Foto

New music for St Patrick's Day: Jafaris, RuthAnne and Kojaque plus spotlight artist Don Mescall

The best albums of 2019 (so far) 1/18 Rina Mushonga – In a Galaxy It’s not uncommon for an artist to be influenced by the place they grew up in. Yet few are likely to have as much inspiration to draw on as India-born, Zimbabwe-raised and now Peckham-based artist Rina Mushonga. The singer-songwriter’s nomadic personality is reflected in the vast scale of reference points on her new record, In a Galaxy. It’s technically a follow-up to 2014’s The Wild, the Wilderness, but the newfound boldness on this new work is startling. Since that first record, Mushonga has begun to incorporate themes of empowerment into her work. On “AtalantA”, she showcases her muscular vocals, which are capable of switching between an airy lilt to a deep, emotional moan, as she sings lyrics inspired by the Greek hunter goddess who refused to marry. In a Galaxy is a record that takes you far beyond the borders of the world you’re familiar with, and into something altogether more colourful. (Roisin O'Connor) 2/18 Deerhunter – Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? On Deerhunter’s eighth album, frontman Bradford Cox takes on the role of war poet, documenting the things he observes with a cool matter-of-factness, and heart-wrenching detail. Death is everywhere on Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?, as much as others may refuse to see it. Already Disappeared is not an easy album. It’s often bleak and experimental: Cox’s vocals burst through like distorted, burbling fragments of static, or appear muffled amid the instrumentation. This is a new side of Deerhunter that gives the listener much to contemplate. (Roisin O’Connor) 3/18 Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow After a period of tumult, Sharon Van Etten’s fifth album is a reinvention. But beneath its hazy synths and electronics are songs of endurance and inner peace, of settling after a flurry of activity. On Remind Me Tomorrow, written during her recent pregnancy and the birth of her first child, Van Etten dims her spotlight on toxicity and instead casts a warm glow behind the record’s psychic overview. The anxiety and pride of impending parenthood converge on “Seventeen”, a paean to the invincibility and melancholy of adolescence. Addressing a younger version of herself, the 37-year-old sings of the carefree young and their mistrust of those defeated by time. After years making peace with drift and uncertainty, she’s never sounded more sure of anything. (Jazz Monroe) Ryan Pfluger 4/18 Bring Me the Horizon – Amo BMTH frontman Oli Sykes wants to assert the fragility of the boundary between love and hate. Amo is a way of exploring that, even down to the title itself. Closer “I Don’t Know What to Say” is cinematic in its symphonic drama – perhaps inspired by their 2016 shows at the Royal Albert Hall that featured a full orchestra and choir – and becomes the album’s most moving song. Over urgent, darting violin notes and soft strumming on an acoustic guitar, Sykes sings about the loss of a close friend, building to a hair-raising climax where he screams out the song’s title one last time. Amo won’t satisfy all of BMTH’s fans, but it’s certainly accomplished, catchy and eclectic enough to bring in some new ones. (Roisin O'Connor) 5/18 Nina Nesbitt – The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change Nesbitt is back with her second LP, switching to a brand of soul and R&B-fused pop that feels bang on time, and suits her far better. The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change has slick, polished production from Fraser T Smith (Adele), Lostboy (Anne-Marie), Jordan Riley (Zara Larsson), and Nesbitt herself. Several tracks tap into a Nineties R&B sound that UK women, from Mabel to Ella Mai, are excelling at right now. Assertive tracks “Loyal to Me” and “Love Letter” nod to TLC’s “No Scrubs” and Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor”, but there is vulnerability, too, in the acoustic guitar-led neo-soul of “Somebody Special”, and the tender heartbreak on ”Is it Really Me You’re Missing”. (Roisin O'Connor) Press image 6/18 Better Oblivion Community Center This self-titled record, a loose but beautifully crafted collection of folk-rock songs, explores the kinds of anxieties intrinsic to the modern age – the longing to be at once noticed and invisible; the paralysing effects of limitless information, and the desire to do good versus the desire to be seen doing good. As if to hammer home their parity, they even largely sing in unison – which might have had a plodding effect if the pair’s voices weren’t so distinct: Bridgers sings with a hazy assurance, Oberst with an emotive tremor. And when Bridgers’ melody does sporadically glide above Oberst’s, it is all the more potent for it. (Alexandra Pollard) 7/18 Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next The album is packed with personal confessions for the fans – “Arianators” – to pick over. It lacks a centrepiece to match the arresting depth and space of Sweetener’s “God Is A Woman”, but Grande handles its shifting moods and cast of producers (including pop machines Max Martin and Tommy Brown) with engaging class and momentum. One minute you’re skanking along to the party brass of “Bloodline”; the next floating into the semi-detached, heartbreak of “Ghostin’”, which appears to address Grande’s guilt at being with Davidson while pining for Miller. She sings of the late rapper as a “wingless angel” with featherlight high notes that will drop the sternest jaw. (Helen Brown) Getty 8/18 James Blake – Assume Form The perma-brilliant James Blake has flooded his fourth album – Assume Form – with euphoric sepia soul and loved-up doo-wop. His trademark intelligence, honesty and pin-drop production remain intact. But the detached chorister vocals of a decade in which he battled depression have thawed to reveal a millennial Sam Cooke crooning: “Can’t believe the way we flow, way we flow, way we flow...” The warm splashes of piano that washed over that song break through the anxious rattle of dance beats on the album’s eponymous opener, the singer so regularly reviewed as “vaporous” promises to “leave the ether, assume form” and “be touchable, be reachable”. His own sharpest critic, he winks at the journalists who’ve called him glacial as he drops from remote, icy falsetto into a richly grained, deeper tone to ask: “Doesn’t it seem much warmer?” (Helen Brown) Getty 9/18 AJ Tracey – AJ Tracey While he recognises his roots and includes plenty of nods to grime, AJ Tracey's magpie’s eye for a good melody or hook extends far beyond that. With the help of stellar producers like Cadenza (Kiko Bun), Swifta Beater (Kano, Giggs), and Nyge (Section Boyz, Yxng Bane), Tracey incorporates electronic music, rock, garage and even country on his most cohesive work to date. The variety and scale of ambition on this album is breathtaking. Fans will be surprised to discover Tracey sings almost as much as he raps, in pleasingly gruff tones. Each track is a standout, none more so than “Ladbroke Grove”, a hat-tip to classic garage in which Tracey switches up his flow to emulate a Nineties MC. It’s a thrilling work. (Roisin O’Connor) Ashley Verse 10/18 Sleaford Mods – Eton Alive The album title of the year gives us an image of Brexit Britain trashed by Old Etonians David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, but the fifth studio work from the punk duo has more than social commentary to offer. There’s some of that, as vocalist Jason Williamson skewers documentary-makers who take advantage of the poor in “Kebab Spider” – “the skint get used in loo roll shoes” – but elsewhere this is a record that expands the idea of what Sleaford Mods could be. Andrew Fearn’s beats are no longer just the backdrop, they’re threatening to take over this album. Surprising influences creep in, from Eighties R&B to the Human League, and on “When You Come Up To Me”, Williamson not only sings but there’s a melancholy tone breaking through the anger. “I don’t want to flip the page/ Of my negative script,” he intones on the final track, but there’s just a hint that he does. (Chris Harvey) 11/18 Julia Jacklin – Crushing “Do you still have that photograph?/ Would you use it to hurt me?” asks Australian indie rocker Julia Jacklin, against the menacing throb of “Body”. The tension is stormy: imagine a mid-period Fleetwood Mac song, covered by Cat Power. It’s a masterclass in narrative songwriting. Those who fell for Jacklin’s 2016 excellent debut, Don’t Let the Kids Win, will find a continuity of alternative attitude and vintage influences. But there’s a deeper sense of personal connection to anchor Jacklin’s lyrical and melodic smarts. That snare drum keeps a relentless, nerve-snapping pulse throughout, with Jacklin sounding more confident in her contradictions: at once yearning to comfort a lover she’s dumped and then, on “Head Alone”, declaring: “I don’t wanna be touched all the time/ I raised my body up to be mine.” Ah. Shucks. Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph. (Helen Brown) Getty 12/18 Little Simz – GREY Area With praise from Kendrick Lamar, five EPs released by the time she was 21, tours with Lauryn Hill, collaborations with Gorillaz and two critically praised albums – including 2017’s excellent concept album Stillness in Wonderland – fans and critics alike wondered what else Little Simz could do to find the kind of mainstream success enjoyed by so many of her male peers. Yet you’d be hard pushed to find a moment over the past few years where Simz has commented on this issue herself. Instead, she’s been busy honing her craft for Grey Area, which sees her land on a new, bolder sound assisted by her childhood friend – the producer Inflo [Michael Kiwanuka’s Love & Hate] – for a record that incorporates her dextrous flow and superb wordplay with an eclectic range of influences. The album takes in everything from jazz, funk and soul to punk and heavy rock, plus three carefully chosen features. (Roisin O'Connor) Jen Ewbank 13/18 Solange – When I Get Home Solange Knowles has never been coy about the intent behind her music. Beautiful arrangements and seamless production notwithstanding, you get the sense, each time she drop a project, that it serves a distinct, zeitgeist-shifting purpose. This time, with When I Get Home, Solange has effectively given us permission to rest. Echoing similar movements seen in recent years, such as Fannie Sosa and niv Acosta’s “Black Power Naps” exhibition – which speaks to and hopes to remedy the socio-economic problem of higher rates of sleep deprivation among black people – the album has a calming, blissed-out quality, with its layers of sound and enveloping harmonies. And where better to dream than from the comfort of your own digs? Whether it’s in the physical structure of a property that’s shaped you over the years, or in the familiar sounds of the music and culture that your people have crafted, there seems to be a call to return to what is familiar. (Kuba Shand-Baptiste) Max Hirschberger 14/18 Foals – Everything Not Saved Will be Lost (Part 1) FoalsMerging their asymmetrical early math pop with the deep space atmospherics of Total Life Forever and Holy Fire, plus added innovations – ambient rainforest throbs on “Moonlight”, deadpan EDM on “In Degrees”, Afro-glitch Radiohead on “Café D’Athens” – they’ve created an inspired album of scorched earth new music that, in all likelihood, will only really be challenged for album of the year by Part 2. (Mark Beaumont) Alex Knowles 15/18 Sigrid – Sucker Punch At her best, Sigrid throws out precision-tooled high notes like icicle javelins into vast, blue Scandi-produced skies. Then she growls like an Icelandic volcano preparing to disrupt western civilisation until we sort ourselves out. l enjoyed the muted, Afro-tinged authenticity of “Level Up” and the conscious, pasty-girl reggae of “Business Dinners” (on which she refuses to be an industry angel) and I loved the Robyn-esque rush of “Basic” (which sees her yearning to shed love’s complications). Sigrid has a raw energy and emotional briskness that can make you feel like you’re doing aerobics in neon leg warmers atop a pristine mountain. (Helen Brown) Francesca Allen 16/18 Dave – Psychodrama Tracks are at once astute and deeply personal in how they capture vignettes of everyday life and spin them into important lessons. “Black”, the most recent single from the record, considers what that word means to different people around the world, as well as to Dave. “Voices” has him singing over an old-school garage beat, fighting off personal demons. “I could be the rapper with a message like you’re hoping, but what’s the point in me being the best if no one knows it?” he challenges on “Psycho”, which flips scattershot between beats and moods as though the track itself is schizophrenic. Dave spends Psychodrama addressing issues caused by the generations who came before him. By the end of the album, he sounds like a figurehead for the hopeful future. Press image 17/18 Karen O and Danger Mouse – Lux Prima Lux Prima was born just over a decade ago from a drunken phone call from Karen O to Danger Mouse – real name Brian Joseph Burton – during which the pair vowed they would work on something together. It wasn’t until after O had given birth to her son, though, that recording finally began, and there is a beatific sense of contentment on songs like “Drown”, with its Kamasi Washington-like choirs and stately horns. Danger Mouse is known for genre-hopping collaborations with artists such as Beck, the Black Keys and CeeLo Green, and he applies that approach here, too: the album is an impressive mix of blissed-out synths, psych-rock guitars and trippy hip-hop beats. Lux Prima is an accomplished record – proof that two wildly different minds can work seamlessly together. Maybe drunk-dialling isn’t always such a bad idea. (Roisin O'Connor) Eliot Lee Hazel 18/18 The Cinematic Orchestra – To Believe This is an ambitious creation, meticulously crafted and assembled. For a start, the range of guest performers is a cornucopia of contemporary soul and hip-hop collaborators: vocalists Moses Sumney, Roots Manuva, Heidi Vogel, Grey Reverend and Tawiah; strings player Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and keyboardist Dennis Hamm – both of whom have worked with Flying Lotus and Thundercat. Ma Fleur was emotive and piano-led, its themes of mortality and the passage of life captured so evocatively in the Patrick Watson collaboration “To Build a Home” – which went on to soundtrack every TV show from Grey’s Anatomy to Orange is the New Black. To