Pop CD releases (original) (raw)

Lamb What Sound
(Mercury) ***
£13.99

Amid the parade of crushingly obvious covers that soundtracked Moulin Rouge, it was a pleasant surprise to hear Nicole Kidman warbling Lamb's subtle, beautiful 1997 single Gorecki. Most viewers were probably too stupefied by the film's wonky renditions of Your Song to notice. A shame, as Louise Rhodes and Andy Barlow's epic, techno-influenced ballads deserve a wider audience. Less abrasive than its predecessor Fear of Fours, Lamb's third album demonstrates the Manchester duo's appeal and failings in equal measure. On the opening title track and glorious current single Gabriel, Rhodes's eerie voice meets sweeping strings and Barlow's jarring electronics to wonderful effect. Lamb, however, find themselves in a difficult position. Their signature style is dense and melodramatic, and works best in small doses. Repeated over the course of an album, it loses its impact. Yet the duo come unstuck when they abandon futuristic balladry for Sweet's bland funk or the straightforward techno of Scratch Bass. Still, What Sound is studded with sublime, moving downtempo moments. The men who compile TV-advertised chill-out albums may already be on the phone. (AP)

Orchestra Baobab Pirates Choice
(World Circuit Records) ****
£14.99

Originally the house band of a Senegalese nightclub, Orchestra Baobab came together in 1970, but waited 12 years to record their masterpiece. Pirates Choice quickly became a Holy Grail to lovers of world music, who were entranced by its shuffling rumba rhythms and delicate instrumental virtuosity. The band recently reformed for a European tour, and to celebrate, World Circuit have remastered Pirates Choice and added a second CD of material from the same sessions. While this warm-hearted album could easily be filed under chill-out, it is far more special than your average slice of soporific coffee-table ambience. A sweet, acoustic-sounding production lovingly enhances the brilliantly played electric guitars, saxophones and percussion, while the Wolof vocals jump out of the mix so crisply you'd swear the singers were there in your living room. For anyone interested in subtle, rootsy African music, these CDs are essential. Anyone just looking for a sophisticated seduction soundtrack also need look no further. (JG)

Leonard Cohen Ten New Songs
(Columbia) ****
£13.99

A mere nine years after his last bunch of new songs, Ten New Songs finds Cohen older and, remarkably, even wiser than heretofore. Though once erroneously tagged as a coffee-house folkie, Cohen can claim to be the only fully fledged mystic that pop music has produced, an arresting mixture of St Simeon Stylites and Jean-Paul Sartre. Now a Zen monk, Cohen has set his meditations to music and transferred them to disc. This album has a cumulative effect, gradually transporting the listener towards a state of relaxation. The tempos have been slowed to a smooth, massaging pace, the instrumentation is sparse but reassuringly warm, and Len's gravelly rumble of a voice is wrapped in soft female harmonies. And the lyrics? I'll need a few months to think about those. (AS)

Starsailor Love Is Here
(Chrysalis) ***
£13.99

For all its potential to move souls, brains and units, rock tends to sneer at all-out passion. Chorley quartet Starsailor and their appositely titled debut are all about passion and, unless they are playing the cruellest of jokes, there is no irony here. In short, they mean it. Part a more involved Coldplay, part a more manly Toploader, Starsailor are both throwback and peek into the future. Driven by Barry Westhead's strident piano and James Walsh's hyperventilating near-falsetto, Love Is Here is an intricately produced tempest of an album. Not only are the choruses huge ("Daddy was an alcoholic," repeats the anguished Alcoholic), but the verses are almost choruses themselves. When Starsailor are in full flight - the apocalyptic Fever or the military beat of Tie Up My Hands - the effect is as exhilarating as being stuck in a wind tunnel. Sometimes, though, they use an industrial Hoover where a feather duster would do (She Just Wept is simply silly), and Walsh's lyrics can slip into juvenilia. Even so, Starsailor just about last the pace, and they exit with some cheery humming that virtually shouts "job well done" - quite right too. (JA)

Princess Superstar Princess Superstar Is
(Rapster) ****
£14.99

Being a Jewish female MC wins New Yorker Concetta Kirschner novelty points, but Her Royal Nastiness is more than a novelty act. Just when you thought women rappers saw music as something to fill the hours between shopping, Princess Superstar's third album brings a sharper, funnier twist on ancient hip-hop themes. That she consistently gets the better of her male guests goes without saying, but she does it with wit, unexpected imagery ("Eating Cinnabons at a mall on Mars," she swoons on the porno-love ditty Keith 'n' Me) and utter lack of respect for genre boundaries. Her flair for pop and beyond reaps results: the choir on You Get Mad at Napster (which hilariously dismembers pretentious rivals) sounds as uncontrived as Beth Orton warbling darkly on Untouchable Part 2. But it's Princess's barbed observations, such as her wish to emulate Eminem and play to "a million white faces in Dayton", that make this album a bit of a treasure. (CS)

Paul Weller Days of Speed
(Independiente) ****
£14.99

Days of Speed documents the recent acoustic gigs during which the Modfather finally dipped into the furthest reaches of his back catalogue. Fans may argue till their scooters run dry about Weller's best period, but there's a thread between these songs that makes a mockery of the fact that the yearning English Rose and the even more yearning Loveless were written 22 years apart. Weller was, is and probably always will be a white soul man, and although here he occasionally sounds like he's gasping for a fag, the raw passion is often startling. The lost single Above the Clouds is naked Bacharach, while even his most mainstream hit, You Do Something To Me, gains from a new edginess. Older devotees, of course, will buy this purely for the surprise revival of the Jam's That's Entertainment, complete with the sound of grown adults crying. (DS)