Beyoncé - Lemonade

Beyoncé returns with what is her most daring album to date. Lemonade was announced with minimal explanation, merely a screenshot of what later transpired to be the album cover and a mystery deal with HBO. The release of her visual album caused shockwaves throughout the internet. Coupled with the exclusivity of Lemonade only being accessible through Tidal before it was made available on iTunes, the hype was amplified, multiplied, exaggerated by a million so that within a matter of hours, the lemon emoji had already become the universal symbol for 'men watch out'.

Source: Allmusic

The strength of Lemonade comes from how explorative and diverse it is in terms of spanning genres. 'Daddy Lessons' is undeniably a very good country track, with Beyoncé's soulful voice weaving a wonderful story, melding and adapting to create the warbles of the mid-west. 'Pray You Catch Me' and 'Forward' were produced in collaboration with James Blake, giving Beyoncé an induction to the world of ambient, swirling indie pop. The layering of her voice in the former, then the spine-chilling harmonies of the latter, whirl around your headphones in a sad ecstasy, building up to a tragically beautiful cry. 'Don't Hurt Yourself', which features Jack White and an introductory drum beat that couldn't be anything but Jack White (see 'Freedom at 21' for further proof), is an incredibly, fabulously aggressive assertion of Beyoncé's independence as an artist, a woman, and as a wife. The hard rock works surprisingly well with her strained, desperate scream, forcing us to drop everything and listen. Not as if we wouldn't anyway. 

Lemonade is remarkable in how proudly it wears its collaborators on its sleeve. Beyoncé is now enough of an artist to be able to collaborate with big names and hold her own; these men (and they are all men) take the back seat, and Beyoncé steps into the spotlight. Aside from the great number of collaborators, Beyoncé pays tribute to her musical inspirations in a fantastic sampling and adaptation of Isaac Hayes' version of 'Walk On By' in her track with The Weeknd '6 Inch'. It creeps into the track, but then leads and directs its development, with B expertly navigating the swelling string climax. It's a triumph in music appreciation.

One of the many reasons that Lemonade has been causing a stir is the very overt references to Jay Z's suspected infidelity, and Beyoncé's boss ass bitch-ness in responding to this. 'Sorry' declares nonchalantly, "Middle fingers up, put them hands high/Wave it in his face, tell him boy bye". The hip-twirling, calypso-inspired 'Hold Up' throws in the defiant sting of "I don't wanna lose my pride but imma fuck me up a bitch". In 'Don't Hurt Yourself', Beyoncé spits out "who the fuck do you think I is?/You ain't married to no average bitch boy". One listen of Lemonade will turn you into the sassy, unapologetic and fabulous bitch you always wanted to be.

Source: Youtube

Aside from the themes of infidelity and bad ass-ery, Lemonade carries with it a strong discourse on race relations in America, both past and present. I would quickly like to acknowledge my privilege, and say that it's tricky for me, a white middle class woman, to comment on the particular resonance this album has for black people all over the world. But, as I believe that music exists as a public thing to be appreciated by everyone, there is here only appreciation rather than judgement. The visuals for 'Forward' include images of Lesley McSpadden holding up a picture of her late son Mike Brown, the death that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement a year and a half ago. 'Freedom', Beyoncé's creation with Kendrick Lamar, is reminiscent of Django Unchained in its hints of 'Unchained' from the soundtrack. It perfectly blends explosive hip hop and incendiary rap to create a message of independence - both sexual and racial. In this way, the links between 'Freedom' and Django go beyond music: the video features Beyoncé singing gospel preacher-style to an audience of black women in white dresses, reminding us of the freedom slaves achieved through the power of religion and music. Any lyric from 'Formation' could be used to demonstrate this, but it's done particularly well by the lines "I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros/I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils"; they declare loud and proud a defiant pride in black appearances, a thorny topic at best given the current discourse on cultural appropriation and subjecting black women to white beauty standards in the media. Beyoncé inspires a pride in black culture and history that in a world where, politically, this is a shameful thing.

Lemonade is a total tour de force. It refuses to be silenced or spoken for; it is Beyoncé taking an entirely new direction, and all on her own terms. May she blaze trails for much much longer.

Rating: 9/10

Recommended tracks:

'Freedom'

'Pray You Catch Me'

'Don't Hurt Yourself'

Oh Wonder

Photo: Allmusic

The London-based duo may have only just released their debut album, but they are pretty much pros in the music biz by this stage. Releasing one track every month for a year, Anthony West and Josephine Vander Gucht created a gradual hype that has built and built around them: a much-deserved hype that continues to grow, selling out shows in New York, Amsterdam and London even before the release of the album. That is, if nothing else, impressive for a rookie band from The Big Smoke.

