Objects
Isobel Waller-Bridge
(Mercury KX)
Silence and stillness are hard to achieve – just ask any would-be meditator. Isobel Waller-Bridge’s album-length study of still lives, Objects, rustles and quivers, thrums and oscillates. A film and TV composer (and sister of the writer and actress Phoebe), Waller-Bridge set out to investigate states that were in stark opposition to her own busy working life. These tracks were recorded in down-time across a four-year period; moments when Waller-Bridge did what we are all supposed to do – slow down and appreciate the small, everyday things. Musique concrète began as a 20th-century elevation of found sounds; here Waller-Bridge combines concrète instincts with field recordings, electronic minimalism and her deceptively light compositional hand, heard most clearly on Objective Contemplation.
Pointedly, she is not trying too hard to make these objects “speak”: if the titles suggest certain textures – Hoover, Glass – Waller-Bridge doesn’t necessarily yield to this temptation. Where she does, the work is elegant and convincing. The ambient tone shifts of Hz or the Doppler-effect distortion of Tapes make a feature of recording by-products. Ball, the album’s most playful track, is an ASMR delight. Kitty Empire
USB002
Fred again..
(Atlantic)
Fred “Fred again..” Gibson’s work promises a diarist’s intimacy, similar to that of Kanye West’s late career. His breakthrough came with the Actual Life trilogy, Piano Live YouTube streams and tuneful, affecting songs named for collaborators such as Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing) featuring Marea Stamper (aka The Blessed Madonna). Gibson’s projects were presented as musical timestamps covering the Covid period of 14 April 2020 to 9 September 2022. Since, USB (like Ye’s ever-changing Donda/Donda 2) has served as his infinite playlist.
Is it performative? Smart marketing? Resident Advisor meets reality TV? It barely matters: with Ambery’s immense, kraken-roar bassline or Winny, heading in a joyously home counties Diplo direction, USB002 is packed with immaculately crafted club tracks. It flirts with house, hip-hop, garage, dubstep and dancehall, terrified of being boring and tail-waggingly pleased to be heard. But with all the big personalities in the booth, from Amyl and the Sniffers to Caribou and Skepta, it sometimes feels as if Gibson is strangely absent from his own diary. Damien Morris
Separate from the Noise
Threetwenty
(New Century Sound)
The 1990s were a peak era for R&B. With the heart-wrenching emotion of Toni Braxton and the future bounce of Aaliyah, the genre was transformed from crooning traditionalism into something far more expansive, groove-oriented and full of depth. Threetwenty, with the release of their debut album, Separate from the Noise, now bring back 90s R&B with 10 tracks of perfect pastiche.
As a husband-and-wife duo, the vocalist Ivana Nwokike, formerly of R&B group VanJess, and the producer Filip Hunter display a confident and consistently luxuriant sound. Opening track The Light (I Need You) sets the tone with its earworming call-and-response melody and head-nodding beat, while the soulful atmosphere is felt on the vinyl scratches of What Are You Looking For and the grooving bassline of Who Are You to Me. Nwokike’s soft vocals weave effortlessly through Hunter’s mid-tempo, richly layered production, tripping over the new jack swing of Say It and the Erykah Badu neo-soul references of Undo. These aren’t songs that break new ground but they deliver a masterclass in finely crafted nostalgia. Ammar Kalia
Someone Else is Calling
Hercules and Love Affair
(StrataSonic Records)
The producer Andy Butler’s Hercules and Love Affair project treads a line between ecstasy and introspection. Since the release of 2008’s self-titled debut album, Butler’s records have veered from the euphoria of early disco and house-influenced tracks such as Blind to the balladry of Poisonous Storytelling, taken from 2022’s album In Amber. Now returning with the four-track EP Someone Else is Calling, Butler turns up the volume to focus once more on dancefloor communion.
Featuring vocals from the Icelandic singer Elin Ey, aka Hips & Lips, who previously collaborated with Butler on In Amber, the EP is replete with squelching acid house synths, rattling drum machines and thumping basslines all anchored by Ey’s husky voice. It’s an infectious, kinetic blend, from the heartbeat kick drums and wafting emotive melodies of Crossed Lines to the bubbling, arpeggiated synths of the dubbed-out Body & Soul. The title track is the highlight, expertly layering syncopated drum programming over Ey’s chopped vocal refrain and building to a synth-heavy chorus that is a true hands-in-the-air moment. It’s a blissful sound that is impossible to resist and Butler’s skill lies in making these club-ready productions sound easy. Ammar Kalia
One to watch: EsDeeKid
Have you seen the online speculation that Timothée Chalamet is moonlighting as a masked Liverpudlian rapper? What could easily be dismissed as internet fodder has become a real mystery. The artist at the centre of it, EsDeeKid, is one of the most intriguing new voices in the UK’s experimental rap scene. After this year’s breakthrough collaboration with British rapper Fakemink, LV Sandals, and a fiercely assured solo album, Rebel, he’s become impossible to ignore.
Little is known about the ultra-secretive, much-hyped rapper. To see EsDeeKid live is to surrender to a crowd of phone-lit moshers, pulled along by blown-out basslines and lo-fi samples that nod to the dregs of the cloud-rap era. His presence is menacing and magnetic: all-black visuals, a balaclava and a dry, gritty sense of humour.
It’s partly this combination – the anonymity, the narrowed eyes peering out from the mask, a Scouse accent – that has fuelled the Chalamet theories, amplified by gossip blogs such as Popbitch. Mythology aside, EsDeeKid’s ascent is rooted in something far more substantial. Rebel is a great work of internet-bred rap with razor-sharp bars, a distinctive cadence and a sense of world-building that will help it endure.
In an era defined by fleeting, viral successes and disposable hype-cycles, EsDeeKid feels like an artist rising for the right reasons. His talent, vision and sheer distinctiveness make him an artist worth mythologising. Georgia Evans
Photographs by Vicky Grout/Hjortur Stefansson/Bob Foster/Theo Batterham