Believe, however, feels more expansive in reach. (Elisa Bray) B+ 1/18 Rina Mushonga – In a Galaxy It’s not uncommon for an artist to be influenced by the place they grew up in. Yet few are likely to have as much inspiration to draw on as India-born, Zimbabwe-raised and now Peckham-based artist Rina Mushonga. The singer-songwriter’s nomadic personality is reflected in the vast scale of reference points on her new record, In a Galaxy. It’s technically a follow-up to 2014’s The Wild, the Wilderness, but the newfound boldness on this new work is startling. Since that first record, Mushonga has begun to incorporate themes of empowerment into her work. On “AtalantA”, she showcases her muscular vocals, which are capable of switching between an airy lilt to a deep, emotional moan, as she sings lyrics inspired by the Greek hunter goddess who refused to marry. In a Galaxy is a record that takes you far beyond the borders of the world you’re familiar with, and into something altogether more colourful. (Roisin O'Connor) 2/18 Deerhunter – Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? On Deerhunter’s eighth album, frontman Bradford Cox takes on the role of war poet, documenting the things he observes with a cool matter-of-factness, and heart-wrenching detail. Death is everywhere on Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?, as much as others may refuse to see it. Already Disappeared is not an easy album. It’s often bleak and experimental: Cox’s vocals burst through like distorted, burbling fragments of static, or appear muffled amid the instrumentation. This is a new side of Deerhunter that gives the listener much to contemplate. (Roisin O’Connor) 3/18 Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow After a period of tumult, Sharon Van Etten’s fifth album is a reinvention. But beneath its hazy synths and electronics are songs of endurance and inner peace, of settling after a flurry of activity. On Remind Me Tomorrow, written during her recent pregnancy and the birth of her first child, Van Etten dims her spotlight on toxicity and instead casts a warm glow behind the record’s psychic overview. The anxiety and pride of impending parenthood converge on “Seventeen”, a paean to the invincibility and melancholy of adolescence. Addressing a younger version of herself, the 37-year-old sings of the carefree young and their mistrust of those defeated by time. After years making peace with drift and uncertainty, she’s never sounded more sure of anything. (Jazz Monroe) Ryan Pfluger 4/18 Bring Me the Horizon – Amo BMTH frontman Oli Sykes wants to assert the fragility of the boundary between love and hate. Amo is a way of exploring that, even down to the title itself. Closer “I Don’t Know What to Say” is cinematic in its symphonic drama – perhaps inspired by their 2016 shows at the Royal Albert Hall that featured a full orchestra and choir – and becomes the album’s most moving song. Over urgent, darting violin notes and soft strumming on an acoustic guitar, Sykes sings about the loss of a close friend, building to a hair-raising climax where he screams out the song’s title one last time. Amo won’t satisfy all of BMTH’s fans, but it’s certainly accomplished, catchy and eclectic enough to bring in some new ones. (Roisin O'Connor) 5/18 Nina Nesbitt – The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change Nesbitt is back with her second LP, switching to a brand of soul and R&B-fused pop that feels bang on time, and suits her far better. The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change has slick, polished production from Fraser T Smith (Adele), Lostboy (Anne-Marie), Jordan Riley (Zara Larsson), and Nesbitt herself. Several tracks tap into a Nineties R&B sound that UK women, from Mabel to Ella Mai, are excelling at right now. Assertive tracks “Loyal to Me” and “Love Letter” nod to TLC’s “No Scrubs” and Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor”, but there is vulnerability, too, in the acoustic guitar-led neo-soul of “Somebody Special”, and the tender heartbreak on ”Is it Really Me You’re Missing”. (Roisin O'Connor) Press image 6/18 Better Oblivion Community Center This self-titled record, a loose but beautifully crafted collection of folk-rock songs, explores the kinds of anxieties intrinsic to the modern age – the longing to be at once noticed and invisible; the paralysing effects of limitless information, and the desire to do good versus the desire to be seen doing good. As if to hammer home their parity, they even largely sing in unison – which might have had a plodding effect if the pair’s voices weren’t so distinct: Bridgers sings with a hazy assurance, Oberst with an emotive tremor. And when Bridgers’ melody does sporadically glide above Oberst’s, it is all the more potent for it. (Alexandra Pollard) 7/18 Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next The album is packed with personal