Albums of the week: Maisie Peters, Genesis Owusu, Ed O’Brien, Seu Jorge

Florescence

Maisie Peters

(Gingerbread Man/Atlantic)

Some may have trouble falling for Maisie Peters, the British pop singer now on her third album. She is signed to Ed Sheeran’s label – an indenture audible on songs such as Audrey Hepburn and in Peters’s default inoffensive, strummed pop. The guests on Florescence hail from the middle of the road: Julia Michaels and Marcus Mumford.

But Peters’s often noted musical debt to Taylor Swift continues to be a boon. Not so much copying, her songs redeploy the narrative progression, scansion and incisive apercus of Swift’s catalogue, making Peters her own woman and a delight to listen to. 

Have the words “buccal fat” ever been heard in pop? Probably not until Mary Jane, on which Peters sings “Here’s to my buccal fat and looking my goddamn age.” (She is 25.) On Kingmaker, she is assured of her own power, skewering someone who used her on their way up (“fucking weird behaviour”).

For all the vicious specificity of Peters’s greatest zingers, the well-worn trope of love remains her chief concern. But she crisply swerves dire romantic fates on Houses and Vampire Time, and makes obsession feel fresh on bangers such as You You You and My Regards. Kitty Empire

Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge

Genesis Owusu

(Ourness)

“Apathy is a grave,” murmurs Genesis Owusu early on his third LP. Clearly the Ghanaian-Australian artist doesn’t plan on being entombed anytime soon, as this explosion of an album is his most energising, exciting work yet. Owusu excoriates the re-emergence of fascism (the “worldwide scourge”) through a head-spinning variety of musical styles. Taking his brief from Nina Simone, who said that an artist’s duty is “to reflect the times”, Redstar Wu is a spiky, complex collection, mixing sweetness and optimism with stomps and snarls to make its point.

Stampede is a magnificently catchy, pugilistic, synth-pop call to arms; Pirate Radio goes to war on antisocial media. Hellstar, a tender funk jam oozing neurotic eroticism, suggests that, if the world’s on fire, it’s time we romped in the ashes. And those are just the first three songs. 

The production is superb, with particular attention lavished on layering and intertwining Owusu’s multitracked vocals. Redstar Wu flags a little by the end but the ride there, ploughing through expectations, is thrilling. Damien Morris

Blue Morpho

Ed O’Brien

(Transgressive)

Not long after the release of Earth, his 2020 debut solo album (as EOB), Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien suffered a serious bout of depression. His way out of it – along with Wim Hof-endorsed exposure to cold – was to play guitar in his studio and work through his trauma. The results of that process gradually coalesced into Blue Morpho, named after a spectacular butterfly.

The album is a rich meld of styles that defies easy categorisation. There are echoes of O’Brien’s day job, circa Kid A, on the opening track Incantations – although it begins as Jim Ghedi-like psych-folk, before the rhythms become increasingly dense and suddenly a brighter sounding Optimistic slides into view. The title track, inspired by a year he spent living with his family in a Brazilian village in 2012, is gorgeous, mixing birdsong, gentle acoustic guitar and uplifting orchestration, with O’Brien’s soft vocals buried deep in the mix. The closing Obrigado, meanwhile, is reminiscent of Pink Floyd at their most expansive. But he fails to maintain those high standards throughout – Teachers and the interstitial Thin Places in particular feel inessential. Phil Mongredien

The Other Side

Seu Jorge

(Amor In Sound)

Outside his native Brazil, Seu Jorge remains best known for his droll cameo in The Life Aquatic, crooning David Bowie tunes in Portuguese. At home, he is an uber-star, revered as both musician and actor (24 films and counting), adored for his deep, booming vocals and towering sense of cool. 

Now 55, Jorge has taken his time – 16 years of “patience” – to deliver his masterpiece, a dazzling showcase of Brazilian styles cantered on the lush, modernist orchestrations of Música popular brasileira but drawing on Jorge’s usual sambas and bossas. Recorded in LA and produced by Mario Caldato Jr (a Beastie Boys collaborator), its cover versions include three tracks in English and a hefty sprinkling of guest stars.

Its delights are legion. The commanding voice that opens Vento De Maio (a classic duet with Maria Rita) has blown in from west Africa, carrying intricate lyrics in Portuguese over lashings of ghostly orchestration. An ancient US funk hit, Girl You Move Me, becomes an erotic love call. The shade of Rio-era Frank Sinatra flickers through cinematic moods of exuberance, seduction and rueful reflection, topped by a numinous version (featuring Beck) of Nick Drake’s sorrow-sodden River Man. Neil Spencer

One to watch: 1000 Rabbits

In the last year, 1000 Rabbits have become one of London’s most talked-about live acts. Their regular residencies at the Windmill in Brixton (the cramped south London pub that helped launch Black Midi and the Last Dinner Party) have led to a run of UK shows that suggest their cult following is beginning to spread.

Formed in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, through a youth music programme, the five-piece of Laura (violin), Liv (synths), Paolo (guitar), River (vocals) and Luke (drums) fall somewhere between Black Country, New Road and Man/Woman/Chainsaw, but with an emotional art-pop twist. Often dressed in knitted cardigans, colourful bonnets and knee-high socks, they resemble extras from The Wicker Man, brandishing wiry guitars and fiddles before lurching into post-punk freakouts.

The band’s debut EP, Are we friends yet?, captures their chaotic live energy: recent single Virgin Soil shifts from playful folk pop into a deranged rock finale complete with howling vocals, while Rubik’s Cube (which the band describe as their “James Bond song”) builds from anxiously sparse verses into an orchestral release. Meanwhile, Spring Cleaning is a six-minute spiral, with River posing the EP’s title question. Together, Are we …  hints at ambitions that stretch well beyond the south London circuit. Georgia Evans

1000 Rabbits’ UK shows include Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol, London, Northampton and Latitude festival 

Photographs by Ella Pavlides, Isaac Brown, Steve Gullick, B+, Ché Deedigan