Tag: brexit

Posted in Album of the Month, Music chat, New Albums, New Tunes

November AOTM: Joy Crookes – Juniper

Posted on by GuyHornsby

Yes, Joy is back, and isn’t that a good thing to say?

It was way back in January 2022 in Episode 19 that we first welcomed the south Londoner to the podcast, and I’ve been anticipating her next move ever since her brilliant debut, Skin, found its way into my life. That album – Crookes was already hyped and was nominated for the Brit Rising Star award in 2020 – truly put Crookes on the map, a heady mix of twenty-something south London life as a mixed-race women – growing up with an Irish father and Bangladeshi mother – painting nights out wrapped in cigarette smoke and JD and cokes, the 35 bus, parties, family, flirting and love, all set against deeper topics of mental health struggles, identity and nods to the good and bad of multicultural Britain. Trading on smoky soul, r’n’b, 60s pop, dancehall, as much of a melting pot as the city she calls home. It won the then 22 year old plaudits and a Mercury prize nomination.

It was a firm favourite in Hornsby towers; songs are still on my daughter’s playlist. It has been in my life ever since, a post-Covid breath of fresh air that seemed to have London as a backing singer, reminding me fondly of the place I called home for over two decades. The album was toured relentlessly over the next two years, with talk of new material in the studio, as well as Crookes’ appearance at fashion shows, festivals and even a Lexus advert, enjoying her new-found fame and bringing her own down-to-earth energy wherever she was. It was hard not to see her having the time of her life and not be there vicariously with her. And I wasn’t begrudging one single moment. She was the star we could all get behind.

But where was the new music I hoped for? It took until January of this year when Pass The Salt dropped: a new single, as yet decoupled from any expectation of a new album. And it felt fresh. Tricking us with a filtered soul intro, before dropping into heavy-drummed and bass-driven verse which felt like a statement of intent: “listen to this / I’ve got plenty to get off my chest.” Joy was back, but where had she been? This was a different tip to her smoky, ballsy, fun-filled sound of 2022. This was more weighty, direct, and pointed to a hardening of the now 26 years old artist: “I got thick skin on these bones, ah / When a bitch don’t rise to rumour / Get the words stuck in your throat, throat, throat”. It also featured a rasping verse from Compton native Vince Staples, elevating it and nudging away from expectations in under three minutes. As a comeback, it asked questions: what was next, what did Joy have to say this time, and was there an album coming soon too?

A second single followed soon after, again with a big name verse to shift thinking further: this time enlisting grime superstar and actor Kano for his verse in Mathematics. A more soul standard track this time, but with the grime OG’s vulnerable words standing out with power and poignancy alongside Crookes’ lyrics and pushing things forward (as well as starring in a memorable video for the release, below). On the surface, it felt like a song about unrequited love, but it also felt like something heavier loomed in the background. It raised the interest of both new directions, and what lay behind Crookes’ next step. After third single – the up-tempo pop of ‘I Know You’d Kill‘ in March – I finally got the news I was hoping for: a new album, Juniper, was due in September, almost four years to the day from her debut. It felt a long time, and as the media rounds started for that release, things became clear that it hadn’t been a simple ride for Crookes since she got on the hamster wheel.

For all the joy of the new record – to which we’ll come – there’s significant context to Juniper’s journey from studio to airwaves. In the middle of her rush of fame, things fell apart. The late nights and VIP rooms had been fun as she found her way up through the next tiers of the industry, but it all felt disconnected, causing Crookes to step away and question what was important to her. Talking to Grace Dent in her Comfort Eating podcast, she laid bare how hard it had hit her: “.…it was a very dark time. I was extremely unwell. Not in a good place. I had to face those mental health issues: after the high, I flew down. I was lonely and isolated, like I had no connection to anyone.” If it all sounds bleak, it was. Right at the point where she should be releasing a second album, there was questions around her own health, and whether it would actually happen.

While plainly laid out in its lyrics – opener Brave is an early statement: “I’m so sick, I’m so tired I can’t keep losing my mind / I want to be brave, I want to be in love / It’s time I stopped running away. I should stay” – Crookes had to contemplate confronting the reality of where her head was at to even get to the studio. Telling DIY mag: “Touring and everything is a great distraction but I obviously had something bubbling up for years in the background I’d decided not to deal with, mentally.” Sparked by coming out of a relationship, she realised her behaviours “were actually traits of someone with very specific traumas”. She had to choose between the party and her soul, and it came down to an easy choice, but a harder road: “you can fuck around, but the play time’s gonna end at some point. No more Alaïas or Tabis, you’re gonna have to put on your fuckin’ Salomons and go on the hike!” It’s what makes the joy of Juniper even greater, given what was overcome.