confessions for the fans – “Arianators” – to pick over. It lacks a centrepiece to match the arresting depth and space of Sweetener’s “God Is A Woman”, but Grande handles its shifting moods and cast of producers (including pop machines Max Martin and Tommy Brown) with engaging class and momentum. One minute you’re skanking along to the party brass of “Bloodline”; the next floating into the semi-detached, heartbreak of “Ghostin’”, which appears to address Grande’s guilt at being with Davidson while pining for Miller. She sings of the late rapper as a “wingless angel” with featherlight high notes that will drop the sternest jaw. (Helen Brown) Getty 8/18 James Blake – Assume Form The perma-brilliant James Blake has flooded his fourth album – Assume Form – with euphoric sepia soul and loved-up doo-wop. His trademark intelligence, honesty and pin-drop production remain intact. But the detached chorister vocals of a decade in which he battled depression have thawed to reveal a millennial Sam Cooke crooning: “Can’t believe the way we flow, way we flow, way we flow...” The warm splashes of piano that washed over that song break through the anxious rattle of dance beats on the album’s eponymous opener, the singer so regularly reviewed as “vaporous” promises to “leave the ether, assume form” and “be touchable, be reachable”. His own sharpest critic, he winks at the journalists who’ve called him glacial as he drops from remote, icy falsetto into a richly grained, deeper tone to ask: “Doesn’t it seem much warmer?” (Helen Brown) Getty 9/18 AJ Tracey – AJ Tracey While he recognises his roots and includes plenty of nods to grime, AJ Tracey's magpie’s eye for a good melody or hook extends far beyond that. With the help of stellar producers like Cadenza (Kiko Bun), Swifta Beater (Kano, Giggs), and Nyge (Section Boyz, Yxng Bane), Tracey incorporates electronic music, rock, garage and even country on his most cohesive work to date. The variety and scale of ambition on this album is breathtaking. Fans will be surprised to discover Tracey sings almost as much as he raps, in pleasingly gruff tones. Each track is a standout, none more so than “Ladbroke Grove”, a hat-tip to classic garage in which Tracey switches up his flow to emulate a Nineties MC. It’s a thrilling work. (Roisin O’Connor) Ashley Verse 10/18 Sleaford Mods – Eton Alive The album title of the year gives us an image of Brexit Britain trashed by Old Etonians David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, but the fifth studio work from the punk duo has more than social commentary to offer. There’s some of that, as vocalist Jason Williamson skewers documentary-makers who take advantage of the poor in “Kebab Spider” – “the skint get used in loo roll shoes” – but elsewhere this is a record that expands the idea of what Sleaford Mods could be. Andrew Fearn’s beats are no longer just the backdrop, they’re threatening to take over this album. Surprising influences creep in, from Eighties R&B to the Human League, and on “When You Come Up To Me”, Williamson not only sings but there’s a melancholy tone breaking through the anger. “I don’t want to flip the page/ Of my negative script,” he intones on the final track, but there’s just a hint that he does. (Chris Harvey) 11/18 Julia Jacklin – Crushing “Do you still have that photograph?/ Would you use it to hurt me?” asks Australian indie rocker Julia Jacklin, against the menacing throb of “Body”. The tension is stormy: imagine a mid-period Fleetwood Mac song, covered by Cat Power. It’s a masterclass in narrative songwriting. Those who fell for Jacklin’s 2016 excellent debut, Don’t Let the Kids Win, will find a continuity of alternative attitude and vintage influences. But there’s a deeper sense of personal connection to anchor Jacklin’s lyrical and melodic smarts. That snare drum keeps a relentless, nerve-snapping pulse throughout, with Jacklin sounding more confident in her contradictions: at once yearning to comfort a lover she’s dumped and then, on “Head Alone”, declaring: “I don’t wanna be touched all the time/ I raised my body up to be mine.” Ah. Shucks. Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph. (Helen Brown) Getty 12/18 Little Simz – GREY Area With praise from Kendrick Lamar, five EPs released by the time she was 21, tours with Lauryn Hill, collaborations with Gorillaz and two critically praised albums – including 2017’s excellent concept album Stillness in Wonderland – fans and critics alike wondered what else Little Simz could do to find the kind of mainstream success enjoyed by so many of her male peers. Yet you’d be hard pushed to find a moment over the past few years where Simz has commented on this issue herself. Instead, she’s been busy honing her craft for Grey Area, which sees her land on a new, bolder sound assisted by her childhood friend – the producer Inflo [Michael Kiwanuka’s Love & Hate] – for a record that