Johnny Marr "Fever Dreams Pts 1 - 4" (2022)

Fever Dreams Pts 1 - 4

release date: Feb. 25, 2022

format: digital (16 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,16]

producer: Johnny Marr & James Doviak

label: BMG - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Spirit Power and Soul" - 2. "Receiver" - 7. "Sensory Street" - 10. "Night and Day" - 14. "Ghoster"

4th solo studio album from former guitarist in The Smiths, Johnny Marr, follows a little more than 3½ years after the album Call the Comet (June 2018). It's made in a collaboration with producer James Doviak, who has featured on Marr's last three albums and is co-producer on all Marr's four solos. Marr and Doviak both featured on the album All for a Reason by the band Haven in 2004 and the two have since worked closely together.

Marr is clearly inspired by the harmony-driven Pop productions of the 1960s - with a preference for Phil Spector's sound universe - and he has released music in a mix combining traits from pop / rock and jangle pop. These signature styles are also some of the most obvious ingredients you meet on this one. The album has already been met by positive reviews, especially from the British Isles, though I'm not entirely convinced. By all means, it's nicely sounding, and it's altogether a well-made production, but it's not exactly highly original, and it's a little hard to point to Marr's distinctiveness on an album that most of all sounds like something his former songwriter colleague Morrissey could have made. It may be a little more uptempo and rock-shaped than what Morrissey usually fabricates, but the vocals, arrangements and even the rhymes sound a lot like from the aforementioned neighbourhood. Admittedly, Marr has not always represented the best vocal performances, but here he succeeds stronger than usual. What you don't get is a personal expression, which could provide us with more than a mix of something that has been made - many times before.

Not really recommended.

[ allmusic.com, The Guardian, Mojo, NME, Clash Music 4 / 5, UnderTheRadar 6.5 / 10 stars ]

Jon Hopkins "Music for Psychedelic Therapy" (2021)

Music for Psychedelic Therapy

release date: Nov. 12, 2021

format: digital (9 x File, FLAC) (WIG458D)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]

producer: Jon Hopkins

label: Domino - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Welcome" (feat. 7RAYS) - 2. "Tayos Caves, Ecuador i" - 3. "Tayos Caves, Ecuador ii" - 4. "Tayos Caves, Ecuador iii" - 5. "Love Flows Over Us in Prismatic Waves" - 6. "Deep in the Glowing Heart" - 7. "Ascending, Dawn Sky" (feat. 7RAYS) - 8. "Arriving" (feat. 7RAYS) - 9. "Sit Around the Fire" (feat. Ram Dass & East Forest)

[ full album playlist ]

6th studio album by Jon Hopkins following 3½ years after Singularity (May 2018). The album contains nine tracks with a total running time exceeding 63 minutes, and it contains collaborations with 7RAYS, East Forest, and it builds on teachings (and the voice of) the late Ram Dass. Bearing in mind that East Forest is the alias for American electronic ambient artist Trevor Oswalt, who experiments with music for 'inner voyages', and that the late Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert) was an American spiritual teacher and yoga guru, you may get the picture of this album, which also happens to come out after a pandemic and extensive lockdowns.

Where his 2013 breakthrough album showed everyone he was a master of progressive dance-oriented break grooves, his 2018 album proved to be a trip into deep space, this new one is again something entirely different. It's still an electronic release, but other than being instrumentally founded it's another kind of journey we're invited on. Singularity had more ambient feel to it, and that trend goes more full blown with this- and when comparing to his 2013 album, it mostly leaves you with the impression of being made by a different artist. The title Music for Psychedelic Therapy literally says everything you need to know. The music here is meant for what it proclaims. Hopkins has taken his fascination for transcendal meditation and mindfulness into his work in a new way, and the album comes out as an instrument, or a manifestation for inner journeys.

I normally don't fancy ambient or trance that much, and that's to put it nicely, but this deserves anyone's attention. It's hard to pin out highlights as the whole album is like one organism. I can only imagine how powerful it would be submerged into this while meditating. I think, I need to give it a try. The album may be his closest to some of the ideas behind Eno's music, but this is just so much better.

Highly recommended.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Pitchfork 7,4 / 10, Mojo, 👍PopMatters 4 / 5, Clash, Exclaim! 4,5 / 5, 👎The Guardian 3 / 5 stars ]

Brimheim "Can’t Hate Myself Into a Different Shape" (2022)

Can’t Hate Myself Into a Different Shape [debut]

release date: Jan. 28, 2022

format: digital (11 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,78]

producer: Søren Buhl Lassen [?]

label: self-released - nationality: Faroe Islands, Denmark

Track highlights: 1. "Heaven Help Me I've Gone Crazy" - 2. "Can't Hate Myself Into a Different Shape" - 3. "Baleen Feeder" (live) - 6. "Favorite Day of the Week" - 7. "Hey Amanda" - 9. "This Weeks Laundry"

Studio album debut from Danish-Faroese Brimheim, aka Helena Heinesen Rebensdorff released with aid from WAS Entertainment and via her bandcamp.com profile. The total of 11 tracks have a running time around 37 mins and they're all credited Helena Rebensdorff and Søren Buhl Lassen (drummer of Blaue Blume) - previously he collaborated with danish artist Benjamin Hav - but there's little information about the production of the album regarding featuring instrumentalists as well as technical staff.

Musically, it's indie pop with traces of singer / songwriter or folk pop with hints from introspective threads to Phoebe Bridgers, who has herself listened to Kate Bush and uptempo-songs filled with an audacious mindset and presumed inspiration in Alanis Morissette and PJ Harvey without ever sounding like a copy. It's quite impressively arranged and produced, and it reeks the kind of coherency as something you would expect from an artist later on in his / her career. There's a certain maturity to the music and lyrics indicating that Brimheim herself has turned 30, is a mother who has already enough life experience to as foothold, and in that way is far from a mere whiz-kid. Mind you, Brimheim has already released the 5-track ep Myself Misspelled in 2020 and the single Call It What You Want in '21, which had some airplay in on the national DR P3, however, it's not a major back catalogue, calling for the title as 'Best promising Danish Act of the Decade', or the like - something Danmarks Radio in the local echo chamber with some success have applied to their very own radio host Drew Sycamore, although, she's nowhere near the talent and originality of Brimheim. The narratives on Can’t Hate Myself Into a Different Shape mainly touch on the subjects of identity and prejudice, and from what I've managed to read about some of her experiences in that regard, it appears that Rebensdorff has something to draw on, and she does that with great skills while abstaining from sentimentallity and by avoiding to take position as a victim.

Previously, both Oh Land, Rebekkamaria, and Medina have all sought for an international pop-sound in the neighborhood of a mix á la Alanis Morissette and the more introspective á la someone like Sharon Van Etten without copying Lykke Li, Anna Ternheim, or Ane Brun. Helena Rebensdorff succeeds on her own terms, and it remains a mystery, touching on ridiculous, that a major label haven't been able to notice the obvious potential and thrown in the right amounts of money, a promotion campaign, and a solid marketing strategy to secure Brimheim and this very album. Hopefully, it's just no longer necessary if the talent is sufficient support, people's eyes and ears will probably create an interest in Brimheim, who then will take care of the rest herself.

Can't Hate Myself Into a Different Shape is up for grabs as Danish release of the year and can only be recommended

[ Gaffa.dk, Soundvenue 5 / 6 stars ]

#YearBestDanishAlbum