And now I am moving on
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...
#24 : Inner Song - Kelly Lee Owens
Among a huge cohort of artists finding hard-won inner peace this year, the Welsh producer cast off limiting relationships and superficial pleasures on her second album. “Less of who I am for you in case I offend you,” she rued on the song LINE, pledging to be alone instead. With that resolve came an expansion of Owens’ sound: encouraged by Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, she sang more and counterbalanced her emotionally astute songwriting with increasingly daring production – on Melt!, puckered rapids of minimal techno traced the cracking of an ice cap. Both sides combined gorgeously on Re-Wild, where frost seemed to sprawl forth from Owens’ voice as she recognised “the power in me”.
I like Kelly Lee Owens and I liked this album when I listened to it a couple of months ago - so it's no surprise that I enjoyed listened to it again. Except for the John Cale track - he's a man with the reverse Midas touch and 7 minutes of him blethering about the rain does not make for fun. But the rest of it is great - it's very similar to Jon Hopkins if you're aware of his stuff. I like the musicality of it and I like her voice - so yes, I'm a fan.
"Customers also listened to" Jessy Lanza (here) which I'm not sure I totally see and a load of other people I'm not aware of who I might have to investigate. Don't really have much more to say other than it won't be for everyone, but I like it.
#23 : Suddenly - Caribou
A sense of emotional overload permeated Caribou’s 10th album, a response to several years of death and divorce in Dan Snaith’s family. The album surged forth and pulled back, often within the same song. Sunny’s Time pitched a slurping piano refrain against a rap sample smashed into terrazzo; a spiralling synth seemed to make the whole uncanny confection levitate. Snaith’s plaintive voice, reminiscent of Arthur Russell, contrasted soulful samples to particular effect on Home, as if contrasting reality and desire. And although Suddenly was less club-facing than Caribou’s previous albums Our Love and Swim, Snaith’s pleasure centres remained satisfyingly intact on the understated house of Never Come Back, and the filtered giddiness of Ravi.
I've been aware of Caribou's existence for quite some time now (he's been around for 15 years apparently - no idea when I first heard of him though) but I couldn't tell you whether I'd ever listened to anything by him so had no idea what to expect. And having heard it, I can't really tell you what I heard. I think Moby is probably my best reference - they're both that kind of "nice" music which you may enjoy (or you may hate) without really seeing what the point to it all is. From the description above, I suspect I might enjoy his earlier "more club-facing" albums, but I'm sorry to say I found his voice a bit annoying, so I suspect I'll be washing my hair that evening.
Wikipedia tells me that Caribou used to perform under the name Manitoba, but changed to Caribou after being threatened with a lawsuit by Richard "Handsome Dick" Manitoba. He also has a PhD from Imperial for work on Overcovergent Seigel Modular Systems and he himself described his work as "original, but I would still call it trivial" which suggests he's not someone who takes himself too seriously, which I fully applaud. "Customers also listened to" Kelly Lee Owens and Haim apparently - not sure I see the connection there at all, but hey. An interesting diversion but one unlikely to be repeated by me.
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