Enigma: Love Sensuality and Devotion (Greatest Hits and Remixes)
There was a time when you couldn't enter a bar, shopping centre or veggie cafe without hearing a slow-stepping electronic remix of sampled whale-sounds, native Americans and choirs emanating from the nearest Bose. One of the biggest offenders of such shenanigans is one Michael Cretu whose unit-shifting Enigma project scored a string of UK hits and a lifetime of soundtracking Gardener's World and Escape to the Country. The big money-spinner Sadeness is included here in all its Soul-II-Soul-esque glory alongside Return to Innocence and Mea Culpa, lollaping '90s grooves for those who found Celine Dion or Stevie Nicks a bit too staid for boozing or grazing along to. Some twenty years on, much of Enigma's bland but pleasant fug hangs heavy like second-hand vape in a warm crowded room - it's mystical Eurofluff liberally dusted with faux panpipe effects and the odd nod to Art Of Noise and Karl Orff. With the exception of the uptempo TNT For The Brain, the extra disc of remixes is strangely dated but not necessarily in a good way. 6/10
Vangelis: Rosetta
The Greek composer's fascination with all things space continues with his first studio album for 15 years (also his first Top 40 hit since Albedo 0.39 in 1976). Like the preceding NASA-inspired Mythodea, his Cosmos era and of course the sci-fi daddy of them all Bladerunner, Rosetta evokes interest in other worlds and universal explorations and is dedicated to the European Space Agency mission of the same name. It's a sign of the times when you have to recall the last truly great space-mission soundtrack, Eno, Lanois and Brook's ageless Apollo album an ever-lasting example. Vangelis's hallmarks are all here - broad sweeping melodies such as Starstuff and Infinitude, twinkling celestial motifs on Celestial Whispers or Return to the Void and pulsating synth-triggers on Perihelion and Albedo 0.06 make for an album that is rooted in weightless mystique and uncharted supernovas. Vangelis proves once again he can be the race for space master. 8/10
Ultimate Painting: Dusk
For a few short years, London stoner-folkies Jack Cooper and James Hoare have been trilling sweetly on releases like their 2014 self-titled debut and last year's Green Lanes without so much as a fanfare from the press or slap on the back from onlookers. 2016's Dusk is an altogether more straightforward affair, slotting nicely into the section marked Faux West Coast Harmony Groups with verses searching for choruses and vice-versa. If you remember the not dissimilar Morgan, Alfie and the ever-growing myriad of former major-label alt-pop signees, you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that Ultimate Painting aren't about to have some huge advance whipped away from under their noses anytime soon - signed to Chicago indie Trouble in Mind, they're very much part of a family that includes trippy '60s hollerer Del Shannon, guitar-wielding Doug Tuttle (and former band MMOSS) and the much-fancied Hollows. Dusk is easy-going druggy folk-pop, epitomised on the likes of Silhouetted Shimmering, I Can't Run Anymore and recent single Song For Brian Jones with only the opening Bills threatening to get caught for speeding. Not exactly rousing but enough to make the post-binge Sunday morning breakfast bap a mite more bearable. 6/10
Purling Hiss: High Bias
Philly psyche-rockers' sixth album in as many years and more of the same nut-crunching riffs, thrills and spills. Actually, High Bias begins with a portentous pairing in Fever and 3000AD, arguably the band's most 'pop' offerings to date. Reminiscent of '80s glum-rockers Modern English during their Gathering Dust phase, 3000 AD is a belter and a contender for power-pop's crown of 2016. Echoes of other preceding new-wave noise-niks like PiL, Wire, Gang of Four, Black Flag and Husker Du filter through many of High Bias' nine tracks, including the bruising Teddy's Servo Motors and the itchy Get Your Way while Pulsations wouldn't sound amiss on a Dead Kennedys flipside. Purling Hiss may be echoing its homeland's nervousness at the presidential election-race with Everybody in the USA, an 11-minute maelstrom of crashing cymbals, thrashing guitars and the line "Save me, I'm afraid of everybody in the USA...". We feel you, Purlers. 7/10
Pat Thomas: Coming Home
Ghana's leading light in highlife, Afrobeat and Ghanaian pop, Pat Thomas issued a new album with Strut Records in 2015, afeat in itself when you consider his chops. A regular collaborator with Ebo Taylor and a mainstay of Ghana's party scene throughout the '70s and '80s, Thomas finally has his varied and inspirational output rounded up by the same label for the ultimate retrospective. One minute you could be in his homeland, the next transported to all points Africa, even Hawaii, Cuba and Jamaica depending on whatever project the man was involved with at the time. Thus you get sweet melodies with Sweet Beans, mellow vibes on the likes of Eye Colo and frenetic funky hoedowns with his Marijata project. It's a mixed sandwich for sure but there's something for everyone with soul fans being catered for on the lilting closer Can't You See. 7/10
