousness posts from a 15-year-old American girl’s Tumblr page. American Healthcare was typical of Scott’s general rage at the establishment without being able to pin down any specifics beyond scorn towards all those “corporate fucking pricks”. “I bet my shit all sounds the same to you,” she railed at an unappreciative ex on genuinely promising new piano number Cabaret, unaware that, at least when she restricts herself to plonky piano songs and flimsy mid-range vocals, the guy might actually have a point.
The real nail in the coffin, though, was the dearth of professionalism on show. Like Lincoln, although with a less obvious excuse, Scott seemed to have no plan when it came to a set list, nor even when it came to what key to play her songs in; at one point she completely restarted a song after deciding the starting note ought to be a bit lower. Instrumental sections were needlessly injected with lines like “just bear with me here” and “ooh I like this bit” as her tempos veered faster and slower like a bucking bronco.
The evening’s nadir came when Someone Like You began playing through the speakers after Scott left her laptop playing on shuffle after one backing track had finished. I say nadir – it might have been the musical highlight of the night had Scott just sat back and let the Adele classic ring out. Instead, she fumbled her way to the back of the stage and instructed us to talk amongst ourselves as she wrangled with her audio files for two excruciating minutes. As Isaac and Ewan pointed out, it was hardly Mitski-level artistry. With a bored-looking Soap, Scott’s set was over, an hour long reminder that sometimes TikTok success just doesn’t make sense.
The three of us lingered in the venue until security told us to leave. I was surprised by how much passionate Scott fans Ewan and Isaac agreed with my general disappointment. The gig had left a bitter aftertaste for us all given the toils involved in getting to Manchester on a Wednesday night in the first place. Ewan slipped backstage and bumped into both performers whilst Isaac and I waited outside, Ewan eventually emerging with a pizza-hungry Lincoln following behind. We stood in line with Lincoln at Domino’s – a genuinely surreal experience – before relocating to a shady bench where we chatted happily despite the growing chill and the unsettling number of beggars approaching us. We said our goodbyes to Lincoln at midnight and walked to Piccadilly still in disbelief. Ewan seemed dazed after a meaningful conversation with a deeply influential musical hero, leaving Isaac and I to be giddy on their behalf. The journey home would be gruelling, but discussing the most impossible events of the night – Lincoln referring to Ewan as a friend, the fact the embattled Lincoln had even agreed to chat in the first place – it was clear to all of us that this venture had been worth it, albeit for everything besides the music.