With beats and synth reminiscent of Jungle, Oh Wonder pose a similarly difficult-to-pigeon-hole conundrum. The duo also employ the same tactic of double-tracking their vocals, both singing simultaneously. However, the contrast in timbre between the male and female voices allows far more room for experimentation, and they use this to their advantage. It stands out particularly well in simpler tracks like All We Do, adding variety and interest to an otherwise simply produced track.

Oh Wonder possess the handy knack of knowing how much is too much, and when to ease off. In Lose It, the introductory piano becomes the foundation on which they build the rest of the track, with layers drifting in and out as necessary; drums are built up and reduced throughout, synth becomes an ornament rather than a necessary part of the track, and the sparse bridge is the perfect lead-up to the chorus. It's everything a pop song needs to be: catchy, restrained and then loose in all the right places.

The lyrical content of the album is beautifully optimistic; take Landslide, for example. Once you brush aside the immediate Fleetwood Mac associations, you realise it's a rather lovely song of encouragement. Lyrics like 'I know your hope is heavy/But you'll get over it/You'll find another life to live' are supported and carried perfectly by the instrumental parts. The beat of Midnight Moon picks you up and takes you with it; the opening lyrics 'You with the wide eyes, don't lose your courage', along with the repeated last word, might be rather generic, but the crafting of the lyrics around the beat refreshes the old technique and draws you in.

To sum up Oh Wonder in three words: simplistic, minimalistic, and actually rather sweet. Oh Wonder definitely isn't a misnomer. If anything, it's an invitation.

Rating: 7/10

Recommended tracks:
Livewire
Without You
Technicolour Beat

Lianne La Havas - Blood

With her 2012 debut Is Your Love Big Enough?, Lianne La Havas took everyone by surprise, including herself; the titular track from her debut claims 'never thought it would happen/But I found myself in a secondhand guitar'. Ya know what, Lianne? We're so glad you did.

Where Is Your Love Big Enough? was a very raw portrayal of heartbreak, Blood displays a distance that shows how much La Havas has grown up. Wonderful and Good Goodbye are beautiful not only in their composition but their forgiveness and maturity. La Havas' voice transports the listener to a place that's built on the purest strain of each emotion, and when you arrive with her you can't help but cry at how beautiful and terrifying this place is. La Havas is far from your typical Identikit female singer-songwriter who plays guitar, and the sheer purity of her voice and lyrics is enough to prove this.

The trick to La Havas is that she doesn't dwell on one aspect for too long. Although she is undeniably brilliant at the more elegiac songs, she injects beautifully unexpected punches into her tracks that make her music so hard to pin down: the horns in Green & Gold that provides funk for the chorus and a floating melody for the bridge; Never Get Enough starts off as a typically acoustic guitar-driven song, with the unexpected feedback of an electric guitar kicking in for the chorus, shifting effortlessly between the two for the rest of the song; the reverb on 'turn' halfway through Grow; the entrancing intro of Unstoppable that shifts effortlessly to the wonderful pop song it is. Lianne La Havas is much more than a soul singer, but it doesn't do to pigeon-hole her. We'll only end up confused.

With many artists, there's a tendency to abandon completely what made them famous in the first place. With Blood, La Havas recognises that her guitar makes her special, and every song is carried in some way by this. Everything from Unstoppable, which expands to the size of a galaxy as it goes on, to Midnight, is upheld in some part by the familiar pangs of a guitar. Far from inhibiting the development of her songs, these two examples alone show how it merely provides a platform for La Havas to make dazzling leaps and bounds in development.

I don't think we even need to mention the sheer bedazzling power and range of her voice. She's astounding.

Lianne La Havas crept onto the scene in 2012. Blood boldly pushes the door open, proclaiming her presence.

Rating: 8/10

Recommended tracks:
Unstoppable
Green & Gold
Never Get Enough

Florence + the Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

Coachella, Glastonbury, an incredible new album: 2015 is Florence Welch's year. She's moving effortlessly from height to height without even pausing to take a look around at the distance she's covered. It's impressive, scary, and oh so pleasing to watch.

Anyone who attended a school disco between the years of 2009 and 2011 will remember You've Got The Love blasting out at full volume at the end of the night to calm down all the crazy 14 year olds, high on too much coca cola and large amounts of over-enthusiastic dancing. When Welch released her debut, Lungs, there wasn't a critic out there who didn't consider the double-edged sword that such a masterpiece presented; 

it was a marvel of an album, but was problematic in terms of posing the question 'so where can she go from here?' Onwards and upwards, my friends.

The beauty of HBHBHB is that it switches seamlessly between huge, confusing, anthemic organised messes like Ship To Wreck, Queen of Peace and Mother, to quieter, more considered tracks like Various Storms and Saints, St Jude and Caught. It's an album of contrasts that exaggerate and reinforce their opposites, not forcefully or clumsily, but skilfully, as though Florence is weaving a bigger picture, encouraging us to step back and look at it instead of examining the details in the individual tracks. HBHBHB takes us back to a time when music was just as much about the experience of an album as the hit songs it contained.