incorporates her dextrous flow and superb wordplay with an eclectic range of influences. The album takes in everything from jazz, funk and soul to punk and heavy rock, plus three carefully chosen features. (Roisin O'Connor) Jen Ewbank 13/18 Solange – When I Get Home Solange Knowles has never been coy about the intent behind her music. Beautiful arrangements and seamless production notwithstanding, you get the sense, each time she drop a project, that it serves a distinct, zeitgeist-shifting purpose. This time, with When I Get Home, Solange has effectively given us permission to rest. Echoing similar movements seen in recent years, such as Fannie Sosa and niv Acosta’s “Black Power Naps” exhibition – which speaks to and hopes to remedy the socio-economic problem of higher rates of sleep deprivation among black people – the album has a calming, blissed-out quality, with its layers of sound and enveloping harmonies. And where better to dream than from the comfort of your own digs? Whether it’s in the physical structure of a property that’s shaped you over the years, or in the familiar sounds of the music and culture that your people have crafted, there seems to be a call to return to what is familiar. (Kuba Shand-Baptiste) Max Hirschberger 14/18 Foals – Everything Not Saved Will be Lost (Part 1) FoalsMerging their asymmetrical early math pop with the deep space atmospherics of Total Life Forever and Holy Fire, plus added innovations – ambient rainforest throbs on “Moonlight”, deadpan EDM on “In Degrees”, Afro-glitch Radiohead on “Café D’Athens” – they’ve created an inspired album of scorched earth new music that, in all likelihood, will only really be challenged for album of the year by Part 2. (Mark Beaumont) Alex Knowles 15/18 Sigrid – Sucker Punch At her best, Sigrid throws out precision-tooled high notes like icicle javelins into vast, blue Scandi-produced skies. Then she growls like an Icelandic volcano preparing to disrupt western civilisation until we sort ourselves out. l enjoyed the muted, Afro-tinged authenticity of “Level Up” and the conscious, pasty-girl reggae of “Business Dinners” (on which she refuses to be an industry angel) and I loved the Robyn-esque rush of “Basic” (which sees her yearning to shed love’s complications). Sigrid has a raw energy and emotional briskness that can make you feel like you’re doing aerobics in neon leg warmers atop a pristine mountain. (Helen Brown) Francesca Allen 16/18 Dave – Psychodrama Tracks are at once astute and deeply personal in how they capture vignettes of everyday life and spin them into important lessons. “Black”, the most recent single from the record, considers what that word means to different people around the world, as well as to Dave. “Voices” has him singing over an old-school garage beat, fighting off personal demons. “I could be the rapper with a message like you’re hoping, but what’s the point in me being the best if no one knows it?” he challenges on “Psycho”, which flips scattershot between beats and moods as though the track itself is schizophrenic. Dave spends Psychodrama addressing issues caused by the generations who came before him. By the end of the album, he sounds like a figurehead for the hopeful future. Press image 17/18 Karen O and Danger Mouse – Lux Prima Lux Prima was born just over a decade ago from a drunken phone call from Karen O to Danger Mouse – real name Brian Joseph Burton – during which the pair vowed they would work on something together. It wasn’t until after O had given birth to her son, though, that recording finally began, and there is a beatific sense of contentment on songs like “Drown”, with its Kamasi Washington-like choirs and stately horns. Danger Mouse is known for genre-hopping collaborations with artists such as Beck, the Black Keys and CeeLo Green, and he applies that approach here, too: the album is an impressive mix of blissed-out synths, psych-rock guitars and trippy hip-hop beats. Lux Prima is an accomplished record – proof that two wildly different minds can work seamlessly together. Maybe drunk-dialling isn’t always such a bad idea. (Roisin O'Connor) Eliot Lee Hazel 18/18 The Cinematic Orchestra – To Believe This is an ambitious creation, meticulously crafted and assembled. For a start, the range of guest performers is a cornucopia of contemporary soul and hip-hop collaborators: vocalists Moses Sumney, Roots Manuva, Heidi Vogel, Grey Reverend and Tawiah; strings player Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and keyboardist Dennis Hamm – both of whom have worked with Flying Lotus and Thundercat. Ma Fleur was emotive and piano-led, its themes of mortality and the passage of life captured so evocatively in the Patrick Watson collaboration “To Build a Home” – which went on to soundtrack every TV show from Grey’s Anatomy to Orange is the New Black. To Believe, however, feels more expansive in reach. (Elisa Bray) B+

