From Biafra, Nigeria/Texas, USARecommended if you like Los Thuthanaka, Jpegmafia, DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJUp next Album Cantu of the Sower released via NTS Recordings on 7 October Many listeners might find blown-out noise, hyperactive stylistic shifts and breakneck rhythms a hellish prospect, and fair enough. But for a certain stripe of sensory freak, such swarming intensity can tip over into a state of heady relaxation. The ultra-prolific Heavensouls’ latest project scratches that itch: the six songs on Cantu of the Sower glitter like rich seams of rare crystal, billowing from arcade glitter to compression-straining bass, sprite-like playfulness to warm, rushing brass.
Languid trumpet lines float around trash-compactor crunch; sugary breakbeats reach tweaky maximalist peaks. I don’t know about you, but I could bathe in it. This isn’t shitpost music, fidgeting for its own sake.
Cantu … glows with wonder at its own abundance, and the found-sound snippets of chatter ground its sense of an observant musician full of love for his fellow man. A sample of civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael makes 20-year-old Chidi Obialo’s mindset explicit: “I want my liberation more than I want anything else.” You hear it as Fela Kuti-worthy hand percussion is swept away by a hallucinatory, howling tide of guitar. Obialo was raised in Nigeria and moved to the US age seven.
As a teenager, he started putting out wildly varied, collagist music, aiming to create a “rabbit hole” for listeners to get lost in. If you are of the shitpost sensibility, there’s the Sidepeices, his funny, glitchy duo with Atlanta’s Stickerbush. (Not for nothing is Obialo wearing a Captain Beefheart shirt above.) But then this year’s Westside Trapped, his gorgeously heavy love letter to Nigeria, is more approachable, in keeping with Sault’s luxuriant spirituals. Already 15 releases in to a brief career, Obialo’s talent for delirious, head-spinning beauty is clear, whichever way he chooses to express it.
Laura Snapes Mei Semones – HowlUndeterred by unrequited love, the Japanese-American jazz-popper swears she’d “rather chase ’til I die and so / I’ll never have to learn to be still” – borne out in her gorgeous, dizzy dance of bossa nova guitar and strings. LS Angèle – Love Triangle (ft Caroline Polachek and SebastiAn) A malevolent electroclash beat by SebastiAn builds the drama in this menage-à-trois tale, where two of pop’s best bilingually vie with each other to see who walks away with their heart intact. BBT Romy Mars – The RageMars uses a gorgeously drowsy, wordy slow jam to taunt an ex.
LS Madra Salach – Ribbon Factory Taut, insistent and wracked with pain, this is a gothic nightmare from an Irish folk band who keep turning up the volume on their word of mouth with every impassioned live performance. BBT Blackhaine – Consumer After reworking rage rap under dull moorland cloud – and doing devastating choreo with Playboi Carti – the north-west rapper and dancer has announced his debut album with this symphonic, slowly syncopated stunner. BBT Ryley Walker – CarrierThe Illinois guitarist signs to label du jour AD93 for a teeth-gritted turn to distortion that brings to mind fellow traveller William Tyler’s Time Indefinite and Sunn O)))’s glistening noise.
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