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Jayda G Significant Changes Ninja Tune
REVIEWS
Last year, Canadian DJ and producer Jayda G reached a pair of milestones: she launched her new label, JMG Recordings, and completed a Master's in environmental toxicology. The influence of the latter seeps directly into her debut album Significant Changes. Meandering opener Unifying the Center (Abstract), the aquatic field recordings of Orca’s Reprise, and the spoken-word sample of biologist Misty MacDuffee discussing a whale conservation court case on Missy Knows What’s Up each point to her studies, while showcasing a calmer side of Jayda's musical persona. The rousing, high-energy moments that populate her DJ sets are also well represented on hip-shaking tracks like Move to the Front (Disco Mix), and cheekily so on Stanley’s Get Down (No Parking on the DF): “Hey you, I see you with your phone looking at Instagram!” Jayda playfully chides an inattentive clubber. "This is the dancefloor, baby! This is where you're supposed to get down." Sunshine in the Valley, featuring frequent collaborator Alexa Dash, offers a moment of hands-in-the-air euphoria with dreamy synths and reverbed cooing harmonies. Science and a repertoire of house, disco and diva vocals may seem unlikely dancefloor partners, but in Jayda G’s hands, they live in harmonious coexistence. !
Krystal Rodriguez
These New Puritans Inside the Rose Infectious Music
Nilüfer Yanya Miss Universe ATO Records Since she first started commanding column inches back in 2016, much of the buzz encircling Nilüfer Yanya has focused on the effortless and soulful feel of her sound. But the 23-year-old West Londoner subverts that tag entirely in the opening bars of her debut album, Miss Universe. Imitating an automated phone line by splicing together dead-eyed intonations, WWWAY HEALTH is the first of five spoken interludes outlining a fictitious care programme with increasingly sinister undertones. Leaving aside the fact the execution is a bit am-dram, these Black Mirror-inspired skits are perhaps a bid to add a sense of cohesion to a body of work that feels scattershot, but conceptually add little. Taking in choppy, Strokes-inspired indie on In Your Head, motorik pop on Heat Rises and supple, Everything but the Girl-style jazz-soul on Paradise, Miss Universe is consistent with Yanya’s diverse tastes and strong technical pedigree, but as a collection it feels unfocused and disjointed. There’s better work ahead of her. !
Gemma Samways
These New Puritans have made a career out of difference, often pushing the sonic senses of listeners to extremes as they delve into the deconstructed, the abstract and the obscure. “I want music that sharpens you,” TNP's Jack Barnett said in a recent interview, adding that music should “amplify your nervous system.” The description couldn’t be more apt for Inside the Rose, their first LP since 2013’s Field of Reeds. The band, now recording as the core duo of Jack and twin brother George, heighten our senses with everything from frenetic vibraphones, synapsetingling orchestral strings, anxiety-inducing drones and heavenly choral hums. It’s a bold and typically brave offering. “The imagination is not a state, it is human existence itself,” the duo recently said, quoting William Blake, the inspiration for one of the album’s standout songs, Anti-Gravity. But it could well be the album’s manifesto. Exploring the imagination in all its conflicting states from inspiration to insecurity (Inside the Rose), beauty to decay (A-R-P) and heaven and hell (Into the Fire), it feels at times like the album is the Imagination personified, inviting a musing on the very concept of artistic creation itself. !
Liz Aubrey
Late Night Tales: Floating Points Late Night Tales
Ariana Grande thank u, next Republic In 2018, Ariana Grande’s highly acclaimed fourth album Sweetener proved to be a career-defining milestone. And barely six months later, here’s thank u, next, a record that comes off the back of an enormous eponymous single and continues Grande’s path to total pop dominance, albeit at the cost of some of her most interesting traits. Grande’s songs are like Instagram posts – they’re diaristic, introspective, but filtered and controlled, letting you see enough to give an air of authenticity but never too much as to appear messy. Sweetener felt novel in this approach, and thank u, next retains some of that magic. But its songs are simpler, less layered and easier to digest. fake smile, an IDGAF anthem about personal empowerment, seems almost put-on, posturing for likes instead of digging deeper. However, tracks like imagine graze the clouds of pop heaven, Grande’s flawless vocals as close to classic-era Mariah as they’ve ever been. Breakup song bloodline uses a ska-tinged horn riff and acidic lyrics to impressive effect. thank u, next may lack some of the bleeding heart and zeitgeist-arresting power of Sweetener, but with this broad and biting follow-up release, Ari’s crown remains secure and her throne unrivalled. !
Cameron Cook
It's no surprise that Floating Points' contribution to the Late Night Tales series feels so healing and patient. The DJ, producer, Eglo Records co-founder and actual neuroscientist specialises in fluid, warming electronic music that has become increasingly mind-bending since his 2009 debut J&W Beat. Here, he treats listeners to a lovingly-curated lesson in 1970s spirituality and the contemporary avant-garde. Two tracks from French experimentalist Alain Bellaiche offer a bridge between the shining, soft-rock rarities that fill the first half of the mix and the celestial soundscapes in the second. Kara-Lis Coverdale contributes an excerpt in which organic acoustics spin gently off-course, which sits against the creamy vocals and plaintive brass of Azimuth's jazz epic The Tunnel, the opening record on Floating Points and Four Tet's much-loved final Plastic People mix. Shepherd's own stunning cover of Kenny Wheeler brings us to the dawn, and Lauren Laverne's vigorous reading of Emily Dickinson throws open the curtains. So nourishing that it almost feels better suited to the morning's earliest hours, this Late Night Tales edition confirms Shepherd, once again, as one of our most generous selectors. !
Katie Hawthorne