It’s a fairly brief column this week as I’ve been solo parenting a tantrum-prone two year old this weekend. I am but a uni-tasking man, so I didn’t find much spare time for writing amongst the playgrounds, ice creams, and dreadful home-made superhero videos on YouTube. So there’s just an album and tune of the week written up below.
Album of the week
Rogue Jones – Dos Bebés
Rogue Jones are a Welsh, husband and wife duo. But their sound is a lot bigger than that might suggest; fleshed out by a range of other musicians, taking in sparse electronica to orchestral indie epics.
The album cover acts as a good reflection of the album’s spirit. There’s a kind of otherworldly mysticism represented by the robes, but it’s grounded in nature and a general down-to-earth-ness as represented by the cap and adidas trackies. Like they’re making magic out of the mundane.
I should point out that a good chunk of the album is in Welsh. So the lyrical content of the songs is mostly a mystery to me and, even in the English language songs, there’s a strong Welsh twang to decipher. I love a proper regional accent in music BTW, there’s something more rewarding when you eventually suss the lyrics after a few listens. There are snippets of English, or even just names, which come in seemingly randomly; “player of the year”, “Harry Dean Stanton”, etc. As someone who will annoyingly latch onto offbeat one-liners and sing them incessantly around the house, this album is great for those; “Rogue Jones, share your cake around”. Whether English or Welsh, there’s a singalong quality to a lot of these songs, even if I don’t quite know what I’m singing along to.
There’s not any clear comparisons I could make, just because there’s such a variety across the album. Although Englynion Angylion recalls Of Monsters and Men’s indie folk epics. And Babette could be classic Kate Bush if you knocked the vocals up an octave and added in some woooh ooaahhs. It feels quite experimental; not in the sense of it being a challenging listen, it’s all pretty accessible. But because of the sheer stylistic range; jumping about from bombastic pop to slow-burn epics like 1, 2, 3, to relatively stripped-back folk ballads about Matt Le Tissier.
I’m guessing the fact it’s mostly in Welsh, plus the general quirkiness might limit Rogue Jones to cult favourite status. But this is music good enough to overcome any language barrier, and deserving of a bigger audience.
Best tunes: Off By One, Babette, 1, 2, 3
Tune of the week
Youth Lagoon – Idaho Alien
Youth Lagoon is the solo project of Idaho’s Trevor Powers. He’s been somewhat of an indie darling since the early 2010s. He retired the Youth Lagoon name in 2016, but has revived it here ahead of the release of upcoming album, Heaven Is a Junkyard.
His voice was often drenched in lo-fi noise, giving it a light, dreamy quality. But after suffering with medical issues over the last couple of years, which left him unable to speak, his voice here sounds almost brittle; ready to crack at any second.
And it works perfectly in the context of this song as he recounts traumas, dating back to childhood. This is essentially a sparse piano ballad, but even with just a slight drum beat and smatterings of cut-up vocal coos as accompaniment, it feels like something bigger than the sum of its parts. And, while the volume still barely rises above a whisper, the chorus has an almost hymn-like quality despite the refrain of “I will fear no frontier” sounding more resigned than defiant.
It’s a dark and almost desperate song, but in it’s bare show of vulnerability manages to find something strangely reassuring.
You can check out previous weeks’ best new music roundups at the link below.
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