Reviews: The Necks, Cheikh Lô, Jay Som, Charles Lloyd

The Necks

Disquiet

(Northern Spy)

We may live in an attention economy, but the Antipodean trio the Necks are a band who kick the poly-screen, multitasking method of consuming entertainment to the curb with a flourish of percussion. Their gigs, entirely improvised, are immersive, both for the band and their audiences. Chris Abrahams’s piano, Lloyd Swanton’s bass and Tony Buck’s drums come together with no hierarchy in an entirely original, never-to-be-repeated happening of focused, internal-weather music that takes a while to coalesce and then ebb away again across two 45-minute sessions, broken up by an interval.

Upping the ante, their 20th album, Disquiet, is three hours long – in contrast, perhaps with 2023’s Travel, which was more concise. Perhaps it’s not the best place for newcomers to start; perhaps it is. Certainly, Causeway, the 26-minute taster here, is an excellent encapsulation of the band at full pelt, with added organ overdubs giving the piece a funky Hammond undertone. At an hour-plus, Ghost Net, named for the lethal skeins loose in the ocean that strangle marine life, is the most rhythmically emphatic here, maximal and mantric at the same time. Kitty Empire

Cheikh Lô

Maame

(World Circuit)

The Senegalese singer and guitarist Cheikh Lô began his solo career in the 90s, earning comparisons to fellow countrymen Youssou N’Dour and Baaba Maal thanks to his soaring vocal power and capacity to mix Senegalese mbalax with funk, reggae and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Since then his releases have been sparse, yet on Maame, his first album in a decade, Lô returns with a newly engaging sound.

Now 70, he showcases a softer, less certain vocal style on the album’s 12 tracks, which gently meander through a selection of warm acoustic sounds. Opener Baba Moussa BP 120 sets the tone with its fluttering horn melodies, Latin rhythm and Lô’s vibrato-laden falsetto. Other tracks, such as African Development, veer into reggae offbeat rhythms, and Bamba Moofi Djouli Guedj harnesses an array of energetic polyrhythmic hand percussion. But it’s when Lô is at his quietest that he excels: Nilelefe and the title track reveal a new maturity, allowing the wavering emotion of his older voice to yearn over simple guitar lines. It’s a sound that conveys a lifetime of feeling, even if listeners are unfamiliar with the languages he is singing in. Ammar Kalia

Jay Som

Belong

(Lucky Number)

In the six years since her last Jay Som record, Anak Ko, California-born Melina Duterte has been busy racking up A-list guest credits, playing on Boygenius’s Grammy-winning The Record and appearing on tracks alongside Troye Sivan and Beabadoobee. It’s with this collaborative, open-door mentality that Duterte approaches Belong, a record that examines its place in the world by looking to those around it, from the emo influences on lead single Float (featuring vocals from Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins) to the juddering loops of What You Need, co-written with Brooklyn musician Joao Gonzalez.

The result is a shifting sound that moves from dappled Postal Service electronics on Cards on the Table, via a cathartic duet about the passing of time with Paramore’s Hayley Williams on Past Lives, to the woozy, pitch-shifted A Million Reasons Why. Her famous co-stars will inevitably steal the headlines, but it’s Duterte who finds a gauzy sonic throughline amid the outside influences. By opening Jay Som up, she’s drilled down further into the core of her own appeal. Lisa Wright

Charles Lloyd

Figure in Blue

(Blue Note)

Tenor sax titan Charles Lloyd continues to deliver marvels at 87. After 2024’s prize-winning The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow comes this double album honouring artists who captured his young heart in 1940s Memphis. The influence of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington is central, whether in cover versions or freshly written tributes. Most often heard as a quartet, Lloyd formed a new trio for this task, drafting in old sidekicks Jason Moran on piano and Marvin Sewell on guitar. It proves an inspired move: while Moran continues to amplify and define Lloyd’s leads, Sewell plays counterpoint, pinging high notes and spiky solos into the mix.

Lloyd remains a sophisticated player, his sax and occasional flute full of the elegance heard on his 1966 breakthrough Forest Flower, a hippie favourite (a shared interest in meditation later won Lloyd honorary Beach Boys membership). His mood here is mostly pensive, though he joins Sewell on a fierce bottleneck blues track, a nod to Lloyd’s apprenticeship with local heroes such as Howlin’ Wolf. Blues for Langston, a tribute to Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, is delightfully funky; his homage to tabla player Zakir Hussain, a close friend, tender and spiritual. A colossus at work. Neil Spencer

There are many books to be written about social media’s effect on pop, but one thing about phone-shaped fandom is that, although it rewards image curation, it rarely prizes fakery for long. This is Olivia Dean’s year because she seems authentic, relatable. Jessy Blakemore, a lavishly talented singer-songwriter from Reading, feels just as real. Her guitar-led ballads reveal a captivating new voice, code-switching between folk, soul and rap, fresh in its stark intimacy.

Blakemore has been playing guitar and writing poems and songs since she was tiny. Now 25, she hadn’t pursued music as a profession properly until a few years ago, when she gave up nursery teaching and started uploading gems such as Burna (aka burner phone, the cheat’s accessory of choice), a piercing depiction of the vagaries and betrayals of romance in your 20s. Lauryn Hill’s MTV Unplugged No 2.0 is a touchstone, but if Blakemore savours the emotional meat of Hill’s work, she also dispenses with its indulgences.

Blakemore’s EP If U Need Me, I’m a Few Missed Calls Away is 2025’s best debut, collating excellent singles such as Shiloh Type Beat and adding the equally perceptive With You and Diet Coke. Soon, Jessy’s assembling a band to bring these delicate flowers to bloom on stage. “It can be a bit daunting performing super-raw, super-personal songs,” she concedes, “but if I’m gonna write them, that’s the trade-off.” Damien Morris

If U Need Me, I’m a Few Missed Calls Away is out now on Black Butter

Photographs by Youri Lenquette/Marco Grey/Daniel Topete/Dorothy Darr