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Backsliders
Heathen Songbook
Backsliders, an integral component
of the Australian blues scene
since their inception in 1986, have
recently released what may be their
greatest album. Currently a duo,
slide guitarist, multi-instrumentalist,
songwriter and singer DomTurner
and drummer/co-songwriter
Rob Hirst are joined on
Heathen
Songbook
by harmonica players
Ian Collard, Broderick Smith and
Joe Glover. Socially aware themes
such as the plight of asylum
seekers, expansion of fast food
outlets in third world countries and
uncontrolled overdevelopment in
Sydney sit comfortably with blues
covers and John Fogerty's
Run
Through The Jungle
(about the
proliferation of guns in the United
States). Blues for the twenty-first
century.
(Rocket) Billy Pinnell
Jamie T
Trick
Jamie T is back, in a healthier
mental space, and sporting a
creative freedom previously unseen
from the Londoner. For a few years
it seemed Jamie Treays' cheeky
persona was overtaken by crippling
social anxiety; not even Jamie T
wanted to be Jamie T. But
Trick
is
a bratty, raucous welcome home
party. The album kicks off like a
left right combo; lead single
Tinfoil
Boy
flutters somewhere between
pop and rock, buoyed by juddering
synths and obscure vocal samples.
Alternatively,
Power Over Men
is
like listening to a one-man Arctic
Monkeys – a powerful hook, erratic
riffs and the kind of reflective vocal
that Treays is known for.
Robin
Hood
and
Tescoland
pick up the
pace up while
Drones
flexes T's rap
credentials.
(EMI)Tim Lambert
Kishi Bashi
Sonderlust
Presumably named for sonder,
the obscure sorrow meaning “the
realisation each passerby is living
a life as vivid and complex as your
own,” 'sonderlust' implies a kind of
hunger for empathy. These songs
blend the immediacy of pop on the
surface with deceptively elaborate
machinery, the guts of each track
churning with Kaoru Ishibashi’s subtle
orchestration. It’s his most accessible
record to date: where earlier work
was deliciously busy, that business
is quieter here while overt funk and
synthpop takes over on tracks like
Say Yeah
and
Can’t Let Go, Juno
. But
for all that extroversion,
Sonderlust
is immensely sad. Ishibashi’s real-life
turmoil spills through, the result
being a record yearning to take
pleasure in life again, and fearing that
such a thing is impossible.
(Pod/Inertia) Jake Cleland
DJ Khaled
Major Key
I’m still not entirely sure what it is
that DJ Khaled actually does; he
doesn’t rap and rarely produces the
entirety of any of his tracks. Maybe
he is a brand ambassador, maybe
he is a pseudo middleman or maybe
he is a hip hop entrepreneur. Maybe
he is all of those things and more.
The key to this album's success
is the who’s who that features on
it. Jay-Z sounds fresher than he
has in years in the club banger
I
Got The Keys
, and Big Sean nearly
steals the track
Holy Key
before
Kendrick Lamar drops one of his
fiercest verses I’ve heard: a lyrical
onslaught. The stand-outs though
are the Drake-featured
For Free
and J. Cole’s straight fire verse in
Jermaine’s Interlude
. The record
also features the likes of Nas,
Bryson Tiller, Kodak Black, and Travis
Scott.
(Sony)Tim Lambert
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