Saint Etienne

★★★★

The Night

HEAVENLY. CD/DL/LP

Here in the pitch: ambient nocturnes from atmospherically astute trio.

The past has never really been a foreign country to Saint Etienne; even in their youngest days, Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell made sure to keep a pied à terre there. Even so, The Night, their first album since 2021’s I’ve Been Trying To Tell You, achieves almost incapacitating levels of nostalgia. It’s a collage-like soundworld, one that pairs memory with melancholia to expertly wistful effect, the old football ground in Ellar Carr infused with as much poignancy as the lost years of When You Were Young, or Celestial’s Sinking Of The Titanic vanishing act. Ambient noise draws the threads of these songs together – distant chatter, the sound of rain – but it’s the night buses and pubs of Wonderlight that best catch The Night ’s Victoria Segal muted glimmer: “It feels like October/Even though it may not be.”

Tori Amos

★★★

Diving Deep Live

DECCA. CD/DL/LP

As the title suggests, a deep dive live from many cities on the Ocean To Ocean tour.

Forced by the pandemic to twice cancel her Ocean To Ocean tour, Tori Amos eventually raced around the globe with bassist John Evans and drummer Ash Soan, playing 93 dates from London in March 2022 to Woodinville, Washington state in July 2023. Just as the setlist changed from night to night to incorporate favourites, newly released material, the outer limits of her catalogue and assorted covers, her third live album reflects that – albeit without covers – by culling performances from different shows. There’s little chit-chat (“I hope your wishes come true,” she purrs before the ancient B-side Here, In My Head), but, as is her way, Amos wraps herself around her songs, whether allowing 10 minutes for Lady In Blue to unfurl itself or slowing down a solo Silent All These Years. It’s not for new converts, but the faithful will be thrilled.

John Aizlewood

Ela Minus

★★★★

DIA

DOMINO. CD/DL/LP

Colombian’s second set of thrilling techno-pop-meetssinger-songwriter fusion.

Plagued by self-doubt, the woman born Gabriela Jimeno Caldas kept shifting base to hone this follow-up to 2020 debut Acts Of Rebellion, from her native Bogota to pitstops in Mexico, LA, the Mojave desert, New York, Seattle and (finally) London. DIA (not an acronym but day in Spanish) is a journey in itself, via the heady drama of dance music peaks and breakdowns, but with defined songs, confessional words and evocative vocals. Caribou meets late-period Madonna, perhaps, but given DIA’s Martin Aston depth of melody and nuance, Minus might be the Phoebe Bridgers of techno-pop. Struggling to maintain a relationship while constantly on the move seems to be a theme. Moving through regret (I Want To Be Better) to anger (Onward) to acceptance (And), often violently expressed (Onward: “I set myself on fire/Just to see if I could get your respect”), with detours for self-reflection (Idols, IDK). A chance to dance, then, and also to vent.

Benjamin Booker

★★★★

Lower

FIRE NEXT TIME. CD/DL/LP

Guitarist ditches retro rock for a darker, hip-hopinformed sound.

A welcome introduction for anyone who liked their vintage rock’n’roll delivered with a little bite, Benjamin Booker’s 2014 debut dragged Chuck Berry riffs through the scuzzy sounds of the Florida punk clubs the guitarist frequented as a teenager. While 2017 follow-up Witness relaxed into more of a neo-soul setting, on Lower Chris Catchpole Booker has abandoned the rootsy surroundings of his first two records almost entirely. Made with hip-hop producer Kenny Segal, it finds him drifting through a murkily distorted soundworld where guitars churn rather than zip and the overriding mood is one of deep melancholy and unease. The acoustic twang on Pompeii Statues might have a lo-fi field recording quality, and there’s some dusty ’70s soul grooves stuttering through the warped Slow Dance In A Gay Bar, but Booker has relocated to a more contemporary – and sonically speaking, far more interesting – place here.

David Gray

★★★★

Dear Life

SECRETLY. CD/DL/LP

His thirteenth album, titled after an Alice Munro short story collection.

When White Ladder broke the bank at the turn of the century, David Gray could have spent the rest of his career climbing that same ladder. Instead, he chose to twist, turn and fashion his own world. All these years later, at first glance Dear Life John Aizlewood is downbeat and unassuming – and producer Ben De Vries has certainly taken everything down a notch – but it’s a slow burner that catches fire, even when Gray is singing about death on That Day Must Surely Come. The loping, piano-led Sunlight On Water oozes brittle beauty and The First Stone is as fragile as Durutti Column, but Gray is more robust when the horns kick in on Leave Taking (based on the Louise Bogan poem of that name) and, especially, when he’s duetting with up-andcomer Talia Rae on Plus & Minus or his daughter Florence on Fighting Talk.

This is a low: Benjamin Booker is in a melancholic mood.

Trenity Thomas

Mayflower Madame

★★★

Insight

NIGHT CULT/UP IN HER ROOM. CD/DL/LP

Bleak, gothy, very timely guitar/synth alt-psychedelia from Oslo.

Jody Evans

Two smouldering black-clad Norwegians with a penchant for the more nocturnal end of post-punk, Mayflower Madame are definitely making the right noises to chime with the arrival of that long-awaited Cure album. Ocean Of Bitterness sets the darkly inclined 1981 scene with a meandering, reverb-heavy bass line, glacial textural synth and a maudlin refrain of “I’m gonna drown myself”, all of which could hardly be more Faith-era Robert Smith. Further on, though, where tempos escalate and guitars take on more of a heavily FX’d early-rock’n’roll twang, there’s more the vibe of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the wispy ramalama topped with Trond Fagernes’ echo-y broodings on doomed romance (A Foretold Ecstasy) and obsession (Marionette). Though operating within known coordinates, MM expertly sculpt an elegant soundworld, particularly on dreamier moments like Paint It All In Blue. They themselves call it ‘psych-noir’, but Insight lands up very much the right side of a bad trip.

Andrew Perry

Tunng

★★★★

Love You All Over Again

FULL TIME HOBBY. CD/DL/LP

Back to basics celebration of their pioneering ‘pagan folktronica’.

For 20 years Sam Genders and Mike Lindsay have bent their separate influences into something unique to Tunng, mixing the trad ’60s folk of people like Davy Graham with DIY bedroom beats and clicks. Over those two decades since their 2005 debut, Mother’s Daughter And Other Songs, that unlikely collision of the past and future has matured and become ever more entwined and sophisticated, but Love You All Over Again deliberately revisits the band’s quirkier earliest recordings. As always, Andy FyfeGenders writes beautifully strange folk songs that wouldn’t sound out of place back in folk revival clubs like London’s Les Cousins, except they pop and ping with Lindsay’s low-fi beats and organic samples. Fold in additional dreamlike vocals from Becky Jacobs, plus traditional pipes and even a hurdy-gurdy and, as they joyfully sing on opening track Everything Else, “We’re high on life”. It still shows all these years later.