Hi Robert. Which album should we not miss this week?
‘ Angels & Queens Part I (★★★★☆, 7 songs) the first real album by themusician trio Gabriels. Actually it is half of an album (the second part willbe released in March next year), but what a first half. Gabriels has recentlyappeared at a number of festivals, including Le Guess Who in Utrecht. Thethree men made quite an impression there. Singer Jacob Lusk’s voice soundedlike a resounding brass bell, at times almost like an operatic voice. Veryintrusive.
As a child Lusk sang in gospel choirs in church and in 2016 he participated inthe talent show American Idol. That turned out to be terrible: a lot wasscripted and Lusk was supposed to play a stereotypical role, he told the BBC.This is not for me at all, he thought after that adventure, and he continuedas choirmaster.
‘Until classically trained producers Ari Balouzian and Ryan Hope ended up withLusk’s choir for a commercial soundtrack. It clicked and Balouzian and Hopewere so eager to make their own song with Lusk that they came to his churchwith a mobile studio. Lusk rediscovered the joy in making his own music, withthe provisional end result of this record. The album cover on which he ischristened should be seen as his musical rebirth, he said.
‘ Angels & Queens Part I can best be described as modern soul, as reviewerGijsbert Kamer also writes, with a lot of electronics. Lusk mainly uses hisfalsetto voice, you have to love that a bit, with a nice vibrato in it. Themusic is quite intense and quite dramatic, but there is still a lot of air inthe arrangements. It is not completely lubricated. For example, listen to TheBlind. Beautiful. I read somewhere in a review that that song sounds likeMarvin Gaye is working with Portishead: classic soul combined with slowed downtrip hop beats. Also To the Moon and Mack is a very nice number. I thinkGabriels is just going to get really big.
What else is recommended this week?
Like Gabriels, British musician Shygirl is pushing music genres. She mixeship-hop with pop and dance, but also with avant-garde beats. She floats a bitin between everywhere. Music journalists have coined an irritating term forthis so that no one really knows what it is anymore: hyperpop. Pop withdifficult beats, it mainly means. Yet her debut album ___nymph_ (★★★★☆, 12songs) not a complicated record: DJs can record almost any song in their set.
in the number poison she combines a harmonica with pure house. A veryspecific sound, with a very catchy text. on shlut , also such a beautifultrack, you hear the same principle but with an acoustic guitar. That’s kind ofa weird instrument in that environment, but it sounds great. Very nicelyarranged and set to music. And even though she works with so many greatproducers: on Nymph Shygirl is in charge. Almost every song has hit power.’
And this is also worth listening to this week:
The only 24-year-old Frisian pop phenomenon Joost Klein is already ready forhis eighth album, Friesland (★★★★☆, 14 songs). It is by far his best, writesreviewer Gijsbert Kamer: Joost expresses and expresses his feelings in abrilliant way.
The record series The Bootleg Series are full of previously unreleased MilesDavis recordings. On the seventh album in this series , The Bootleg Series,Vol. 7: That ‘s What Happened (★★★★☆, 28 songs), you can hear Davis in bloodform during a concert in 1983.