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Impressive world music with blend of the emotional and political
Best track: Timadrit in Sahara Worst track: Sendad Eghlalan Rating: *** Top 10 Singles Happy...........................................Pharrell Williams (CU) Dark Horse...........................Katy Perry feat. Juicy J (FD) All of Me..............................................John Legend (CU) Drunk In Love ............................Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z (FD) Pompeii......................................................Bastille (CU) Team............................................................Lorde (NM) Say Something.........A Great Big World & C Anguilera (FD) Timber........................................Pitbull feat. Ke$ha (FD) The Man.................................................Aloe Blacc (NE) Story of My Life..................................One Direction (FD) Legend: CU): Climbing Up (FD): Falling own (NM): Non-mover (NE): New Entry A bittersweet execution Angel Olsen — Burn Your Fire For No Witness (Jagjaguwar) Following on from her enthralling debut album Half Way Home, Missouri-born Angel Olsen has turned things up a notch with her latest effort Burn Your Fire For No Witness. While Half Way Home may have marked her as a musician of considerable talent, it is on her current work that we see its true realisation. Hi-Five has got to be one of the most cheerful songs ever written about being lonely. Olsen begins by paraphrasing Hank Williams with the line “I feel so lonesome I could cry,” and the music twists the sounds of country into an up-tempo track. Producer John Congleton achieves a remarkable balance for Olsen’s moodswings, judiciously adding echo or pushing her voice back in the mix in order to convey the right expressions. On Enemy, she sings of how “You could be the only one who knows the truth of me”, accompanied by anything but her own guitar, in perhaps the most direct moment on the record. Emotional heavyweight White Fire is a prime example of just how powerful Olsen is when she is left to her own devices. It is almost seven minutes of barely audible guitar, with the central focus on Olsen’s devastating, brooding vocals as she sings, “I laughed so loud inside myself it all began to hurt.” Whether it’s the Patsy Cline-esque Lights Out or the ethereal closer Windows, Olsen’s agile, otherworldly chant excels and shines. But Burn Your Fire For No Witness requires patience to reveal all its charms. Best track: White Fire Worst track: Dance Slow Decades Rating ** Sublime subterranean pop music Dum Dum Girls — Too True (Sub Pop)
Elsewhere, Are You Okay? recalls the weaving, dropping layered vocals of Elizabeth Fraser while Evil Blooms takes the Scottish singer’s unearthly style and sets it to a propulsive and pounding beat. The album’s closer, Trouble Is My Name, features the dreamy refrain, “Trouble is my name/Is it your name too?” before your journey is over and you’re returned to your reality. Best track: Trouble Is My Name Worst track: Under These Hands Rating *** Well-written balance between depth & melody Phantogram - Voices (Republic)
Best track: Fall in Love Worst track: Howling at the Moon Rating ***
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Grammy-winning Tinariwen is a hard rocking blues band formed in a refugee camp in Libya in the early 1980s, made up of nomadic Touaregs from the Malian Sahara desert. Forced to flee their native soil due to political trouble in northern Mali, these eight Tuareg musicians from the Sahara decided to record their sixth LP in the more stable deserts of Joshua Tree, California. Borne out of tradition of story-telling that passed down through generations alongside the sounds of native instruments, their music plays a hugely significant part of the Malian character and identity. The album begins with the deep cadence of American poet Saul Williams underscored by a lap steel guitar. There are plenty of highlights, from the call-and-response vocals of Timadrit in Sahara to the Jimmy Page-esque guitar lines of Imidiwanin ahi Tifhamam. Though it was recorded far from Mali, Toumast Tincha finds the band looking back at their native country’s troubles. “The ideals of the people have been sold cheap, my friends,” sings bassist Eyadou ag Leche, “A peace imposed by force is bound to fail/ And gives way to hatred.” On Arhegh Danagh, there is certain weariness to the singing but the dedication of each band member to their craft, shines through as the music parts weaves together. The core musical influence throughout is most definitely blues, with songs like Chaghaybou using a bluesy sitar sound, keeping the Tuareg vibe at its centre.
2012’s fine End of Daze EP revealed a band graduating from the lo-fi to cleaner sounding pop excellence, and where that EP left off, Too True picks up. Band leader and chief songwriter Dee Dee Penny still remains a wiz with rhythm hooks, memorable melodies and slickly constructed tunes. Opening track Cult of Love features a solo seemingly transported from the 1950s era of Hank Marvin, followed by the Bunnymen’s homage to Will Sergeant on the driving Little Minx. Sleek and sophisticated, this third full-length album travels from muscular blasts of the 1980s guitar rock (In the Wake of You) to spectral ballads (Are You Okay?). Working again with Svengali Richard Gottehrer and the Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner, the band finds a fine middle ground between their signature detachment and a classic pop sensibility. Rimbaud Eyes is an instant favourite. It's a proof of Dee Dee’s recently quoted inspiration of legendary poets and celebrated poetic musicians like Patti Smith. 
Ever since their 2010 gem Eyelid Movies, New York electro-duo Phantogram have been one of the most- talked-about buzz bands. After collaborating with the Flaming Lips and Big Boi from OutKast, the duo makes a bid for the big time with Voices, its first major label release. The album flaunts Barthel and Carter’s expanded range, opening with the superbly jolting single Nothing But Trouble, which begins with Barthel singing, “Do you ever have the feeling that you constantly been dreaming this is life?”
The duo’s poetic-romantic sensibilities are easier to spot in Never Going Home, sung plaintively and mightily by Carter. Co-produced by John Hill, the album touches on several genres from torchy synthpop and soulful hip-hop to electro and melancholy rock. Each song is loaded with scattered beats and surprises, creating a diverse array of sounds and synths. Lead single Fall in Love opens with strings and a circadian rhythm that allows Barthel to be deeply romantic and melodic. Carter’s most prominent vocals on the album come in the form of I Don’t Blame You, a somber contemplation on severed romantic ties. Other standouts from Voices include Bill Murray, The Day You Died and Bad Dreams, which carries the signature Phantogram sound with a surprising beat underneath. During its brightest points, the album is packed with graceful tonal flourishes and sweeping electronic excursions, which perfectly compliment the raw emotional sentiments layered within the heart of the songs themselves.
