Outsideleft Week in Music. in OUTSIDELEFT

Getting the outsideleft week in music together from the annual outsideleft camp. With no wifi, and no G of any desciprition. A day late, which is not all that bad after all.

RECORD OF THE WEEK

TASHA - Lake Superior (Father/Daughter)
by LamontPaul

Tasha's continues her quiet music revolution on her new single, 'Lake Superior', dedicated to her mother and grandmother. "I think this song is my way of being there for my mom and telling her I'm there for her, even if it's a few years too late." Tasha says. Her music continues to celebrate the radical political act of being exquisitely gentle with yourself. Try it, for a moment, a minute, a day, it feels life altering. Her art is not to be underestimated. "Black imagination, in a place of oppression and colonization, the ability to imagine a future, imagine magic, imagine something better, is subversive. People don't want you to be able to imagine yourself outside of the place that you've been put." Tasha writes on her website. There's Still The Moon, Kind of Love, Lullaby and the LP Alone At Last... All a rivetingly quiet delights. Tasha has the mesmerising beauty of say Ian McCulloch in 1978 riding the bus to Will Sergeant's house to start Echo and The Bunnymen. The future unfurling but still entirely unwritten. Meanwhile Lake Superior rather radically features the occasional crack on the snare drum. "Hush now, you are safely held." Tasha is totally rad.

SINGLES

UNDEROATH - Hallelijah (Fearless)
by Tim London

One of those puzzling groups who sell out 1,000 capacity shows in Birmingham to teenagers in black nail varnish. They are ‘swimming in the madness’ and then there’s a quiet bit. The drummer’s good at paradiddles. And they somehow make a scream polite, which is faint praise but I sort of think they’d be happy to be considered damned. Which they are.

COURTNEY BARNETT - Before You Gotta Go (Mom + Pop)
by Spanish Pantalones

I miss Barnett's distortion guitar pedal. Let's hope we hear it a bit on the forthcoming LP this single comes from. Or maybe this is her mature second album -- we'll see in November when Things Take Time, Take Time drops.

ALEWYA - Jagna (Because London)
by Lee Paul

I can't say it better than Alewya? "Firstly, Jagna will never be able to be articulated in words. But I’ll try. Jagna is polarity. Jagna is release, Jagna is my soul, Jagna is my rage, Jagna is my lesson, my desperation, frustration, my surrender, my vulnerability, my acceptance and my existence on this planet. "Jagna" translates to Warrior/Fighter in Amharic. It is a call for those that come before me to release and charge. Jagna is who I am." Jagna is mesmeric record from Ethiopian-Egyptian Londoner, Alewya.

BLACK MIDI - Cruising (Rough Trade)
by Tim London

After the unlikely break-out success of their last epic, John L, here’s another prog spectacular, a bit calmer this time. Apparently influenced by the Mahavishnu Orchestra, there’s also an element of Van Der Graff Generator in the confident key changes and sax noodles. I’m frightened to think I sort of enjoy them.

JAKUZI - Hic Isik Yok (CIty Slang)
by Tim London

Jakuzi - Hiç IÅŸÄ±k Yok - Aaaand it’s 1986 again. The Yamaha RX5 version by the sound of it. Obviously couldn’t afford a Fairlight. For those who are unaccountably not interested in vintage electronic music-making machines what I’m saying is the rhythms and the sounds are faithful reproductions of another era, which, when it comes to pop music, is a pointless exercise unless you fuck it up along the way and, unfortunately, Jak is not a fuckitup kinda guy, as evidenced by this. There’s a much more interesting song of the same name here...

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA - That Life (Jagjaguwar)
by Tim London

It goes: ‘ dumdumdumdumdumdumdum’ and at the same time someone sings around their tonsils the sort of tune you’d make up whilst you brush your teeth and (the same person?) does a little guitar run as a hook whilst repeating ‘that life’. What life?!? Wish he’d make it clear. It’s the song of the ex-detective who lives on a boat in a west coast USA marina peopled by kooky character actors who is unwittingly embroiled in the affairs of an actress young enough to be his daughter and he hits people and shoots people and drinks light beer from bottles. That life? Then he kisses her and there is the hint of sex. There’s no hint of sex here.

