There’s retro, as in Oasis’s admiration for the Sixties, and there’s retro, as in Kula Shaker’s note-for-note reconstruction of them on their new album called Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts.
This follow-up to their chart-topping debut, K, covers the same territory as before, mixing up shimmery, Hammond organ- infused psychedelia and a philosophy that boils down to a warning that we’d all better love each other or else (“Love is the key, and the key is the name, my friend,” asserts a perfectly serious Crispian Mills on the hazy, loopy track Timeworm). This, of course, is garnished with the Indian affectations that made their name – not just tabla drums and buzzing sitars, but entire songs sung in Hindi, such as Radhe Radhe.
As previously, its saving grace is the Kulas’ near-genius for the catchiest of hook lines, which means you find yourself singing, “He’s a wizard in a blizzard, a mystical machine gun” without even thinking about it.
Soundbites
Strauss: Salome (Chandos) Under conductor Michael Schonwandt and with predominantly Danish forces, this recording presents Inga Nielsen as the most vividly characterised and consistently beautifully sung Salome yet on record. Robert Hale, too, is magnificent as a noble Jokanaan, the object of Salome’s obsession. As Naraboth, Deon van der Walt too sings particularly well. All in all, a version to replace the Sinopoli with Cheryl Studer (DG) at the top of my list. – Coenraad Visser
Adam Cohen: Adam Cohen (Columbia) Leonard’s son has inherited his old man’s proclivity for looking on the dark side, and admits as much on This Pain, one of the more striking songs on his debut. “It’s strange, so strange,” he ruminates in his modulated purr. “This pain, this pain I love.” He starts as he means to go on, confronting unsavoury feelings and scenarios (like, say, Sister, the story of a creepy friend who copies his every move) with what amounts to glee, though the mood is more low-key than that makes it sound. Cohen’s lyrics are fluent and expressive (“All you ever wanted was everything I’m not,” runs Amazing), and the music, co-written with a five-man “song-writing team”, is sleek, sub-jazzy and moreish. – Caroline Sullivan
Howie B: Snatch (Pussyfoot) Psychology grad and ex-Mr Bjork, DJ/remixer Howie has a more interesting CV than many, but does this entitle him to release three albums of his own? He describes his latest as “technotica”, which covers a multitude of sins from ambient house to French film music. Although he’s packed it with enough samples to keep the lawyers happy for months, they’ve been smoothed into a gently percolating mass in which no single sound is identifiable. The result is like listening to water simmering. Fantastic if you’re into very slow build-ups. – CS