Gorillaz
The Now Now
Warner Bros
If you’re looking for sunshine in a bag you may not find it on Gorillaz’s sixth album. With a work rate we’ve come to expect from musical polymath Damon Albarn aka 2-D, The Now Now arrives just a year after the star-studded Humanz, which was perhaps the Gorillaz’s album that took sensory overload to the very max.
For the cutely titled The Now Now (no doubt, a jaundiced comment about instant gratification) Albarn has cooled his jets on a record that seems more meditative and, well, calmer than the skittering madness and manic glee of the cartoon band’s previous work.
Following a mind-boggling range of guest vocalists over the years, it’s also Albarn’s album through and through. Jazz smoothie George Benson turns up on the tropical pop of Humility to lend some of his mellifluous runs, and Snoop Dogg and early House music pioneer Jamie Principle crop up to add extra sleaze to Hollywood, a squelching and strutting tale of America’s sin cities.
Albarn, free of autotune, has reverted to his sad ballad persona for much of The Now Now. On One Percent he sounds spaced out, submerged in a sea of synths and arcing sound effects. He’s at his most world-weary on Fire Flies, a smouldering tale of abandonment, which possibly recounts the end of a friendship (an Album speciality).
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The Now Now is also somewhat of a travelogue on which he, to borrow the title of a Blur song, looks inside America: on the atmospheric and glistening Idaho he’s lost in a reverie as he stares out of the window of the Gorillaz’s tour bus, taking in silver lakes and rainbows, while on the slow jam of Kansas he’s on his "journey home, with no fuel, alone."
Elsewhere, Tranz locks into a hypnotic groove and charts the slow simmer of a post-gig comedown. Nobody does introspection and solipsism quite like Albarn and he’s captured that feeling of constant motion and unreality superbly.
As Albarn half sings, half talks on Humility, "I’m the lonely twin, the left hand. Reset myself and get back on track. I don’t want this isolation. See the state I’m in now?" Beautifully melancholic introspection loves company. Climb on board that tour bus. ****
Let’s Eat Grandma
I’m All Ears
Trangressive
British teenage duo Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth won well-deserved acclaim for their startling and unsettling debut album I, Gemini in 2016. Daring to be different, their songs of young love, chocolate cake, and dead cats were dressed up in a kind of macabre folk and eerie fairytale magic.
If that record cast them as a grown up version of the twins from The Shining, their ambitious and expansive second album is another matter entirely. They’ve teamed up with David Wrech, who’s previously worked with sonic adventurers like Caribou and Frank Ocean, and it reveals that the duo are more than just a mere novelty. On I’m All Ears they continue to make an art form of combining oddball sounds with heartfelt lyrics laced with black humour. It’s packed with non-stop invention and charm.
The brilliant industrial clang of Hot Pink is the standout and this is a record that also beats with a dark heart and teems with gothic imagery, while also drawing on eighties influences, including 80s style drum solos and loops.
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Cool and Collected drifts across the dark lands for a full and foreboding nine minutes, and, naturally, there is an 11-minute song called Donnie Darko ("Honestly, some people are so committed to honesty") that never outstays its welcome. Oh, Let’s Eat Grandma! What big ears you have! ****
Gigs of the week
Friday, June 29
Kris Kristofferson, The Olympia Theatre, Dublin
Saturday, June 30
Christy Moore, Live At The Marquee, Cork
7:00 pm - Kris Kristofferson, The Olympia Theatre, Dublin
Wednesday, July 4
Alanis Morissette, Live At The Marquee, Cork
The Cadillac Three, The Academy, Dublin
Thursday, July 5
Alanis Morissette, Iveagh Gardens, Dublin
Friday, July 6
Barry McCormack, DC Music Club, Dublin
Bare 2018
Eels, Iveagh Gardens, Dublin
Music on TV
Friday, June 29
Duran Duran: There’s Something You Should Know, BBC Four, 9.00pm
Slash: Raised on the Sunset Strip, Sky Arts, 12 midnight
Saturday, June 30
Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, BBC Two, 9.00pm
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, BBC Two, 11.05pm Excellent biopic about Ian Dury Alan Serkis
Indie Classics at the BBC, BBC Four, 12.00 midnight
Johnny Cash: Behind Prison Walls, Sky Arts, 7.00pm
Sunday, July 1
Best of Glastonbury 2017, BBC Two, 11.00pm
Come Together: The Rise of the Festival, Sky Arts, 10.45pm
Pet Shop Boys: a Life in Pop, Sky Arts, 12.15pm
Tuesday, July 3
Blur/Oasis: The Britpop Years, sky Arts, 10.45pm
Friday, July 6
Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland, BBC Four, 10.00pm
Midge Ure and Kim Appleby discover why certain cities produced their own diverse music and acts.
Ireland’s Top 10 albums
2 1 The Greatest Showman Motion Picture Cast Recording (Atlantic)
5 2 Question Mark - Xxxtentacion (Bad Vibes Forever)
8 3 Picture This - Picture This (Warner Music Ireland)
4 4 Staying At Tamara's - George Ezra (Columbia)
6 5 Divide - Ed Sheeran - Asylum 69
7 6 Beerbongs & Bentleys - Post Malone (Republic Records)
New 7 Pray For The Wicked - Panic At The Disco (DCD2/Fueled By Ramen)
9 8 Speak Your Mind - Anne-Marie (Asylum)
11 9 17 - Xxxtentacion (Bad Vibes Forever)
1 10 Reputation - Taylor Swift (EMI)
Ireland’s Top 10 singles
4 1 Shotgun - George Ezra (Columbia)
1 2 Solo - Clean Bandit Ft Demi Lovato (Atlantic)
2 3 2002 - Anne-Marie (Asylum)
3 4 One Kiss - Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa (Columbia/Warner Bros)
5 5 Youngblood - 5 Seconds Of Summer (Capitol)
7 6 No Tears Left To Cry - Ariana Grande (Republic Records)
6 7 Back To You - Selena Gomez (Interscope)
13 8 Sad - Xxxtentacion (Bad Vibes Forever)
11 9 I'll Be There - Jess Glynne (Atlantic)
10 10 Girls Like You - Maroon 5 Ft Cardi B (Interscope)
Chart courtesy of IRMA
Alan Corr @corralan
