Hi Robert. We start with a big band: Arctic Monkeys. What makes their new album so good?
‘The Car (★★★★★, 11 songs) is indeed the album everyone is going to be talking about this week. The band has been huge since their first record: they were immediately at the top of the Pinkpop and Lowlands posters.
‘The great thing about Arctic Monkeys is that they are growing enormously as a music group. Although they started as an indie rock band, they have gone through several metamorphoses. Of The Car their sound has completely changed again. There are hardly any guitars to be heard: every now and then a nice solo or a funky guitar. I like that, that a band grows like that and the members really go their own way. Although, their? That makes me wonder: how would the three band members of Alex Turner think of this transformation? on The Car you hear them a lot less. Every now and then a good bass line, and the drums are still there, but their part is a lot smaller. It is Alex Turner who writes and arranges everything, and the orchestra has a leading role, but the share of the other band members is a lot smaller. It’s a bit of crooners music, a bit of lounge and soul. Sometimes you hear James Bond-suspense, they would be the new one bondto write the title song. As Gijsbert Kamer also points out in his interview with Turner: Turner’s voice is very developed in the corona time.
I have the numbers The Car and Big Ideas played a few times in a row, and then they get better and better. They will stick to your soul, at some point. In particular Big Ideas, because in it Turner sings about the transformation of the band, about how they started as a guitar band and are now surrounded by orchestras, how that feels. Arctic Monkeys is a great example for everyone in pop music. It’s about what you feel and how your artistry develops, that’s what you have to build your music around. Not for success or full houses.
What else did you like this week?
‘The dance album Now Is (★★★★☆, 11 issues) from Rival Consoles. The British musician has always made beautiful records, I think, but this one is even better than his predecessors. I think it’s because Rival Consoles is on Now Is has applied a kind of less-is-more principle. At first he sometimes threw flat melodies through his songs, or sampled vocals from movies, but he has now left that behind.
‘The record sounds like Rival Consoles made everything with just a few synthesizers and a mixing desk. Admirable, because when you walk around the Amsterdam Dance Event you hear so many things that can be done with the latest technology, equipment and software. If you wanted to incorporate all that into your music, you’d go crazy. on Now Is With sometimes just a bass or percussion, Rival Consoles makes an incredibly compelling track. The less equipment he has started to use, the more effect he achieves with his music. The structure of the album is beautiful. It goes from quiet ambient-like parts to a climax. Now Is is a perfect album for ADE-goers on their way to a party.’
Also worth listening to this week:
The jazz record The Sound of Listening (★★★★☆, 10 songs) by Mark Guiliana sounds like something you don’t know yet, but you want to know more about. Especially the interplay between drummer Mark Guiliana and pianist Shai Maestro is inventive, writes Gijsbert Kamer.