Album reviews: Raye | Kyle Falconer | Butler, Blake & Grant
Raye’s second album is a bold, celebratory statement that’s destined to be a huge hit, writes Fiona Shepherd
Raye: This Music May Contain Hope (Human Re Sources) ★★★★
Kyle Falconer: Lovely Night of Terror (Modern Sky/Run On Records) ★★★
Butler, Blake & Grant: Murmurs (355 Recordings) ★★★
Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride (as Bette Davis almost said). Raye’s maximalist new album runs to 75 minutes, covers four seasons and myriad musical styles from old school jazz to funky R&B to dancefloor bangers, often in the same song. Having broken through independently with previous album My 21st Century Blues, the artist born Rachel Keen continues to put her foot down on the creative accelerator.
This Music May Contain Hope is even more audacious, to the point of eccentricity. It’s close to being a positive advert for self-indulgence too, with Raye seemingly saying yes to her every impulse - although arguably only the members of the London Symphony Orchestra will listen more than once to their individual namechecks on end credits track Fin.
First single Where Is My Husband! is a hot mess but elsewhere her maximalist tendencies pay off as she goes 21st century Bassey against swirling cinematic strings and brass pomp on I Will Overcome and relishes the dramatic bombast of I Know You’re Hurting. The sassy soul sway of Nightingale Lane showcases the elasticity of her vocals, switching from soaring to conversational in a heartbeat.
READ MORE: Raye, Glasgow review: 'huge emotional power'
Eschewing some of the first person directness of My 21st Century Blues for the cushioning of character, Raye casts herself as Girl Under the Grey Cloud and serves notice on The South London Lover Boy (“he’s not looking for your heart, just your pillow”) and “curs-ed kisser” the WhatsApp Shakespeare. She even puts Life Boat’s mantra “I’m not giving up yet” into the mouths of others to make of what they will.
Hans Zimmer provides the rhythmic arrangement for the cheerleader Click Clack Symphony and Raye can’t believe her luck in netting the mighty Al Green, who adds some husky class to Goodbye Henry as the album takes a turn into light summer soul territory with titles that tell it all - Happier Times Ahead and Joy, which adds irresistible bottom end brass to its proclamation that “I declare there will be joy”.
This Music May Contain Hope is a bold, celebratory statement that is destined to be a huge hit. In a risk-averse landscape of commercial musical micro-management, it is also a salutary reminder that it can definitely pay to give an artist their own way.
View frontman Kyle Falconer continues to tickle his pop fancies on his latest solo album. Lovely Night Of Terror was birthed in his Alicante studio, where he runs songwriting retreats with special guest gurus. Consequently, the album is awash with guest stars from Justin Hawkins of The Darkness on the fleet indie pop of Worlds Away to Zutons frontman Dave McCabe on the carefree funky Madness. Most unexpectedly, on Midas Touch Falconer and Libertines/Babyshambles frontman Peter Doherty appear to have crash-landed in a 1983 edition of Top of the Pops. The album then takes a more introspective turn on a handful of solo tracks, including the subtly effective wistful nostalgia of Trace of Me and the superior boy band fare of Martha’s Imagination.
What started as an informal songwriter’s circle for Bernard, Norman and James has become a band, Butler, Blake & Grant. That said, their second album feels like a bit of a placeholder, with the trio excavating and re-arranging deep cuts from their own catalogues to capitalize on the harmonious blend of their three distinct voices. Butler’s best gambit is the burnished beauty and hangdog hope of People Move On, the title track of his debut solo album, while Blake infuses Lonely Night (originally a bonus track called Dark and Lonely on Teenage Fanclub’s Shadows album) with a nicely judged blend of psych folk and southern soul and Grant offers the quiet devotional of Love & Money’s Winter.
Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos 2 & 5 (Chandos) ★★★★
Ten years separated Shostakovich’s Second and Fifth Symphonies. His fortunes fluctuated wildly over that decade. The earlier symphony, written in the nursery years of Stalin’s regime, saw him relatively free to vent his brutalist avant-garde tendencies, even in a work commissioned by the State Music Publishing House’s Propaganda Department to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution. By the 1937 premiere of the Fifth Symphony, having been denounced publicly for his “muddled”, un-Soviet music, Shostakovich was torn between a need to appease the authorities and be true to his artistic self. Its ironic ambiguity did the trick. Packaging these works together, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under John Storgårds thrusts us into the vagaries of that repressed world: the dissonant industrialism (klaxons blaring) of the succinct Second crowned by a belligerent CBSO Chorus in the Finale; and the often tortuous, sometimes withering, ultimately rose-tinted fervour of the Fifth. Ken Walton
FOLK
Ali Levack: Ali Levack (Own Label) ★★★★
Known for his high-powered work with Project Smok and much else, whistle virtuoso and piper Ali Levack’s own-name debut is an exhilarating showcase of his whistle-playing and compositional skills, with a penchant for inventive arrangements which romp gleefully into the realms of rock and funk. His accompanists include co-producers and arrangers Rory Matheson on keyboards and bass-guitarist Ross Saunders, drummer Greg Barry and a string section. Opener West Coast Superstars sets the tone with a mellifluous whistle jig over electric piano before Highland pipes get an outing, flickering over beaty accompaniment. The album’s essence is perhaps exemplified by two contrasting numbers at its heart: the no-holds-barred Gudgie Funk – whistle rejoicing over punchy drumming, indubitably funky guitar and strings managing to sound like a brass section – giving way to the wistful Dolina, velvety low whistle evoking heartfelt remembrance of his late grandmother, over keyboard and empathetic strings. Jim Gilchrist
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