I’d already been playing the singles to death through the summer – the fast-paced 60s pop of I Know You’d Kill (penned about her love for her brilliant female manager) and the sultry Carmen, eschewing the simple love and loss for the myth of unattainable beauty – and they continued to come thick and fast. The modern trait of releasing half the album in tracks that’ll get the airplay and streaming numbers does dilute the mystery of the long player. But what was revealed early didn’t remove too much from the final product. It was so good to see Crookes back, and I was ready to play Juniper on repeat on day one, enjoying how much the singles change feeling as part of a greater whole.

It was such a bright, accessible listen. Crookes always had a skill for enveloping, classy soul and pop that – whatever the subject matter – you could tap and dance too, and her own vibrancy came through in every line. Brave’s dusky overtones were classic Crookes, but it felt laced with sadness: “Sometimes it’s hard to smile / When no hurt feels against us”, the vocals as rich and heady as ever, with its tales of love and the fear laying yourself open to someone else. Her wider palette of influences – not just Nina Simone or Sarah Vaughan, but also the first wave of Bristol’s trip-hop scene and Joy Division – seep into the album, and the first half of singles-heavy tracks, reward with layers. Flying through Pass The Salt – a track that sees Crookes call out an ‘arsehole woman’ who’d spread rumours about her – and Carmen‘s playful musings on beauty and expectation. Flitting effortlessly between genres and styles that revolve around her London soul and street sounds, she plays on her heritage – Perfect Crime’s video was shot in her mother’s homeland of Bangladesh, with Crookes goofing around on the river and the back of motorbikes, seemingly happy to be out of the other side of her trauma – and confidently wears it on her sleeve.

There are more musical departures that nod to a widening of horizons, too. For all of some reviewers seeing First Last Dance as a more derivative dance/pop track, it’s a firm favourite of mine already, and shows a willingness to move away from the template (and features one of my favourite lyrics on the album – ‘Feel like Travolta / Each time I hold ya’. And far from a breezy theme, like much of the album, it had a deeper narrative, relaying the anxiety felt during the recording process. As she told DIY Mag, “I was like, ‘my chest at the moment, you know that scene where they stab [Mia Wallace] with the needle because she’s taken way too much cocaine?’ They were like ‘yeah?’ and I was like, ‘well, that’s how it feels’.” She grins. “They were like ‘well, that’s a lyric!’”.

The production on the album really worked too. It was – to me – a bit more varied, but warm, full of layers, and above all, sat back to let Crookes’ voice shine through. The two work in harmony, and there feels like an added richness to her voice too, with a few years (and a few cigarettes) more, it’s so full of character. The album was a blend of studio talent: Blue May, her most regular partner, producing Skin before this record, was back. Harvey Grant also returned, having worked with Arlo Parks previously too. Tev’n – a collaborator with Stormzy – debuted, as did Chrome Sparks. With Crookes finding a way to blend al of this together, it sounds fantastic, but never overdone.

Of all the tracks that have found their way into my head, Somebody To You is the album’s zenith to me. Perhaps the simplest song on the record, it just aches with sadness and thoughtfulness (and features a sublime Sam Fender on backing vocals). Alongside the companion video, it feels like a classic love song, but once again the truth is more uncomfortable than that. Talking to Glamour magazine, she told how it actually hints at a familial relationship that had broken down in the interim and caused Joy to rethink what her life looks like without her reliance on that relative. And that also points to a bigger narrative about being a woman: “It’s such an important question for women trying to define their full adult selves outside of relationships that no longer serve them,” Crookes said, nodding to the line “‘Who am I when I’m out of your sight? I want to see how we look apart”, as “what the album really is about.”

The themes may more broadly always bring in love in all its raw detail – Perfect Crime’s title nods to the joy love after heartbreak – and Mathematics tells of unrequited love, with its verse recorded secretly by Kano, so moved was he by the song, and A House With A Pool, a tale of an abusive ex-partner and for Crookes “a shit year when I ground myself down into the smallest version of myself”. At each turn, there is something deeper running through Juniper than simple heartbreak. Where Skin was as much about love, identity, family and a love letter to her south London homeland, Juniper feels closer, more introspective.

It’s the sound of an artist that has grown up in the spotlight, suffered and questioned the outcomes of the very thing she loves, and come back to her centre of family and friends, to find connection and a way out of the trough. She is willing to put it all out there, and there’s a bravery and determination that makes Juniper rise above the simple follow-up on the same template and marks a step forward. Closer Paris muses on the effect of a relationship with another woman, Crookes calling out “one of the best songs I’ve ever done.” There’s a freedom to her admission that it didn’t matter to her being with someone rather than worrying about her internal voice’s worries: “Kinda wanted you to be my girlfriend / Didn’t wanna fuck with no more Catholic guilt / When it comes to pride / I’d raise my heart to a girl or guy”. It feels a distance from the person she was then, a willingness to embrace the emotion. I was stood in the crowd at Glastonbury in 2022 when she wept tears of joy at where she’d come to, and I think of that now and where this album will take her, a smile on my face.

