Paul Weller "Fat Pop (Volume 1)" (2021)

Fat Pop (Volume 1)

release date: May 14, 2021

format: digital

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,76]

producer: Paul Weller & Jan 'Stan' Kybert

label: Polydor Records - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Cosmic Fringes" - 2. "True (feat. Lia Metcalfe)" - 3. "Fat Pop" - 4. "Shades of Blue" - 5. "Glad Times" (live on Later) - 6. "Cobweb / Connections" - 8. "That Pleasure" - 11. "In Better Times" (4 / 5) (live in session)

[ special 5-track Fat Pop-performance ]

16th studio album by Paul Weller released only 10 months after his fine On Sunset (Jul. 2020), and again it's a release featuring producer and multi-instrumentalist Jan Kybert, who first worked with Weller on the album Studio 150 in 2004, and who has since then taken part on most of Weller's studio albums, either as musician or as co-producer.

The album nicely follows the musical expression you'll find on the 2020 album without being mere repetition. It rather seems as if Weller in his older days has come up with his very own expression, which lends from all sorts of genres and styles, but which nevertheless sounds unmistakably as Paul Weller only and no one else. It's British soul with strong roots in the golden beat music of the 60s, and then it's spiced up with mod, traditional American r&b, and equal parts of modern styles making him sound as a one-man Gorillaz band, and yet at other times you may sense it sounds oddly familiar, as on the both beautiful and heartfelt "In Better Times", where the mood alone brings back vivid memories of fine ballads from The Jam, The Style Council, or from Weller's early solo releases, and yet the track appears completely new and personal.

Once again, Weller ranks among the finest English songwriters without sounding old-school or out of sync with present-day.

Recommended.

[ allmusic.com, NME 4 / 5, Clash, American Songwriter, musicOMH 3,5 / 5 stars ]

Mark Kozelek "Mark Kozelek" (2018)

Mark Kozelek

release date: May 11, 2018

format: 2 cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]

producer: Mark Kozelek

label: Caldo Verde - nationality: USA

Track highlights: Disc 1) 1. "This Is My Town" - 2. "Live in Chicago - 3. "The Mark Kozelek Museum" - 4. "My Love for You Is Undying" - 5. "Weed Wacker" - 6. "Sublime"

Disc 2) 1. "Good Nostalgia" - 2. "666 Post" - 5. "I Cried During Wall Street"

Solo album by Mark Kozelek following the ep Night Talks (Mar. 2017) but this is only when counting pure Kozelek releases 'cause in between these two, Kozelek has issued two collaboration albums: Yellow Kitchen (Jun. 2017) together with Sean Yeaton (bassist in noise folk band Parquet Courts) and Mark Kozelek with Ben Boye and Jim White (Oct. 2017) - Boye has performed on several albums by Kozelek (often when performing as Sun Kil Moon) and Australian drummer Jim White (who has a long history as sessions musicians for e.g. Cat Power, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, and Martha Wainwright), White also plays drums on the Yellow Kitchen album. This album consists of 11 tracks. It comes as an 11 track digital album, a 2 CD issue, and as a 2 lp vinyl issue, all with a total running length of more than 88 minutes.

Kozelek continues his flow of releases, which has been an ongoing production in the fast lane for most of a decade. He has issued an abundance of releases either using his birthname, his moniker Sun Kil Moon, or he has been engaged in various collaboration projects with a long list of others with different musical background. The common denominator is, however, Kozelek's songwriting - it's primarily long compositions, varying in length from typically 4 to 15 mins and characterised by drone-like or progressive backing, which at times, and especially when referring to his latest works, are pure improvs. Also his lyrics. Kozelek has taken a move away from written material to compositions which are pure streams of consciousness. A negative response to this labels some of his albums as 'babbling', and then others appreciate his original style. The thing is, when listening attentively to his narrations, there are always funny aspects and if you accept the style and forget that lyrics should be sung - Kozelek often just rambles along like reading aloud from diary notes mixed with journals or news paper articles, and he always takes a strating point in experienced episodes - but this may take him far. He has certain preferred subjects, which include boxing, music, drinking, authors, films and actors, and then he also talks explicitly about sex, and a constant here are his everday life experiences of ordinary things like shopping, meeting people ion the street, discusssions with someone about life or death or just about who's right and who's wrong, and then: descriptions of the road, the apartment, where he finds himself, seing cats or dogs, about forgetting, about remembering something important / not really important, about what he thinks of this or that song, this or that album. It's like listening to someone talking about everything and nothing. But. That can be a fascinating journey, and that's what I have come to enjoy about Kozelek: he's a great narrator.

