Album reviews: Lauren Mayberry | Saint Etienne | Ben Folds | The Unthanks

Lauren Mayberry is firmly in the creative driver’s seat on her debut solo album, writes Fiona Shepherd

Lauren Mayberry | Charlotte Patmore

Lauren Mayberry: Vicious Creature (EMI Records) ***

Saint Etienne: The Night (Heavenly) ***

Ben Folds: Sleigher (New West Records) ***

The Unthanks: In Winter (Rabble Rouser Music) ****

For over a decade now, Chvrches frontwoman Lauren Mayberry has been an outspoken feminist voice in a music scene still riddled with misogyny, despite feeling like she often has to pull her punches as one third of a democratic band. Vicious Creature, her long awaited debut solo album, allows her to take the gloves off to some degree as well as lead the conversation creatively. Working with new collaborators including songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr and producer Dan McDougall as well as Chvrches producer Greg Kurstin, she gives free rein to key teen influences such as singer/songwriters Tori Amos and Fiona Apple and girl bands from All Saints to Sleater-Kinney.

All is still Chvrches-like on beefy electro pop opener Something in the Air but Crocodile Tears changes the musical script, setting her talk-to-the-hand brush-off to a manipulative partner against an Eighties Madonna-like pop tune. The breathy ballad Mantra also contains traces of the material girl but Mayberry ranges widely across the collection, from the wonky funk rapture of Punch Drunk via the smart rhythmic cheerleader synthpop of Change Shapes to Anywhere But Dancing, a grungey ballad with a Scotpop touch.

She heads into personal territory on Oh, Mother, a folk-inflected piano ballad inspired by illness in her family which brings out her softer, fragrant tone. The electro garage punk drive of Sorry, Etc is a rude awakening from the reverie, while Sunday Best is an ecstatic pop catharsis from a musician firmly in the driver’s seat. Look out for Mayberry and her all-female band on tour next spring.

Contributed

In their Nineties heyday, Saint Etienne documented hip London life with wit and panache. Their 12th album The Night is more about nights in than out on the tiles. Working with composer/producer Augustin Bousfield, the trio have created an ambient after-hours suite to coorie into as the rain falls outside.

Like its predecessor I’ve Been Trying To Tell You, The Night deals in mood and feeling with the occasional song poking out of the ether, such as synth folk lullaby Nightingale or the layered echoing meditation When You Were Young.

Keyboards tinkle, backing vocals chime, rainy sound effects pervade and singer Sarah Cracknell’s narration on Wonderlight makes coming home after a night out sound like a natural phenomenon.

Ben Folds | Contributed

The Night is wintry in its way and it would be remiss not to highlight a couple of other seasonal stocking fillers. Ben Folds describes his wittily titled festive offering Sleigher as a “record set at Christmas” complete with a trim electro funk ode to AI called Xmas Aye Eye. He eschews sleighbells for harmonica on Sleepwalking Through Christmas but can’t resist covers of novelty Yuletide tunes The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle and You Don’t Have To Be A Santa Claus. His piano playing comes to the fore on original compositions Little Drummer Bolero and Christmas Time Rhyme, both infused with the loose, jazzy spirit of A Charlie Brown Christmas composer Vince Guaraldi.

Alt.folk outfit The Unthanks are not shy about the sleighbells on their version of O Tannenbaum, one of a bumper 19 songs on their long-gestating seasonal offering, In Winter. Sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank grew up steeped in the tradition of wassailing songs, pub carols and folk tunes evoking the eeriness of the coldest months.

Here, echoes of In the Bleak Midwinter bleed into a celeste-led instrumental rendition of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and the delicate, desolate Coventry Carol. Nurse Emmanuel, a tribute to the NHS to the tune of O Holy Night breaks the spell, but the haunting Bleary Winter and modern New Year classic Tar Barrel In Dale, written by their father George, are suitably atmospheric.

CLASSICAL

Nikolai Kapustin: Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 6 (Capriccio) ★★★★★

If pleasure is derived from the number of notes played on a CD, here’s the ultimate. The music is by Ukrainian-Russian Nikolai Kapustin (1937-2020), a figure largely unknown in the West before the Iron Curtain was torn down, whose sizzling fusion of jazz and classical idioms created works of such irrepressible energy, virtuosity, complexity and ebullience as to excite today’s new breed of curious and exceedingly able pianists. In this red hot album the keyboard acrobatics pose no threat to German pianist Frank Dupree, working with the sparky SWR Big Band and SWR Symphonieorchester. Dupree’s playing is phenomenal - think Oscar Peterson on speed - savouring every minute of Kapustin’s syncopated verve, erotic harmonies and sun-baked melodies. Besides the hip-swinging Concertos (Nos 2 & 6), there’s a woozy 1960s-style Nocturne for piano and orchestra, plus a razzmatazz Variations Op 3 and fiery Toccata Op 8 with big band. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Satori: Weatherwards (Whirlwind Recordings) ★★★★

Don’t expect “jazzed up” Shetland reels here. Saxophonist Josephine Davies spent her earliest years on Shetland and, as she says it is “a place to which I am forever drawn back”. Weatherwards is an eloquent response to the islands’ windswept coastline, with Davies joined by James Maddren on drums, bassist Dave Whitford and Alcyona Mick providing finely empathetic piano on alternate tracks. The result is melodic, richly toned and heartfelt. Davies take her tenor sax for a characterful amble on Happyhansel, bass and drums striding alongside, while Saxa Vord sees Mick adding bright piano lines and harmonies as sax dips and soars animatedly. Solo piano opens Song for the Selkie, bringing a winsome mood to the seal folk legend, while soprano sax sings reedily in the languidly paced Simmer Dim, informed by Shetland’s long summer daylight. The Long Dark evokes winter’s converse, tenor sounding mournfully over stealthy, spare piano. Jim Gilchrist