Listening Clark :: Class Of 2023 :: Module Five
I know, not been too long since the last update, right?
Welp, that’s all down to a mix of making good use of my spare time ahead amidst the Easter holidays, as well some upcoming excursions that have prompted me to crank the listening schedule up a notch, especially considering that backlog of new albums only seems to be getting ever larger with every week.
But then, I guess that’s what happens when you foolhardily decide to take on a content roster consisting of recommendations from Pitchfork, Resident Advisor and The Guardian, as well as any noteworthy mentions on Metacritic, desirable or no.
However, this journalising skein is not concerned with dwelling on the lesser releases of the year so far (not yet, anyway!), and as such, here are another ten examples of good stuff from 2023.
Listening Clark :: Class Of 2023 :: Module Five
Blues & Bach: The Music Of John Lewis – Enrico Pieranunzi, Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana & Michele Corcella
Thankfully, not a compendium of all the syrupy covers as featured in a prominent UK high street department store franchise’s Christmas campaigns, but rather a fittingly smooth and stirring tribute to one of America’s foremost pioneers in jazz and classical music who also happens to share the same name, with pianist Enrico Pieranunzi taking centre stage to aid in delivering a set with wit, style, and sparkling class to spare.
Crash Recoil – Surgeon
Adapted from improvisational highlights incited from the last five years of DJ gigs across the world, producer Anthony Child’s first album in five years is a galvanising tour-de-force that melds house, techno, industrial and ambience into the kind of galvanising audio chicanery that could only be communicated via dance music of the most intelligent formula.
Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd – Lana Del Rey
Employing a more freeform approach in terms of creation for her ninth album, Miss Del Rey’s latest longform presentation includes a wider breadth of collaborators this time around, though even with the likes of Jon Batiste and Father John Misty finding their time to swoon alongside her, it is a tribute to Lana’s unmistakable delivery and writing style that she holds court masterfully enough that none of the more freewheeling elements and genre pastiches on this album get away from her grasp.
False Lankum – Lankum
The Irish folk quartet return to the fray with album five, and “fray” is certainly the one of the more appropriately descriptive adjectives one can associate with the epic journey that they have wrought here, going beyond traditional folk idioms in their utilising elements of progressive rock, drone, and modern classicism to deliver a collection of beautifully cathartic tomes that are as horrific and excoriating as they are spellbinding and euphoric.
Memento Mori – Depeche Mode
After the death of founding member and keyboardist Andy Fletcher, the themes of loss and mortality that pervade throughout the synthpop icons’ fifteenth album attain an undeniably high level of poignancy. Despite this though, the album movingly heralds Fletcher’s legacy with some of the band’s most reflectively beatific moments, not least on the lead single “Ghosts Again”, which is buoyed by a bittersweetly bright keyboard riff made all the sadder for the fact that Fletcher will never get to play it.
Metamorphosis Ligeti – Quatuor Diotima
Previously intimidated by Hungarian classical great György Ligeti’s string quartet pieces for both the technical proficiency needed to perform them as well as their esteemed reverence within the global classical music community, the French quartet decided to bite the bullet for their debut release on the venerable Pentatone label; suffice to say, as observed by the virtuosic prowess of the foursome’s playing throughout, any seeming nervousness is channelled marvellously to the point of seeming entirely absent.
Oh Me Oh My – Lonnie Holley
A multimedia artist and historian of profound mastery whose career has spanned over four decades, Holley’s latest set is another fiercely meditative treatise on state-of-the-world affairs; featuring contributions from the likes of Bon Iver, Moor Mother and Michael Stipe, it is at once the most fearful, despairing, angry, hopeful and soulfully restorative albums of the year so far, bolstered brilliantly with excellent production work from Jacknife Lee.
Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) – Yves Tumor
When I made a comment in my previous entry about the ever-looming wave of backlogged albums I needed to listen to, Yves Tumor’s fifth album was the one work at the forefront of my mind; well, the Best Pop Star We Have Right Now And Certainly Do Not Deserve has come through with typically iconoclastic style, that patented devilish experimentalism drenching their otherwise bright and direct pop songs with a sheen of dystopic potency that is still truly irresistible.
YIAN – Lucinda Chua
Much like how the music inside bridges the gap between experimental electronic pop music with contemporary classical movements and compositions, Lucinda Chua’s debut album finds the songwriter, producer and engineer attempting to reconcile the dichotomies of her dual English and Chinese heritages with a truly resonant sense of empathy and yearning that at times feels startling in its intimacy, but no less beautiful for it.
93696 – Liturgy
And in tribute to the since-departed religious holidays, to close us out we have the latest album from Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix’s “transcendental black metal” project that is described as “a platform for fine art and theology”; and if that summation raises your heartbeat rather than your eyebrow, you are in for quite the bombastically fervent, skin-shredding feast.
And that’s it for now; ideally, I’ll being seeing you sooner, but in case there’s anything else you wanted to fling my way in terms of agreement, dispute, or omission, please feel free to leave a comment below.
Until next time, xxxo
