New albums we listened to this week
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Fatima | Tori Amos | Christian Löffler | Coldplay
Fatima | B+
This NYC-based Gambian-Swedish soul sister is clearly a fervent disciple in the church of Baduism, evoking Ms. Erykah in both her smoked honey pipes and gritty, simmering, Dilla-fied grooves. Her sneakily addictive debut Yellow Memories (Eglo), though crafted with a small army of producers (Floating Points, Oh No, Flako), asserts a distinct identity within its omnivorous array of stripped-down jazzy funk, kalimba-kissed shuffles and a cappella canticles.
—K. Ross Hoffman
Tori Amos | B
Unrepentant Geraldines (Mercury Classics) is not a conceptual opus, but its ostensible return to “pop” still proceeds very much on Tori’s terms, which means quirky, suite-like songs, slyly experimental arrangements, sumptuous piano ballads, willfully affected English diction and tangled, poetic ruminations on family, aging, relationships and contemporary politics refracted through art, history, fairy tales and mythological metaphor. Her vision hasn’t felt this lucid or approachable in some time.
—K. Ross Hoffman
Christian Löffler | A
This German producer’s 2012 debut was a lush, tenderly organic thing that fully earned its pointedly nonelectronica-ish title, A Forest. Briefer but no less enchanted, Young Alaska (Ki) breathes even more warmth and melody into a similar palette of woody plinks and crinkles, mist-shrouded synths, gently thrumming grooves and the kind of ineffable, twinkling bell tones patented by sleepytime house master Pantha du Prince, making particularly fine use of murmuring, almost subliminal vocals.
—K. Ross Hoffman
Coldplay | B-
I, for one, am done beating Coldplay up for not being possessed of genius. Chris Martin is what he is — a talented tune monger and mediocre artist. And if anyone was listening anymore, they’d notice that the breakup has freed him of the awful burden of appearing meaningful or even clever. He’s plainspoken, sad, wrung out; the music is relatively subdued, ambient, melodic; the falsetto as sickly sweet as ever. Which isn’t to say Ghost Stories (Parlophone) makes me care; they’ve never been capable of that.
—Dotun Akintoye