FINNEAS - A Concert Six Months From Now (Big Co)
by Tim London

A video consisting of Our Finneas staggering around the empty Hollywood bowl as if he’s much more used to sitting on a white faux leather sofa in a green room checking his mobile than walking. A song consisting of that peculiar whiney self-pitying broken voiced thing we hear so much of that passes for emotion and lyrics that connect with people who use ‘horrible’ when they mean ‘unsuccessful’. The lyrics? About meeting up at a concert in a bit. The music? I just can’t remember now the track has stopped.

ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS FEAT. CAMI - La Chica De Hoy (This Year's Girl) (UMG Recordings)
by Jay Lewis

If the first offering from Elvis Costello's Spanish reimagining of his 'This Year's Model' album seemed a little bit too safe (Juanes did his best EC impression on the hit 'Pump it Up'), this is where the project starts to make brilliant sense.

Cami (formerly Camila Gallardo), is a young Chilean superstar who won the Latin American version of The Voice. Her take on 'This Year's Girl', a swipe at the sexism and manipulation of the music industry, is magnificent, fully grasping that those hideous attitudes still exist. You won't need Spanish lessons to get behind the passion and venom of her delivery.

As with all the tracks on the forthcoming 'Spanish Model' the original music by The Attractions, remains intact. The four decades that separate the band's recording from singers cannot be felt, she is totally in sync with the band. And, my word, what a band!

'Spanish Model' is released on 10 September

THE DARKNESS - Motorheart (Cooking Vinyl)
by Spanish Pantalones

Once the members of The Darkness decides to take themselves a little more seriously and stops trying to sound like other bands, they could be interesting, but "Motorheart" is just an exercise in making more derivative metal from the mid-'80s.

TOM MORELLO FT BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & EDDIE VEDDER - Highway To Hell (Mom+Pop)
by Tim London

Tom is worth $30million. Springsteen is worth $500M. Eddie is worth $100M. I see no reason whatsoever why we should be talking about this, do you?

EPs

HANNAH PEEL - Unheard Delia ()
by Jay Lewis

You'll have noticed that this year Coventry is having its turn at being the UK City of Culture. And, you'll be more than familiar with the city's musical legends (not just Lieutenant Pigeon), too. But what of the person from the city who took us on that giant leap into the future? What of the pioneering Delia Derbyshire?

Step forth Hannah Peel, whose Mercury nominated album 'Fir Wave' uses the sounds created on Derbyshire's 1972 library music record 'Electrosonic' as a base for her own musical explorations on what is being greeted as one of her finest records to date (and there are many to choose from). Now, in addition to the album, is this EP that goes further in paying homage to Derbyshire's genius.

The two 'Unheard Delia' tracks blend interviews with Derbyshire with an unimposing score by Peel. The tales told in the interview glimpse at the light and shade of her story. They deserve to be heard. The three remixes of the 'Fir Wave' tracks are by members of the Radiophonic Workshop as well the musicologist Jo Hutton (who had interviewed Delia in 2000), are subtle and thoughtful reinterpretations. They are not the standard remix fare - they are valuable additions to an ambitious project. If I was forced to single out one track then it would be Hutton's take on 'Carbon Cycle' a version that has all of the otherworldly weightlessness of Eno's 'Apollo' soundtrack. Spellbinding.

Delia would have approved.

LPs

SORROWS - Love Too Late..... the real album (Big Stir)
by John Robinson

Sorrow, Love Too Late... the real album is out now on Big Stir Records. It nearly didn't make it out at all. John Robinson has the full story here

<a href="https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/christabelle-single">Christabelle (Single) by Sorrows</a>

THE KILLERS - Pressure Machine (Island)
by Spanish Pantalones

Hmmmm. I listened to this. They've had hits before. Wedding party favorites like Mr Brightside. They'll have hits again. What do they have to do with music though?

Other Materials

SCRITTI POLITTI - Cupid & Psyche 85 (Virgin / Warner Bros.)
by Spanish Pantalones

So much of this week's new music I've heard is so fucking horrible, I'm reviewing a reissue by Scritti Politti -- that'll inform you on the landscape of the current music industry, but I digress. Cupid & Psyche 85 scratches that 'sophisticated disco' itch you've had all summer long, and Green Gartside's voice still sounds fresh. Not since Tom Jones has a Welshman's voice grabbed me by the testicles and pulled me onto the dance floor as Gartside's does.