It has taken me quite some time to get accustomed to Kozelek's change of style going from distinct alt. folk with bonds to americana and indie folk and / or indie rock to this modern expression of his, which at first could sound like he's not really making any efforts anymore. But I mostly just enjoy his sometimes hilarious observations, and I have come to see it more in line with other types of artistic advancement. Think of the progression of style by Picasso - imagine the sublime painter, who was fully capable of producing natural / photo-like and detailed sceneries, and then he went through stages with surrealism, developing cubism and a freer form of new-cubism - fra from his starting point. Now, Kozelek is no Picasso, and the comparison may seem ridiculous, but Kozelek too has gone his own ways in forming a new musical style based on improvs in a scenery of spoken-word arrangements. Like it or not, but this is his prefered expression at this point in a long career.

Recommended.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Pitchfork 6,8 / 10, TheNeedleDrop 7 / 10, SputnikMusic 3,6 / 5 stars ]

Robert Forster "Songs to Play" (2015)

Songs to Play

release date: Sep. 18, 2015

format: digital (10 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]

producer: Robert Forster, Luke McDonald & Scott Bromiley

label: Tapete Records - nationality: Australia

Track highlights: 2. "Let Me Imagine You" - 4. "And I Knew" - 6. "I'm so Happy for You" - 8. "Turn on the Rain" - 9. "I Love Myself and I Always Have" - 10. "Disaster in Motion"

6th studio album by Robert Forster following a full 7½ years after The Evangelist (Apr. 2008). Apparently, most of these songs were written in 2010 / 2011 but weren't recorded until around five years later. Forster has explained that he needed a break in his music career, and initially had set himself up for a five-year hiatus, which then turned into seven... It was a period during which he wrote music articles and simultaneously worked on his autobiography. The album has been made completely without former collaborators Adele Pickvance and Glenn Thompson. Forster clearly wanted to make a fresh restart and in their place he has invited the two members from Australian The John Steel Singers: Luke McDonald and Scott Bromiley - both as multi-instrumentalists. Forster produced the band's 2010 debut Tangalooma and together they then played some of these songs, which would end up on Songs to Play, and here the two are also credited as co-producers. Forster's wife, Karin Baümler, previously participated on his albums playing violin and doing backing vocals, but on this, she has played a fuller part on all tracks, and together with drummer Matt Piele from Forster's tour band, they all form the new backing 'band', which of course gives the output new colours.

Although McDonald and Bromiley have been given rein to contribute with their ideas, it's still very much a Robert Forster solo with lyrics and music credited the man himself. The style is laid in an acoustic contemporary folk rock characterised by strong bonds to classic rock & roll in its simplest form. At times it's uptempo without being danceable rock and the songs appear with a marked lightness compared to the gloomier tone on his previous albums.

Songs to Play is an album where the music has come to the fore and Forster successfully acts as a classic singer / songwriter without being weighed down by his former achievements, suppressed emotions and the melancholy, which have been natural traits in the past, and by that, the album could pave the way for a new dynamic in his original musical realm. In any case, it's not an album, as the predecessor, that sounds like falling in between The Go-Betweens and a solo album - it's definitely a pure Robert Forster release on which he deals with the present.

The front cover is a photo of Robert and Karin's daughter Loretta Forster.

Recommended.

