Hatchie’s vocals float above a sun-dappled wash of guitars and electronics.Credit:Lisa Businovski.
DREAM POP Hatchie
Keepsake (Ivy League) ★★★★
Hatchie is the alter-ego of Brisbane’s Harriet Pilbeam, who makes the kind of music where vocals float beguilingly above a sun-dappled wash of jangly guitars and warm electronics, and Keepsake is her debut album after a very well-received EP, Sugar and Spice.
Hatchie neither hides her influences nor hides behind them. Listeners who were into indie music circa 1990 will note resemblances to the jangly guitar pop of the Sundays, the unassumingly sweet vocals of the Hummingbirds and the sonic manipulation and drum machines of the Cocteau Twins.
But Pilbeam was yet to be born in 1990 and clearly she hears different possibilities in those textures. Keepsake shows exactly why Hatchie has already become a fixture on the international festival circuit: she has a fully formed, distinctive sound that, for all its influences, hits the mark in 2019.
Although such highlights as Without a Blush or Obsessed show why she has won that "next big thing" tag, there is still room for improvement here: while some songs only unveil themselves after a few listens, others continue to float past, sounding great, without getting their hooks into you. TIM BYRON
ART POP Fruit Bats
Gold Past Life (Merge) ★★★★
The "folk" label, or any variation of it, has always seemed a misnomer when applied to Eric D Johnson and his Fruit Bats vehicle, now onto its seventh album in its 22nd year.
His sweetly melodic, smart songs actually have more in common with the sophisticated pop of 10cc, or even the soul-influenced MOR of Hall & Oates. Gold Past Life continues along these lines, with Johnson's capacity for a gloriously catchy, precisely chiselled song on full display on both the record's brilliant title track and A Lingering Love, in which pedal steel mixes with a disco beat and synthesiser.
And while Johnson's strongest suit is undoubtedly up-tempo power-pop, here he also demonstrates that signature economy, symmetry and accessibility on the acoustic ballad, Ocean. The album's mournful and nostalgic lyrics, meanwhile, make for a sharp contrast with the warm, positively buoyant nature of Johnson's song structures and rich production.
It can be boring when veteran artists produce unfailing high standards release after release (call it "Ron Sexsmith syndrome"), but thanks to the album's originality and heart, this is not the case with Fruit Bats. BARNABY SMITH
JAZZ Lachy Hamilton
Alchemy (lachyhamilton.com) ★★★½
John Sangster did it with Tolkien, Jeremy Rose with The Fatal Shore and Ellen Kirkwood, Barney McAll and the Allan Browne Quintet have done it with multiple sources. So, in using Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist as a launch-pad for his first album, saxophonist Lachy Hamilton joins a rich tradition of programmatic works of Australian jazz.
The opening The Crystal Merchant, a modest, straight-ahead swinger, has the most oblique connection to the story, but thereafter both the music and programmatic relevance intensify.
The through-composed Fatima – Woman of the Desert delightfully catches a sense of mystery and infatuation, and could well have been extended further. Urim and Thummin spawns a Hamilton tenor solo showing a striking ability to alchemise a liquid flow of ideas into a much more robust and compelling statement, and also boasts a brilliantly developed foray from pianist Matt Harris.
A faint ghost of Coltrane haunts The Wind, the Sun, and the Hand of God, which contains quicksilver trumpet from Thomas Avgenicos. Bassist Harry Morrison and drummer Patrick Danao capably flesh out the band, and while two standards rather break the Alchemy spell, this is an impressive debut. JOHN SHAND
ELECTRONIC Thom Yorke
Anima (XL/Remote Control) ★★★★½
As a looming existential crisis threatens to end humanity as we know it, a likely dystopia isn’t a concept that seems that incredulous. While Thom Yorke, the ever-elusive and wildly experimental Radiohead frontman, has always dabbled within these themes, Anima acts as a precursor to what some might now perceive as an inevitable D-Day, incidentally melding a relationship between uncertain paranoia and blissful ignorance on what is undeniably his most cohesive and ambitious record to date.
Traffic has heavy, bass-driven synth overlaid with his characteristically haunting vocals, dissipating into maniacal arpeggios towards the end, while the endearing Twist serves as an early climax that solidifies Yorke as a producer with nothing left to prove, employing a thumping beat undoubtedly inspired by the clandestine techno pits found among the shadows of Berlin.
The unsettling Dawn Chorus takes the shape of a spoken-word ballad, with Yorke calling us to action to mount a challenge against a hasty demise before it’s too late. While Anima’s endless aesthetics may be lost on those hung up on Pablo Honey, Yorke’s unwavering ability to push boundaries to their very limit is on full display here. BENJAMIN POTTER
ELECTRONIC POP Hot Chip
A Bath Full of Ecstasy (Domino) ★★★½
If a song title ever encapsulated a band’s output it’s Melody of Love, the opening track on the seventh studio album from these London electronic artisans.
Over two impressive decades of precision-programmed pop, Hot Chip have rendered romantic longing as both a personal philosophy and a physical invocation; they’ve danced to heartbreak and back with the yearning vocals of Alexis Taylor and the melancholic chord progressions that transform their club-ready rhythms.
Buoyed by a handful of outside producers, including French playmaker Philippe Zdar, the quintet’s increasingly eclectic sound now traverses the formative strands of British dance music: acid house snarls underpin Spell, Erasure’s disco enthusiasm lurks in Echo, No God repurposes Italo house’s signature piano riff, and Why Does My Mind has a solemn Bowie-in-Berlin grandeur.
Experience has given the band a sense of perspective so that the pleasure of movement is always tested by the uncertainty of hope and desire. The best of these songs take passing moments and uncertain exchanges, and draw rich meaning from them. Pop music has always excelled at fixing a crucial moment, but Hot Chip engage with whole lives. CRAIG MATHIESON
ROCK The Black Keys
Let's Rock (Nonesuch) ★★★½
After a five-year hiatus Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach have recorded their ninth Black Keys album. As the title suggests, the record is underpinned by the pair’s rock fundamentals, with retro psychedelic riffs and blues-inspired sonics. From the chords of Shine a Little Light to the riff-driven pop melody of Get Yourself Together and the perfectly executed slide guitar in Tell Me Lies, the album plays back-to-back as a rock classic.
Lo/Hi makes it feel like no time has passed since the Black Keys were last in the studio. The bluesy riff and energetic yelp from Auerbach in the opening moments, followed by a soulful harmony from back-up singers doubling the chorus, are true to the band’s ethos.
The magic, however, lies in the few surprises tucked within the record. Breaking Down, for instance, starts with a gentle, seductive rhythm and elongated vocals, only to evolve into a burly chorus. It repeatedly hints at an imminent guitar solo, and after much teasing, gives in to a flurry of grit and boldness, before winding down to a gentle conclusion. The record pays homage to the duo’s roots, and gives a punchy dose of the genre the Black Keys have mastered. SIMONE ZIAZIARIS
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