Lana Del Rey

★★★★

Blue Banisters

INTERSCOPE/POLYDOR. CD/DL/LP

Skittish pop queen takes elegant sideways step.

“I guess you could call it textbook,” sings Lana Del Rey as Blue Banisters begins: while she’s darkly analysing her father-figure quest, the line could apply to Chemtrails Over The Country Club’s speedy follow-up. Classic Del Rey markers light up like cat’s eyes: Los Angeles (Arcadia); needy bad girls (Black Bathing Suit); worse men (Thunder); clumsy political references (Textbook). Yet there are shifts. Dealer’s end-of-evening trip-hop (featuring Miles Kane) delivers a necessary stylistic jolt amid the Diamonds And Rust melancholia and stately piano. Blue Banisters, all panoramic Ladies Of The Canyon domesticity, or Wildflower Wildfire’s family drama feel blazingly personal, burning up those old authenticity arguments, while on a lyrically strong album, Sweet Carolina’s antique trill is brilliantly buckled by its words (“‘Crypto forever,’ screams your stupid boyfriend/Fuck you, Kevin”). It’s not Del Rey at full Norman Fucking Rockwell stretch, but even in her zone, nothing about it is comfortable

Victoria Segal

Bill Callahan And Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

★★★★

Blind Date Party

DRAG CITY. CD/DL/LP

Singles get together for no-strings fun.

A pandemic by-product, Blind Date Party collects the covers released by Will Oldham, Bill Callahan and their guest stars since 2020. While there are reflective moments – Meg Baird joining in with Little Feat’s I’ve Been The One – the highlights often project the antic glee generated by the suspension of normal rules. Their own songs are joyfully dismantled and swapped: Ben Chasny helps melt down Oldham’s Arise, Therefore; Smog’s Our Anniversary is turned into an indiemetal tumult. There are no inhibitions on Billie Eilish’s Wish You Were Gay, either, High Llamas’ Sean O’Hagan helping with future-disco spin, or Robert Wyatt’s Sea Song where their madness fits in nicely with that of The Dirty Three’s Mick Turner. Silver Jews’ The Wild Kindness, meanwhile, gathers a choir of artists in unmawkish salute to David Berman. A nonchalant tribute to friendship and community, Blind Date Party is intriguing enough to be more than a one-night thing.

Victoria Segal

Body/ Dilloway/ Head

★★★

Body/Dilloway/Head

THREE LOBED. DL/LP

Kim Gordon’s improv project, now expanded to a trio.

According to Kim Gordon’s autobiogra- phy, 2015’s Girl In A Band, it was she who brought the conceptual art and jazz/improvisation to Sonic Youth, and, aside from No Home Record, her prepandemic solo synth-pop outing, she has deployed her time since SY’s dissolution working at the ‘free’ end of music, chiefly alongside Bill Nace in two-guitar Body/Head. Here, that duality acquires a third pole, as Wolf Eyes’ Aaron Dilloway joins up, and immediately makes his presence felt on the side one-filling piece Body/Erase, whose opening six minutes resemble an accidental recording made inside an overcoat pocket, before mediated snatches of feedback further hint towards this maverick tape manipulator’s dark art. On the flip, Goin’ Down weaves a subtly morphing web of cyclical hypnosis, while 13-minute Secret Cuts collages assorted noise loops, linked by a two-note drone ‘chorus’. Is it music? Is it Art? No, it’s Gordon returning to her roots, where such notions are perpetually, artfully challenged.

Andrew Perry

Michael Hurley

★★★★

The Time Of The Foxgloves

NO QUARTER. CD/DL/LP

Long-awaited new studio LP from much-loved American troubadour. A gem.

It’s been 12 years since 80-year-old Michael Hurley released a new studio album. A bunch of reissues helped fill the time between, but here at last is the follow-up. From the very first listen, these 11 songs sound like they’ve been here forever. Well, a few actually have been around for some time – like the revisited/ reworked closing track Lush Green Trees. Or Love Is The Closest Thing, spare and simply lovely, with acoustic guitar and Hurley’s fine, dusty voice backed by one of several female backing singers who guest on the album. There’s four different banjo players on here too. Recorded at home in Oregon on four-track tape, musician friends added parts long-distance, including piano, dobro, bass clarinet, pump organ and violin. Some highlights: sweet old bluesy-folk Little Blue River; strangely hymnlike Jacob’s Ladder and drifting, dreamy Knocko The Monk.

Sylvie Simmons

Willie Nelson

★★★★

The Willie Nelson Family

SONY LEGACY. CD/DL

The Nelsons sing of faith in God and each other.

Spirituality and family are recurring themes in Willie Nelson’s work – the rule-breaking maverick has a strong grounding in tradition. One of his first compositions was Family Bible, which became a country gospel standard, and his band is called The Family. He’s joined here by sister Bobbie on piano and his son Lukas shares lead vocals, while other offspring Paula, Amy and Micah sing back-up – Nelsons all. Half the songs are Willie classics (Heaven And Hell; Laying My Burdens Down), while others are Carter Family, Hank Williams and Kris Kristofferson covers. Highlights include Bobbie’s stately keyboard that undergirds the session with churchlike simplicity. The finest track is Lukas’s high tenor take on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, a hymn to wisdom and humility, its timelessness reinforced as a country song.

Michael Simmons

Brian Wilson

★★★★

At My Piano

DECCA. CD/DL/LP

A man, a piano and 15 instrumental versions of his songs.

THIS IS Wilson at his piano – alone, no backing band, overdubs or even vocals – playing selections from his songbook in what sounds like an empty room. Remarkably intimate and raw, this must have been how Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks heard songs like God Only Knows and Surf’s Up before writing those lyrics. The majority – and those that work best in this solitary setting – are bittersweet, melancholy songs. In My Room and The Warmth Of The Sun, with their left-hand arpeggios, sound simultaneously childlike and sophisticated, while California Girls sounds a bit karaoke. There’s a couple of unexpected tracks, including Sketches Of Smile. Why did he make this album? “Honestly, the piano and the music I create on it has probably saved my life.” One for the fans delighted he’s still here and fascinated by how such classic songs started out.

Sylvie Simmons

Brian Wilson: piano his forte.

Sting

★★★

The Bridge

A&M. CD/DL/LP

He’s only gone back to making a ‘proper’ Sting LP.

Pamela Littky

In the five years since 57th & 9th, Sting has made an album with Shaggy (here demoted to handclaps on only If It’s Love, the poppiest moment), re-recorded some old material and guested on a Ricky Martin track. Now, it’s finally back to work with a proper album and The Bridge is Sting at his most-Sting like. On Rushing Water he notes, “I see my shrink on an analyst’s couch/Hit me with a hammer and I’ll say ‘ouch’”, while Captain Bateman’s Basement is a scat-fest, and Fields Of Gold meets Shape Of My Heart on For Her Love, although he rather spoils things with a feeble (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay. Elsewhere, Harmony Road, with its understated state-of-the-nation take and a brief, gorgeous Branford Marsalis saxophone solo shows what an elegant songwriter Sting can still be when he focuses.