Tag: guitars

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

AOTM | June | Lucy Dacus | Forever Is A Feeling

Posted on by GuyHornsby

I can’t remember who introduced me to Lucy Dacus. But a skim of our Whatsapp shows that while we all slept on it in 2023, Nolan was the first to alert us to it in April (perhaps from his legendary ‘Folk’ playlist). So, hats off brother, because that’s why we’re talking about Lucy Dacus’ fourth solo album, Forever Is A Feeling, and how I’ve come to bring it into the summer light. So, let’s rewind a little, then.

Back in early 2023, I’d not even heard of any of the trio of the acclaimed indie/rock/folk supergroup Boygenius. I’d been aware perhaps of Phoebe Bridgers in passing, but the album was a definition of a ‘how did we miss this?!’ record when we got to our 2024 Album of the Year picks for the podcast. In the November, it was catching fire, and by the time we recorded the podcast, it was climbing slowly into Top Tens. It hadn’t quite wrapped itself around me at that point but into early 2024, it really took off for me. 42 minutes, 12 songs – the TINH golden ratio – and some of the finest crafted songs of that year, however late they came to us. From the banjo-infused delicate feel of Cool About It, to the perfect rock of $20. It made me want to know who this trio was. Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker were doing things I needed to hear, in ways I didn’t know I wanted. I played that album into the ground last year. it was the perfect confluence of female voices that played across the genres and had so much interesting to say about being a woman and being queer in the 2020s. They seemed to be having the time of their lives.

But this isn’t about the band, it’s about Dacus. Back in March, I had interest when Forever Is A Feeling was trailed, but I had no expectations of this weaving its way into my head and heart so much. I love when an artist that’s either new to you or you don’t have a big history with comes out of the wings to catch you unawares, and this feels like 2025’s for me. I was familiar with her voice from The Record, and how it sat so nicely within that frame, but on her own it was a focus that really called out the Virginian’s talent for melody and songwriting, and a skill with the guitar that took me by surprise. All the parts were there, fully formed: from the classical intro of Calliope Prelude, Big Deal was the first one that really had me: its simplicity of strummed guitar, brushed percussion and Dacus’ rich but expressive voice, talking of unrequited love come into the open, and it had this connection that I can’t quite explain when you feel a song is written for you. As I got to know the album, it felt so open, wearing its love and emotions large across its 13 tracks. And if you connect with that, it’s a powerful drug. Then I read the backstory and it all seemed to fall into place.

I’m slow to the context, for sure. But casting through news stories of the past and I realised there’s been speculation and rumours around the trio’s creative bonds ever since they got together, and whether there was anything more. And while it feels trite to buy into this stuff – they certainly enjoy how they dress, perform and make music together – because, really, in 2025 why can’t it just be a group of female friends and musical partners making amazing records together, finding out that Dacus and Baker were in a relationship earlier this year suddenly added layers to the music that I already felt a real connection to. Because when you reframe the songs on this album to that backdrop, it feels all the more relevant, meaningful and, above all, beautiful. Not because they should be telling us what is absolutely their business and theirs only, but because they did, and it felt right to do it. “It’s been interesting, because I want to protect what is precious in my life, but also to be honest, and make art that’s true,” Dacus told the New Yorker recently. “I think maybe a part of it is just trusting that it’s not at risk.” And we are all the beneficiaries of that trust.

So an album more generally about love, loss, infatuation, lust and life, became (mainly) about this. And it lifted it up to another level. The lust and sexual energy of Ankles (with this wonderful version on Jimmy Kimmel) took on a new meaning, and the gentle insistence of Best Guess transformed into a warm hope for future lives together. Mogdiliani’s intonation that “you make me homesick for places I’ve never been before” is a sweet sentiment. If it wasn’t coalesced around a person it may feel a bit mawkish, but I think there’s a truthfulness and openness to the songwriting – which clearly feels different after the fact – that makes this something special to me. The album isn’t all soft focus love songs, for that would be unfair on an artist of the talents of Dacus. Talk fizzes with scuzzy guitars and angst over, presumably, the ending of the previous relationship before Baker: “I didn’t mean to start
Talking in the past tense / I guess I don’t know what I think / ‘Til I start talking.” The balance between the start of something new and the end of the previous affair also looms large here.

There’s some wonderful turns of phrase throughout, with For Keeps lamenting “If the Devil’s in the details and God is everything / Who’s to say that they are not one and the same? / But neither one of them were there / In the mezzanine cheap seats, or waking up in dirty sheets.” In these moments, Dacus almost feels as if she’s close by, singing directly to you. The title track is a more urgent-sounding confession about feelings hidden coming into the open, with a lyric that’s half put-down and half hopeful statement: “Yeah, you’re smart / But you’re dumb at heart / And that’s a good start.” Come Out’s chorus has been washing around in my head for weeks. There are some less strong notes, especially the duet with Hozier, Bullseye, which feels the most derivative on the album, but quickly blown away by Most Wanted Man and the closer Lost Time, a hell of a pair of final cuts. The album hangs together loosely and easily, like an old jacket. I’m sure we’ll talk programming but I can’t think of things that feel particularly out of place, and it flows so easily into multiple runs. I feel it’s been here for years already.