Despite so much of the record being underpinned her exposure to fame and its pitfalls, it’s never painted in a morose or self-involved way. She is willing to reveal warts and all, and call out her own failings as much as her struggles. The tunes soar so well, and her lyrics are so sharp, clever, and zippy, that you feel you are always on Crookes’ side, even as she’s telling you her darkness of the past few years, while asking you not to pity her. She values her ‘reset’, and the people around her, from her family and pre-fame friends, to her manager Charlotte Owen, for whom I Know You’d Kill is a celebration of. There’s something beautiful about the fierce independence of two women, fighting back in an industry built on the male gaze.

As much as the subject matter weighs – and rightly so – on Juniper, it doesn’t flatten the melodies, and it’s also possible to let the album wash over you, dancing to the sound, as much as deep listening, headphones on, and taking in all of its majesty under the surface. And albums working on two levels are what we all love, right?

What Juniper gives me is a follow-up from a British songwriter of class, wit and honesty that feels every bit as good as the debut, with four more years of life, emotion, understanding and recovery poured into it. For all the struggles that Crookes has gone through, her determination to come out of the other side and bring that through to us in her music is a gift for all of us. In her early releases, there may have been lazy ‘next Winehouse’ comparisons, but I can’t think of another artist like her around, so steeped in London, and the clash of cultures that have made her who she is. We are lucky to have her and I hope you’ll see some of what I feel about Juniper in your own experience.

Posted in Album of the Month, Music chat, New Albums

AOTM APRIL | Yard Act | Where’s My Utopia

Posted on by GuyHornsby
Yard Act – We Make Hits

We all love new music, don’t we? I mean we love all sorts of music, but there’s something vital about discovering a new band, or getting into a new band, and when you do that, nothing more so than a new album coming out. And the biggest rush of all is when you get into a band and you claim a first full album as yours.

And that’s Yard Act for me. I’ve been into them since the dismal, outerworld days of lockdown. But not quite from the beginning. I wasn’t a ground zero, I didn’t (like my friend David) see them upstairs at the Lexi being boisterous and lairy to 40 Londoners in 2021, as we were all emerging from all that. No, I got into The Overload in 2022, after it was out, like the man that arrives at a house party at 4am when all the best fun’s been had. I wasn’t deterred though, and made it my own that year. I delighted at its rawness, its very English, very northern wit, its ability to project the best and worst of this country into the open: all the wit and humour, the have-to-laugh-or-you’ll-cry bleakness of its songs, Brexit overtones, con-men, kitchen-sink scenes and booze, boredom, and moments of enlightenment, all delivered in a mostly-spoken, part-sung laconic drawl of lead singer James Smith over a boisterous jangle of guitars, bass, keyboards and drums.

Of course this sort of thing’s been done before, not least by other Mancunians (if those from Warrington would be ok with that label), but this felt fresh, and most of all, unlike much else that was coming out of that strange two years. There was a ‘one last chance’ narrative – the members of the band all having been relative failures in other outfits – that felt like it was an all-or-nothing record. Forget the focus groups, the second-guessing of what the public wants, just make this music you want, cobbled together in lockdown recordings, and then watch it mushroom out in a world of no gigs, no parties and no in-store performances. It’s a very modern tale, but I couldn’t stop coming back to it, from early singles Fixer Upper and Dark Days, through the bleak, booze-filled world of The Overload and Dead Horse, Rich’s biting humour, Witness’ shouty post-punk whizz and softer, more thoughtful tracks such as Tall Poppies, and the closer, my track of the year on the pod, 100% Endurance. All of these tracks weren’t just audio delights, but there were a succession of clever, funny and though-provoking videos, that provided a visual narrative that lifted things further. Its’ like a ready-made band falling out of the sky into your living room.

And I was hooked. It was brilliant coming into something so fresh and new and that felt like yours. That’s the holy grail. So once 2023 rolled around, I sat around desperately hoping for new music to emerge. And finally, in July, we got it. A hell of a new single: an 8-minute banger, The Trenchcoat Museum, that leant much further towards things like LCD Soundsystem, and now things got interesting. Talk about announcing your next move in a way that’s memorable. Add an Arthur Baker remix (of course I bought it on vinyl) and hopes were high.

But what would the album sound like? When would it arrive? Early 2024 was the news, as new singles arrived with Dream Job’s unashamed pop and a sound that stepped up more than a few gears and I was on for the ride. I could see how it may have pissed off the Yard Act OGs and purists, but what band should stay in their lane for the sake of their first music? That always feels like a slippery slope. I’m here for the next steps. Find me a Radiohead fan that thinks everything after The Bends was shit, and I’ll show you someone that needs to move on with their life.

