Joanne Robertson's beautifully murky folksong and the best of the week's new tracks

The Guardian

4 days ago

From Blackpool, EnglandRecommended if you like Grouper, Sinéad O'Connor, Dean Blunt
Up next New album Blurr released via AD 93 on 19 September
The best of the UK underground right now resonates with a dank hum, a grimy, disaffected feeling. You don't need me to tell you why: just listen to Moin, Mark William Lewis, Quade or Still House Plants and let the feeling mingle with the deep sense of dread already entrenched in your bones. One strand of this sound's DNA can be traced back to Dean Blunt's warped experimentalism. Anyone attuned to the enigmatic London musician's output is likely already aware of his long-term collaborator Joanne Robertson, a fixture on 2021's Black Metal 2 and last year's Backstage Raver among others. For those outside the Bluntverse, she's likely to go overground this year as the latest tendril from its world, her new album Blurr adding folky shades to this invitingly squalid sonic scene.
Robertson is also a painter, and uses improvisation in both media. 'I want the works to almost fail,' she once said. 'I struggle with conceived notions of beauty.' The songs on Blurr hang together like spider webs, her blurred and belly-deep acoustic strums seeming to have no beginning or end. There's a blunt weightiness to her playing that might recall the Kentucky post-rock scene of the early 90s, which anchors her searching vocals. She has a way with unearthing hypnotic pockets of melody; single Gown has something of Sinéad O'Connor's Celtic hymns to it. Moments of sharpness evoke confrontational early Cat Power; the softer shades Jessica Pratt's watercolour delivery. Meanwhile, the distance at which she sings brings to mind how Grouper's music feels like following a wraithlike presence through a misty forest. Cello by Oliver Coates burnishes this uncanny sound world, one that finds unexpected openness and hope in the murk. Laura Snapes
Snooper – WorldwideFlagbearers for the antic, lo-fi 'egg punk' sound, the Nashville band return with a Devo-channelling single, frontwoman Blair Tramel contorting herself with a series of gymnastic commands.
Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin – ChaharThe trio's terrific Ghosted project continues with another of their steadily rhythmic jazz quests, this one animated by a killer motif from double bassist Berthling, flexing under Werliin's funky drums and Ambarchi's fidgety guitar.
Nourished By Time – Baby BabyThe best single yet from the underground US pop star's upcoming new album: he rants against political apathy as new wave washes around 80s R&B flourishes and vocal samples in a psychedelic spin cycle.
Enny – Cabin FevaWith the impulsive spirit of slam poetry given the discipline of hip-hop, Enny's flow is always a pleasure. Here, over a spartan jazzy backing, she raps about preserving her self-respect amid a power-imbalanced relationship.
Rema – KelebuRather than settle into masses-pleasing middle of the road pop after his mega-smash Calm Down, the Nigerian star has been admirably edgy and propulsive, and this galloping track is proper pell-mell madness.
Witch Fever – Fevereaten'God put my weight under his thumb / told me I'd soon become undone …' The Manc band's frontwoman, Amy Walpole, confronts the man upstairs with magnificent goth rock that broods then rages.
Ondo Fudd – LimelightCerebral but never dull or bookish, the British dance producer Call Super resurrects his alter ego for this futurist take on Chicago house, its bassline taking on different hues as if passing through pools of coloured light.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
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