Not only does it present to us a wider picture, but this picture is clearly deeply personal to its painter. Lyrically, HBHBHB is moving and considerate. What Kind of Man deplores a tempestuous love affair, presenting us with Florence's insight that seems to contain the wisdom of a kung fu master as she bitterly spits 'sometimes you're half in and then you're half out/But you never close the door'. The titular track explores the excitement of a new relationship, setting in our laps such a killer opening line as 'between a crucifix and the Hollywood sign, we decided to get hurt'. In bringing her own feelings and experiences to her songwriting, Florence creates a mysticism even deeper and esoteric than tales of self-sacrifice in Rabbit Heart, or demon lovers in Howl. 

Welch also seems to have grown apart from the hippy trippy persona she had been given by the media. Although she remains an ethereal being not worthy of our earthly praises, the instrumentation of her tracks has developed far beyond the odd harp and some heavy timpani. She utilises the brass section much more frequently, and even when she has the normal line-up of guitar, bass, piano, drums, she makes it work to her advantage. Take Delilah, for example. The multi-tracked vocals provide far more texture, where the strings and piano add atmosphere to the pounding drums. As the song builds and swirls, more and more instruments put in their tuppence worth to make Delilah one of the most beautiful and dance-inducing tracks on the album.

If there were doubts that Florence was up to headlining Glastonbury, this album surely proves that not only is she up to it, she surpasses all expectations. We bow before you, our ginger-haired queen.

Rating: 9/10

Recommended tracks:

Delilah

Mother

Ship To Wreck

Shura

Source: Allmusic

One of the (many/thousands/bajillions) of reasons why Shura is so admirable, both in her music and work ethic, is that she does everything herself. Not only does she sing, but she produces, remixes and shoots her own music videos; in a world where it's only too easy to ring up the expert to get the job done quickly and easily, it's astounding that she still has the energy left to write the damn songs. The west London gal has gained critical acclaim very quickly, not just from the BBC's Sound of 2015, but from fellow Shepherd's Bush pals Jungle, as well as Chloe Moretz and Huw Stephens. The world is currently awaiting the release of her debut album, which, if her recent tracks are anything to go by, will most certainly not disappoint.

There's a fabulous mystery to Shura in that she's everywhere and yet nowhere all at once. The swirling, gorgeous build of songs like Touch gradually fills the space, but the very low-key production and whispering beauty of her voice mean that it remains just on the edge of your consciousness whilst you're listening to it, and seeps gradually in to your awareness. She pops up for the first few seconds of her video for Touch, and then not a trace of her can be found for the rest of it. Her songs are almost gloriously introverted, just the kind of music that proper headphones were invented for. This is added to by the fact that she produces all of her songs in her bedroom, it's where, she says, 'they start out as little ideas and forays into craziness'. It adds that irreplaceable personal touch to her music that adds to the meticulous care taken over everything, and what draws us in.

Source: Allmusic

Just Once is, quite honestly, one of the best songs about one night stands that doesn't involve the phrases 'all night long', 'baby right there' or 'timber'. It's strikingly similar to Daughter's Amsterdam in that it's quite tragic in its depiction of the need for human company to break the monotony of unbearable loneliness. The rising synth motif and the tentative question 'have you ever been lost' is quite plaintive in its reverberating subtlety, but as it fades out it you're left feeling unfulfilled, in need of so much more. Unfortunately, the only song available to buy from Shura is Indecision, and it's far bolder and surer (haha, so punny) of itself than the other tracks. It starts off with a echoey, clear drum, swiftly followed by a very clear synth line that's lightly and briefly decorated with a beautiful falling phrase that's soon swallowed up by the vocals. It's put together so masterfully, and the lyrics are such a good example of master-crafted banality interwoven with emotional insight, you can't help but bop along.

Not only does Shura do her own tracks beautifully, she adorns other people's absolutely wonderfully. Well, more than adorn. Complete, really. Her collaborations with Hiatus (a.k.a. Cyrus Shahad) are the most astounding example of how two artists can work together to utilise the best of what the other has, not just to name drop. The close harmonies on Cloud City are - I don't know, I've used up all of the positive superlatives in my vocabulary. All I'll say is you have to hear it to believe it.

The delicate certainty with which Shura operates is worthy of much more attention than she has received so far. Her songs are arresting in their simplicity, and all I can say is that I want so much more from her before this year is out. Watch this space

Rating: 9/10

Recommended tracks:

Touch

We Can Be Ghosts Now (actually Hiatus ft Shura)

Just Once