[ allmusic.com, PopMatters 3,5 / 5, The Guardian 4 / 5 stars ]

Kraftwerk "The Mix" (1991)

2009 remaster

The Mix

release date: Jun. 11, 1991

format: cd (2009 remaster)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,38]

producer: Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider

label: Kling Klang / EMI - nationality: Germany

10th studio album by Kraftwerk following a full five years after Electric Cafe (1986) isn't officially a compilation, although it may perfectly appear as that since it's dedicated to compositions stemming from all of the band's studio albums beginning with Autobahn (1974) right up to the most recent studio album Electric Cafe (1986). Ralf Hütter has offered his thoughts on why it's not to be considered a compilation or let alone a remix album, as others would claim. He states that these tracks are an expression of the band's live versions of well-known songs, all of which have been subjected to reshaping during the many years of performances. Since '86 percussionist Wolfgang Flür has left the band and as of '87, he was practically substituted by Fritz Hilpert. In 1990, Karl Bartos also left the band, after which Fernando Abrantes took over in his place and on the album here, but Abrantes left shortly after the release only to be replaced by Henning Schmitz.

Incidentally, 2009 is the year in which Kraftwerk reissued all of the it's essential albums in newly remastered editions - like this one - and they also reissued the box set Der Katalog (2004) with a back cover label '12345678', indicating the band's 8 studio albums from 1974 to 2003. Regardless Hütter's explanation, and intention, it doesn't change the fact that the tracks on The Mix have all been taken from previously released studio albums, and yes, they are here in completely new remixed versions. The album consists of 11 tracks and has a total running length of 65 minutes.

From both Autobahn (1974) and Radio-Aktivität (1975) only the respective title tracks have been included; from Trans Europa Express (1977) three tracks are included: the title track, "Abzug" and "Metall auf Metall"; from the album Die Mensch-Maschine (1979) only "Die Roboter" has found its way the this; from Computerwelt (1981) we again find three selected tracks: "Taschenrechner", "Computer Liebe", and "Heimcomputer", and from Electric Cafe (1986) only the song "Music Non-Stop" is included. With a bit of quick math, that sums up to only ten tracks, and that's because, in addition to album tracks, there's also room for "Dentaku", which is a Japanese version of "Taschenregner" in a slightly different version, originally featured as a B-side to the single release.

The album received a slightly luke-warm reception, but still landed at number #7 in Germany and at number #15 in the UK. Kraftwerk also released the new versions of "Die Roboter" and "Radio-Aktivität" as the two (promotional) singles from the album.

The Mix is a fine album without dazzling. However, I think that especially the earliest compositions have been altered and given a more modern sound in such a way that they certainly don't stand as improvements to the originals. Later well-known tracks have been exposed to a little bit of everything, and at the end, the album is mostly for fans and connoisseurs, as others will be better served with the original versions. And of course you're are free to think what you want about all their fine tracks they have passed on and not included here. You may ask yourself why on Earth they didn't just release a double album, when there's plenty of material to revisit? It's certainly not an essential release, which basically functions more as bonus material - an appendix you can easily do without.

[ allmusic,com, Mojo 3 / 5, Q Magazine, Uncut 4 / 5 stars ]

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Cassandra Jenkins "Play Till You Win" (2017)

Play Till You Win [debut]

release date: Apr. 7, 2017

format: digital (11 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]

producer: Cassandra Jenkins & Sam Owens

label: self-released - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Candy Crane" (live) - 2. "Tennessee Waltz" - 5. "Red Lips" - 6. "Disappearing" - 9. "Disco Death Dance" - 10. "Some Time" - 11. "Halley" (live)

Full-length studio album debut by Cassandra Jenkins is a decent first-attempt where she already upholds a certain self-reliance as someone who's been around much longer. And that is something, which is stressed by how the album is both a coherent and nicely varied experience. She has her own laid-back singing style and maturely builds on classic folk rock and country of the 70s without sounding dated. What lacks, are stronger personal songs and some of the original quality you'll find on her later releases, but all in all, Play Till You Win is a fine debut.

[ The Line of Best Fit 7,5 / 10 stars ]