STACK NZ May Issue #62

MUSIC

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Don McGlashan Lucky Stars

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell The Travelling Kind

If you didn't know that Don McGlashan had undergone some emotionally difficult times recently then you will certainly be made aware by this intensely personal album. He's acknowledged that for Lucky Stars he isn't hiding behind personae but the “I” in these lyrics is him. And just as the emotions are sometimes bare here, so too has McGlashan stripped back the sound so these songs feel like small, polished pieces of marble, cool to the touch but reassuring in their weight and solidity. This is McGlashan exploring the journey he's been on with poetic honesty and where his discoveries are shared with compassion. Quite

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell’s Grammy Award- winning, 2013 release Old Yellow Moon was the first full album collaboration for these long-time friends, who are outstanding as a duo. They’ve done it again with another release of duets featuring six new songs written by Harris and Crowell, and new renditions of previous Crowell, Lucinda Williams and Amy Allison tracks. Joe Henry has produced this album, highlighting the magical coming together of classic vocals from two modern day, country singing legends, with yet again another fantastic song selection. Denise Hylands

Paul Weller Saturns Pattern Astrologers well may muse on the mystical impact of Saturn's 28-year orbit on a 56-year-old; astronomers might recognise the hexagon on the cover of Paul Weller's 12th solo album as the shape of clouds at the ringed planet's north pole. But to each note of cosmic mystery, the answer is the same: he's the Modfather, mate. The former Jam and Style Council leader effectively retired from linear sense

with 2008's 22 Dreams , the first in a series of psychedelic studio concoctions, while Wake Up the Natio n and Sonik Kicks continued to give a wide berth to the acoustic comfort zone a man with Wildwood on his resume might be excused for calling home. His Saturn sojourn is another step into the abstract, wherein heartfelt lyrics are only as important as that squoodgy sound parting his hair during an acid-rain guitar solo. The magic carpet intro of White Sky explodes into a lovely squall of overdriven guitars before returning to the space debris that forms a canvas to the album's wilful eclecticism. Pick it Up traverses from soul funk groove to full-fledged Space Invaders battle over six escalating minutes. The glam-blues epic In the Car… sounds like Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee joined the Glitter Band, and is that a Chinese fiddle in the rainy neon blur of These City Streets ? It all adds up to another phase of liberation for an artist who's learned to take his universe as it comes. Michael Dwyer

exceptional. Graham Reid

Hot Chip Why Make Sense?

Ozric Tentacles Technicians of the Sacred Although it's possible to let the thirtysomething year career of this British band go past you, your life is considerably poorer for not having heard their blend of psyched-up, tripped-out spaceflight ambient instrumentals which frequently unfurl to the 10 minute mark. Yes, they are rather “far out maaan” and popular on the post-hippie, druid-embracing and tie-dye festival circuit for their danceable, trance-inducing prog-rock which also touches on world music influences. Their latest doesn't move far from their self-created template of bubbling bass and organ, driving dance beats, synth electronica and astrally-inclined sounds. But that's why you gotta love 'em. Graham Reid

Shilpa Ray Last Year's Savage

Princess Chelsea The Great Cybernetic Depression

”Look for me on the dance floor playing easy to get” – that hook is buried seven tracks deep in Hot Chip’s sixth album, but it may as well have been the title of a record that comes over like New Order on the pull at the local disco. Why Make Sense? is a warm and fuzzy man-machine détente that makes Daft Punk seem like difficult listening, burbling with diva squeaks, Vocoder, rap-lite interjections and sneaky orgasms of disco strings. The Smokey Robinson-styled smooches of WhiteWine and Fried Chicken and So Much Further to Go are a little light on, well, Smokey Robinson, but elsewhere there’s tinfoil funk, chunky keys, smiley house beats and glitchy synth goodness to drive you near enough to

New Jersey-born Shilpa Ray first gained prominence with her now defunct band The Happy Hookers, but solo release Last Year’s Savage continues the same damaged-cabaret- downtown-trash punk aesthetic. If you heard her stunning version of Pirate Jenny (made famous by Nina Simone) on Hal Wilner’s Son of Rogues Gallery collection, you’ll be familiar with her waywardly riveting vocal style. Songtitles like Johnny Thunders’ Fantasy Space Camp and Colonel Mustard in the Billard Room with Sheets of Acid , speak volumes of Shilpa's provocative imagination, and it's that very quality this album with which this album brims. Jonathan Alley

The cover art actually best sums up the subtle transformation Princess Chelsea has undergone since her superb debut Lil’ Golden Book . Whereas her 2011 offering depicted her as a slightly unhinged fairytale heroine, on her latest she looks more like an elegant extra from an '80s New Romantics music video. Music box symphonies and child-like wonder still abound, but here there is a sleeker edge to her twinkling synths and haunting electronic soundscapes, and a confident new poise to her cooing vocals. Fortunately, her lyrics have lost none of her droll wit – we're still talking barbed rather than Barbie – making this pure pop pleasure. John Ferguson

senselessness. Michael Dwyer

MAY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.co.nz

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