It’s not just a simple album about one person though. Because Dacus and Boygenius inhabit something bigger in the cultural landscape. A trio of queer women, unashamedly themselves, proud of who they are and enjoying playing with those identities, should feel normal of course, but the country they are from is in a strange era. Right now they are the sort of creatives that the unhinged White House hates, and willing to campaign for gay rights, abortion and trans communities is not a simple choice to make for everyone in this decade. The more I read about them, the more I respect, admire and adore them, and Dacus’ music and the layers it has makes me wish I was on board when her debut No Burden came out in 2016. Perhaps, when I read some of the press, the fact that I’m only starting out now, may be why I see it more favourably than some who got in at the ground floor.

This album has had some – to me – odd reviews in a number of places that decry its lack of edge and softness compared to its predecessors. How it’s more rounded and content, perhaps disappointment that a promotion to a major label – from independent darling Matador to big time Geffen – has smoothed out a few too many of those rougher edges. I think – to me – there’s also another factor in play: that when you’re singing and writing about yourself, but that world is private to you, you can talk about the stories and images and weave them with all the colour you feel is needed – real or imagined. But when your relationship is public – and she must have written and completed the work knowing that was where it would end up and how it would be framed – there’s a different angle to that, surely? Where your public and very well-known partner is the centre of many of the songs, would you be as visceral, as brutal, as colourful as before? Only Dacus can know this, but when you are in love and that album is largely an expression of that, critical appraisal of that must feel more personal and I feel there’s something to that here. It’s Dacus’ (and Baker’s) truth, and no one else’s.

For sure, having listened to it recently, I certainly get that her debut was more guitar-led and spiky – but that was not the overriding style itself – and she’s sung of pain, grief, love, and loss to great effect on her past work, but I felt that there’s light and dark on all previous albums she’s done. I find it a quirk – perhaps confirmation bias – that a good number of the less favourable reviews I’ve read this time have been written by men. Laura Snapes’ excellent piece for Pitchfork is an exception, that while it ruminates on the albums style, it also posits that the record’s biggest transgression may be the statement of queer ‘contentment’ and I very much like that idea (though of course that should not be a thing).

And I’m sure that’s a thought I’ll carry into the podcast too. There’s a critical narrative for sure, and while I acknowledge that and see it, I adore it all the same. Journalists can sift through the album against a back catalogue and critically appraise changes in tone and style, I am just here to say I plain old love this record.

The question is, will you all?

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!

Posted in Album of the Month

March AOTM – Holy Fuck – Deleter

Posted on by GuyHornsby

 

New year, new music. And this is a story of one song, that lead me to an album, and how something that simple can bring such reward. I have been aware of the gloriously named Holy Fuck for a while, from their pleasingly daft videos, their excellent remixes, and the fact that they REALLY sounded like they should be on DFA. Their music – four guys, a bit of a rotating cast of synths, guitars, drums and a bunch of hardware – felt like something I should really be into but never quite did.

Then I heard Luxe on 6Music (of course) and I realised they may have finally got into my head for good. Yes, it has Alexis Taylor of my fanboy crush Hot Chip on it, but it’s much more that it’s an incredible track. Because even his idiosyncratic vocals are only somewhere in the morass, distorted in feedback and muffled in the mid-range as the track first wobbles around an odd sub-bassline and crisp drums, piano stabs, teasing with its destination for way longer than it should be possible to do, before it falls into structure, and then emerges into the sunlight, a percussive cut of modern, shimmering pop music. It’s quite the opener, and that’s possibly the main criticism of the album: where do you go from there?

The answer is, more of the same. And it just about hangs on to get away with it. Because it’s mining some of the best things about that oft-overdone, tired indie-dance hybrid that I’ve heard in a while. And while there’s echoes of all sorts of things in there, it also sounds like their own sound. The title track has shades of LCD – a vein that runs through all their music’s DNA – but there’s a lot of the Reflektor-era James Murphy-reworked Arcade Fire in there too, all scuzzy, submerged vocals, heavy drums, bleepy leads and jangling guitars and ooh-wee-ooh chorus. Endless bucks the trend, much more a guitar track, which to me comes much closer to previous AOTM and personal favourite Hookworms, with its edging into psych-rock and almost operatic stylings.