The singles came thick and fast ahead of 1st March. The growling, Beck-like Petroleum, telling its tale of Smith’s onstage semi-meltdown after touring burnout. Then We Make Hits, harking back to the genesis of the band between Smith and bassist Ryan Needham, poking fun at going for the mainstream while unapologetically wanting to be a hit. And finally, before the album landed, When The Laughter Stops, with the band lining up with Katy J Pearson to riff once more on the challenge of giving art all you can, gleefully suggesting you then know ‘my chance was fully blown’.

The album is more than just a single narrative, but the looming expectation of fame and hits brought by a surprise debut success is a seam running through it. Smith’s wrestling of a career of relative failures with unexpected success and the pressure to follow it up, deal with the industry (We Make Hits) while balancing a family and new fatherhood (The Undertow, An Illusion). The wry, bleak humour that underpins his lyrics – balanced between semi-truthful autobiography (Down By The Stream, and the whimsical, kitchen-sink Blackpool Illuminations), surrealist idealism (A Vineyard For The North) and biting self-criticism and state-of-the-nation observations (Grifter’s Grief, Fizzy Fish) – may feel by some to disarm some of the bleaker narratives, but humour is at the core of Smith and Yard Act’s modus operandi. Speaking to NPR’s World Cafe in March, Smith stated their music “always starts with us trying to make each other laugh. Humour is the only thing that matters in life. It’s a universal thing, finding humour in situations. Seems very strange not having that in music.“

There’s an interesting debate to be had about humour in music – especially when it comes from a working-class source – and snobbery over how its’ received, perhaps not nearly as worthy as ‘serious music’. I think there’s a place for it all and I Yard Act’s voice in this is very refreshing to me. Yes, there’s a layer of self-deprecation at play, but that’s also a very English trait, and so much of the biggest reflections on British society and all its issues comes from satire, in particular. It really hits a nerve, the confluence – for me – between music, politics, comedy, art and culture.

The album’s production is far more maximal than its predecessor. It’s good to see the band develop, and in enlisting the talent of Remi Kabaka Jr., sometime member and producer with the Gorillaz, there’s a lovely synchronicity at play, too. Smith talked to DIY’s Before They Knew Better podcast and how he was a fan of the band in the post-Blur period, so working with Remi was a lovely way the circle closed. There’s a real freedom to the record, something band have openly acknowledged, and it’s a melting pot of influences and styles – in a Fanzine the members quote everyone form Glen Campbell and Electric Six, to Congolese drum music and Korn to the White Stripes and Rick James – where I hear a lot of Beck, 90s hip-hop (especially prevalent in some of the skit-style samples and intro-outros across the album), Pulp (on Undertow), Phoenix, and of course a big dollop of LCD.

It definitely enjoys a lack of categorisation, and to me it’s much more of a vibe than a sound. I like how it dips in and out of changes of pace, feel, style, and while there’s a lot more layers to the music – strings, extra percussion, backing and guest vocals – Needham’s distinctive basslines and Sam Shipstone’s growling licks still sit very much at the core of what the band’s sound is. I think lyrically, thematically and musically it’s a big leap forward. The programming works for me too: while it took a while to get my head into the album, having been so familiar with the singles, it wasn’t a case of front-loading the big records, and I like how the pace or energy never really settles. I find myself going straight to the next track in my head, a TINH Guy ™ trope but always a good sign.

I find it a very much complete album, and one that sounds absolutely outstanding live. Like Young Fathers, I was blessed with a live experience before writing this, and unfortunately I did it without any of the other podcast crew. At the Manchester Apollo – where Smith touchingly explained he’d been dozens of times to see bands that he loved himself, but never in his dreams or Yard Act’s plan did they ever expect to be on the stage themselves – they tore through much of Where’s My Utopia with glee and the energy of a band coming home. While they reside in Leeds, Smith grew up in Manchester, so it was a lovely extra level to what was one of the best gigs of the last year for me. All the songs are faster, more energetic and more urgent live, but with a keyboard and sax and two backing singers – one of whom, Daisy Smith, is the striped-topped and black-bobbed star of the new album’s videos – the sound is more elastic, more ambitious and the band feel like they’ve grown into their expanded universe with ease. The new tracks sounded amazing, and closing with an onstage rave to Trenchcoat Museum felt a fitting end to the night.

What will everyone else make of it? I am honestly not sure. I’m sure there’ll be highlights but after voting it my top album and track of 2022 on my tod, I don’t have hopes they’ll feel the same way as me. I know David will love some of the tracks – there’s too much crossover with artists he loves not to – but I’m less solid on Nolan and Joey.

There’s only one way to find out though….. Brothers, do your worst!