My fave Hak Baker is back with more softly spoken portraits of life as he sees it, whether it’s hanging out with mates or recovering the next day: as much poetry as it is music. Check him out.

Eight-piece Norwegian band Fieh, who just signed to Universal records, have dropped an absolute belter of a debut single: “25.” Sofie Tollefsbøl leads with smoky vocals over that fun bass hook that makes me think wistfully of summer.

Check out the Now Hear This playlist!

This week’s spotlight artist is something a little different. I saw Don Mescall by chance performing an acoustic set outside of a lighthouse on the harbour in my parent’s town, and went over to say hello at the end as I thought he was great. It turned out that he’s written for a bunch of major pop acts including The Backstreet Boys, Ronan Keating and Rascal Flatts, along with his own music, which is more in the folk vein. His latest album, Lighthouse Keeper, charted at number one in Ireland upon release and he’s playing a live show as part of the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in London today. I caught up with him to see what’s been going on.

Hey Don! What have you been up to so far this year?

Hey Roisin, since my album came out it’s been non-stop really. I’ve mostly been on the road including trips to Nashville, Madrid, Dublin... I also have my own recording studio here in London by the River Thames, so as well as promoting the new album, we’ve been busy here in the UK with two exciting projects that I’m co-producing and co-writing. I’ve also been finishing a project, which started a few years ago, for the late great Henry McCullough. It features some amazing contributions from Nick Mason, Paul McCartney, Gary Brooker, Paul Carrick and the London Community Gospel Choir to name but a few.

I’ve been seeing so many great artists coming out of Ireland in the past few years, whether they’re punk, folk, rock, pop or hip hop – would you say that’s a new thing or is the industry just paying more attention?

I’ve been based here in London now for over 20 years but I’m always over and back to Ireland and keep a hand in with Irish artists. I’ve enjoyed working with a young artist from Waterford called Moncrieff. He’s a very talented guy who’s bound for big things. It’s always a joy to go back and work there. I was also in lovely Dublin last week working in Windmill Lane Recording Studios with Nicky Byrne from Westlife. It was great fun and I got to have a few pints of the black stuff – it always seems to taste better there!

You’re taking part in St Patrick’s Day celebrations in London – is there anything about Irish culture you’ve been thinking about for this year?

Yes, I feel very honoured to be headlining the main stage at Trafalgar Square for this year’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations in London (March 17 at 4pm ) with my band. I’ve embraced Irish trad music a little more in the last two years and I’ve started to play mandolin, and occasionally the bodhrán, on stage. My buddy Sharon Corr, who of course is a wonderful musician as well as a fine songwriter, encouraged me to give it a shot and I’m loving it. Also I’m never far away from a book of Seamus Heaney’s poems – so I’m keeping the Irish flame alive here in London.

What have you got lined up for the rest of 2019?

We are about to start planning a new album for release most likely in November this year, so that will take up lots of time both here and in Nashville over the next few months. We also have quite a few shows coming up both here and in Europe promoting Lighthouse Keeper, so just after the London show we’ll head over to France for three dates, then on to Switzerland. I will also be doing what I guess I’ve always done, which is write for and with other artists. I love my job!