Album reviews: Richard Ashcroft | The Orb | Say She She | Shears

Richard Ashcroft: Lovin’ You (Virgin) ★★★

The Orb: Buddhist Hipsters (Cooking Vinyl) ★★★★

Say She She: Cut & Rewind (drink sum wtr) ★★★★★

Shears: We Are But Chemicals (self-released) ★★★★

Former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft caps a busy year as support act on the Oasis tour with his first album of new material since 2018. Lovin’ You is all over the map, as if Ashcroft has been itching to try out multiple musical directions since before the pandemic. His signature indie gospel bombast remains a feature but there are new, somewhat unexpected sonic strands to be explored too.

He kicks off with a Joan Armatrading-approved sample of her best known song Love and Affection which is so blatantly applied that the resulting track Lover could almost be considered a cover version, with Ashcroft in his wisdom choosing to semi-rap over the top of its Seventies strings and saxophone arrangement.

If Joan Armatrading is a middle of the road gambit, she has nothing on Mason Williams’ Classical Gas, which is sampled heavily on the album’s title track, pimped up with spiralling strings, exultant backing vocals and a bold brass fanfare.

Elsewhere, Ashcroft moves unselfconsciously from the mellow acoustic country balm of Out of These Blues to clamorous indie garage rocker Heavy News, all fuzz guitar licks and propulsive drumming, and from there to lush easy listening love ode Oh L’Amour, bathed in strings and coloured with a tremolo guitar solo.

He strays furthest out of his comfort zone with dance track I’m a Rebel, co-written with French producer and Madonna associate Mirwais, on which he utilises the higher end of his range, dices with autotune and revels in some Daft Punk-style synth arpeggios before retreating to a couple of more typical urban hymns, Find Another Reason and Live With Hope, to salve the indie fanbase.

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Thirty years melt away as The Orb open their new album with fluttering ambient electro, dubby rhythms and soothing sampled female vocals on Spontaneously Combust. Orb mainstay Alex Paterson is joined by new sidekick Michael Rendall with old pals Steve Hillage, Youth and Roger Eno dropping by for some proggy trance action. It’s like Britpop never happened.

They do have some new colours in the palette, from the throbbing electro of It’s Coming Soon to the ecstatic soul and deep house soundtrack of The Oort Cloud (Too Night). Highlights of a strong set which honours their signature sampledelia while expanding horizons include dub odyssey A Sacred Choice, featuring Youth’s Killing Joke buddy Paul Ferguson on drums, and the ecstatic mantra Arabebonics with guest rapper Rrome Alone.

Brooklyn vocal trio Say She She (Nya Gazelle Brown, Sabrina Cunningham and Piya Malik) dispense more sheer sonic delight on third album Cut & Rewind with an audacious soul, funk and disco-influenced sound which makes ravishing use of individual, unison and harmony vocals. Afrofunk and spiritual jazz collide on Take It All while Shop Boy is a tasty slice of New York punk-funk in the Tom Tom Club style. Disco Life calls out Chicago’s racist and homophobic 1979 Disco Demolition, She Who Dares is a shimmering feminist treatise and Do All Things With Love takes it right up into the stratosphere with Minnie Ripertonesque whistle tones.

Edinburgh singer/producer Rebecca Shearing aka Shears also uses her vocal capabilities to tackle the politics of dancing on debut album We Are But Chemicals, which is conceived as a journey from negative experiences, primarily around sexism and control in the music industry, to a more positive mindset in the second half. She applies a touch of electro judder to her trance soundtrack on Bad Dream and teams her pure, soaring vocal line with a curt, bouncy bassline on Arcade Machine before taking it higher on the perky electro of Dive Feet First and closing track In the Dark.

CLASSICAL

Tree: The Hermes Experiment (Delphian) ★★★★

Nature and music are potent bedfellows. Think of Beethoven or Mahler. Or to play a more contemporary hand, go to highly-creative ensemble The Hermes Experiment. Their latest album, Tree, explores almost exclusively some of today’s composer’s responses to the natural environment and its emotional influence. Needless to say, the outcome is expressively wide-ranging, from sadness to joy, unspoken intimacy to shared elation - indeed, a universe of sensitivities channelled via this enterprising four-piece ensemble, largely in their own thoughtful arrangements and fronted by the extraordinary vocal agility of soprano Héloïse Werner. There’s music by South African cellist Abel Selaocoe (the elemental vocalisations of Buhle Bendalo), the fitful theatrics of Laura Moody’s Rilke Songs and the improvised playfulness of Werner’s own Thunder Clears, the magical solitude of Hermes double bassist Marianne Schofield’s Islands, and much more besides. The concluding title track by Errollyn Wallen is an aptly tantalising discourse in contradictions. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Nigel Price Organ Trio: It’s On! (Nervy Nigel Records) ★★★★

Widely respected guitarist Nigel Price returns in the uncompromisingly straight-ahead company of Hammond master Ross Stanley and drummer Joel Barford in this admirable assemblage of his own compositions plus three standards. The opening classic, Make Someone Happy, sets the bar high as, following Price’s languid introductory deliberations, they lope along inventively, guitar and organ having their say over Barford’s propulsion. The subsequent Price composition, Backatcha, notches up the energy, limber guitar and fiercely stuttering organ alternating over exuberant yet tightly controlled drumming. Chonky, meanwhile, settles into a satisfyingly funky groove with swingy intervals, Straight Talk bristles around an interesting time signature and there’s a snappy, tempo-doubling take on Joe Zawinul’s Midnight Mood. The title track joyously combines a catchy melody and sharp improvisational outbursts. Definitely to be caught live, their current tour takes in several Scottish venues in mid-November (see https://nigethejazzer.com). Jim Gilchrist

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