And what Holy Fuck lack in a singular vocal frontman – think their own Murphy, or Taylor – they make up in clever use of layering, distortion and harmonies. Free Gloss nails this perfectly with its soaring chorus that blends vocals, feedback and guitars, complete with a rocking, solo that makes me want to go and jump around a little club (only to find out their Manchester gig is sold out). There’s elements of the Chemical Brothers too, with Moment’s relentless drum-driven intro, and No Error is a brave sub-3 minute funk-smeared wobbler. What they may lack in perfectly balanced songcraft, they make up for in sheer exuberance and brio – San Sebastian is an almost angry, shouty, 90s throwback that sounds a bit like a discarded Blur b-side from before they went twee and irritating, with nods to Tame Impala, while Ruby doesn’t let up the pace, flowering at the death with a lovely, unexpected melody that fades into the ether as the distorted chords disappear. I also find myself thinking about 2020 uber-release Caribou at more than one juncture. This is a good thing. Yet for all their jangly, energetic energy, there’s more nuance than you’d first think, and a few listens in, the album takes on a much more three-dimensional shape.

In fact, for a band who’ve been around for so long (fourteen years and five albums) I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to properly seek them out. Perhaps this album is a that much of a step up. Because it’s certainly a coherent whole, and refreshing that, at 41 minutes, there’s not much filler in here. Yes, everyone’s buying Caribou, but that’s almost a given it’ll be loved. This is much more of a gamble, and one I think that’s handsomely paid off.

Posted in Album of the Month

October: Michael Kiwanuka – Kiwanuka

Posted on by GuyHornsby

Yes, brothers, it’s a bit late, but my god, it’s worth the wait. What can you say about Michael Kiwanuka that’s not already been said? Let’s get the cliches out of the way first: he harks back to the best soul musicians of the 60s and 70s, be it Bill Withers, The Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye, with a twinge of the jazz he so adores, but he brings that soul, that classic guitar into the modern age, (with a little help from the talents of Danger Mouse and Inflo) with electronic touches and flourishes. Oh, and I think we forgot that it’s easy listening, middle-class soul that belies a depth and richness, and a self-criticism that shows underneath the wizadry, there’s real doubt, loss and sadness.

Now that’s over with, let’s talk about what goes outside the usual tick-box talking points. Because in Michael Kiwanuka we have an artist that could be set to ascend to the heights of a modern great, at a time when the music he makes feels beautifully out of step with everything else on show: tracks that you expect to crackle with the fizz of vinyl, that don’t adhere to radio-friendly lengths or structures, (yet get picked up by globally renowned TV shows) however simple they may seem at first sight. Yes, you may say he should’ve been born 30 years earlier, but in some ways, that would’ve meant he’d perhaps sunk back into the ‘really good’ with so many legends around him. Truth be told, we’re lucky he’s around now, because that means he stands out, and – for those of us of a certain age – he beautifully espouses the virtues of proper songwriting.

And yet, it could’ve been so different. In many ways Kiwanuka is an anachronism. An immigrant kid, growing up in a white, middle-class suburb in north London, stripped of some of the struggles that peers may have encountered. Growing up immersed in jazz and soul, rather than hip-hop or r’n’b, a skater (but really, not that good), and dropping out of his dream course at the Royal Academy to write some songs, play them in a pub, and see where it went, assuming it’d be respected session musician, and never Glastonbury headliner, and singer-songwriter that spent years both convinced his own voice wasn’t up to the mark, then when fame finally hit, wracked with self-doubt, a self-labelled impostor that walked out of sessions with Kanye and struggled singing songs about the bleak side of love as he was getting married himself.

But to stick with Kiwanuka is an experience that rewards you, continually. Even the breakout Home Again, and the BBC Sound of 2012 – which seems so incredibly long ago – didn’t seem to quite bring him the expected success he’d been talked up for. It wasn’t until Love And Hate, four years later, that the it felt like the world caught up. It debuted at No.1 in the UK, and was an album that improved with every listen, his voice just drifting into gravelly, lovelorn ennui, cloaked in sadness. It was hard enough to listen to sometimes in good days, let alone when you’d gone through a break-up, or suffered loss. Every track dripped with sadness, with subtle, careworn character that settled like winter snow. And when he found his voice as a black man in the modern world, it gave us musical glory.

So where do you go from here? Radical reinvention? Pastiche? In this case, a bit of that, but mostly taking what made you so loved, and adding layers. But as with his own character, it’s not a brash statement, but something enveloped in a sound so pure, rich and powerful, that it reveals itself slowly. And shows that along with musical growth, Kiwanuka is also starting to feel more at home with himself. The first single, You Ain’t The Problem, finds him coming to the realisation that, whatever tribulations and doubt there is, it’s not himself that’s at the centre of it. Hero is self-questioning, with a video that puts his own contradictions at its heart, but doesn’t put the blame at his own door, and throughout the album, there are songs whose first impact is ‘that’s nice’, but as you delve deeper and let the music wash over you, and the lyrics sink in, you get to enjoy the slow-burning, blossoming joy as the album slowly shifts under your feet, and you just want to listen again, and again, and again.

Not everything, it seems has to be accessible and obvious from the off, and so this gentle but powerful anachronism, at odds with a fast-paced, condensed, over-saturated world, is everything it should be: a current classic, a future classic, and one of the albums of the year. Amen, Michael.