There was a time when you couldn't enter a bar, shopping centre or veggie cafe without hearing a slow-stepping electronic remix of sampled whale-sounds, native Americans and choirs emanating from the nearest Bose. One of the biggest offenders of such shenanigans is one Michael Cretu whose unit-shifting Enigma project scored a string of UK hits and a lifetime of soundtracking Gardener's World and Escape to the Country. The big money-spinner Sadeness is included here in all its Soul-II-Soul-esque glory alongside Return to Innocence and Mea Culpa, lollaping '90s grooves for those who found Celine Dion or Stevie Nicks a bit too staid for boozing or grazing along to. Some twenty years on, much of Enigma's bland but pleasant fug hangs heavy like second-hand vape in a warm crowded room - it's mystical Eurofluff liberally dusted with faux panpipe effects and the odd nod to Art Of Noise and Karl Orff. With the exception of the uptempo TNT For The Brain, the extra disc of remixes is strangely dated but not necessarily in a good way. 6/10
The Greek composer's fascination with all things space continues with his first studio album for 15 years (also his first Top 40 hit since Albedo 0.39 in 1976). Like the preceding NASA-inspired Mythodea, his Cosmos era and of course the sci-fi daddy of them all Bladerunner, Rosetta evokes interest in other worlds and universal explorations and is dedicated to the European Space Agency mission of the same name. It's a sign of the times when you have to recall the last truly great space-mission soundtrack, Eno, Lanois and Brook's ageless Apollo album an ever-lasting example. Vangelis's hallmarks are all here - broad sweeping melodies such as Starstuff and Infinitude, twinkling celestial motifs on Celestial Whispers or Return to the Void and pulsating synth-triggers on Perihelion and Albedo 0.06 make for an album that is rooted in weightless mystique and uncharted supernovas. Vangelis proves once again he can be the race for space master. 8/10
Ultimate Painting: Dusk
For a few short years, London stoner-folkies Jack Cooper and James Hoare have been trilling sweetly on releases like their 2014 self-titled debut and last year's Green Lanes without so much as a fanfare from the press or slap on the back from onlookers. 2016's Dusk is an altogether more straightforward affair, slotting nicely into the section marked Faux West Coast Harmony Groups with verses searching for choruses and vice-versa. If you remember the not dissimilar Morgan, Alfie and the ever-growing myriad of former major-label alt-pop signees, you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that Ultimate Painting aren't about to have some huge advance whipped away from under their noses anytime soon - signed to Chicago indie Trouble in Mind, they're very much part of a family that includes trippy '60s hollerer Del Shannon, guitar-wielding Doug Tuttle (and former band MMOSS) and the much-fancied Hollows. Dusk is easy-going druggy folk-pop, epitomised on the likes of Silhouetted Shimmering, I Can't Run Anymore and recent single Song For Brian Jones with only the opening Bills threatening to get caught for speeding. Not exactly rousing but enough to make the post-binge Sunday morning breakfast bap a mite more bearable. 6/10
Purling Hiss: High Bias
Philly psyche-rockers' sixth album in as many years and more of the same nut-crunching riffs, thrills and spills. Actually, High Bias begins with a portentous pairing in Fever and 3000AD, arguably the band's most 'pop' offerings to date. Reminiscent of '80s glum-rockers Modern English during their Gathering Dust phase, 3000 AD is a belter and a contender for power-pop's crown of 2016. Echoes of other preceding new-wave noise-niks like PiL, Wire, Gang of Four, Black Flag and Husker Du filter through many of High Bias' nine tracks, including the bruising Teddy's Servo Motors and the itchy Get Your Way while Pulsations wouldn't sound amiss on a Dead Kennedys flipside. Purling Hiss may be echoing its homeland's nervousness at the presidential election-race with Everybody in the USA, an 11-minute maelstrom of crashing cymbals, thrashing guitars and the line "Save me, I'm afraid of everybody in the USA...". We feel you, Purlers. 7/10
Pat Thomas: Coming Home
Ghana's leading light in highlife, Afrobeat and Ghanaian pop, Pat Thomas issued a new album with Strut Records in 2015, afeat in itself when you consider his chops. A regular collaborator with Ebo Taylor and a mainstay of Ghana's party scene throughout the '70s and '80s, Thomas finally has his varied and inspirational output rounded up by the same label for the ultimate retrospective. One minute you could be in his homeland, the next transported to all points Africa, even Hawaii, Cuba and Jamaica depending on whatever project the man was involved with at the time. Thus you get sweet melodies with Sweet Beans, mellow vibes on the likes of Eye Colo and frenetic funky hoedowns with his Marijata project. It's a mixed sandwich for sure but there's something for everyone with soul fans being catered for on the lilting closer Can't You See. 7/10