Reviews by ikejiri

Beyoncé
Beyoncé makes a lot of fantastic music, and I was expecting to like this, but I found it to be pretty turgid - the self-serious, brooding, introspective lyrics themes translating into uninspiring music, feeling like a series of horizontal melodies either mumbled or belted out over flat, synthy beats that all feel a bit sub Kanye and, only 13 years on, pretty dated.

There are a couple of good songs - I like Blow a lot, the nagging guitar and 80s synth bass are great, Jealous manages to deliver on its grandiose intentions and has a great vocal hook, XO is good - but they’re not enough to make a dent in the overall sense of flatness, or in the case of Drunk in Love some strong R Kelly Trapped in the Closet vibes.

Haunted feels indicative of much of the album, it starts off promisingly, but starts to feel quite aimless quite quickly, discarding any moments of melodic interest for a more beat’n’vocals sledgehammer. Or there is something like Heaven, one of those beiger than beige songs that never seems to end.

I wouldn’t profess to know her catalogue that well, but I have listened to a few of her albums on occasion and I think there are far better ones that this, particularly Lemonade, which I remember being very good, so it's a shame this Beyonce’s only entry on the list, as it doesn’t feel representative of her impact or quality at all. I’ll go 2.
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Playlist submission: Blow

Songs of Love and Hate
This feels very much like a continuation of his first two albums, and upon the first couple of listens I wasn’t really sure if it really added much, feeling a little like diminishing returns of just doing the same thing over and over.

However it really grew on me on further listens, with the string and horn arrangements coming more to the foreground, as well as the more band style performance of Diamonds in the Mine, as well as realising just how fantastic Avalanche, Love Calls You by Your Name, Famous Blue Raincoat and Joan of Arc are. I’m still not totally sold on the relatively flat and overly dreary Last Year’s Man and Dress Rehearsal Rag or the slightly ropey and not brilliantly recorded Sing Another Song Boys.

I don’t think it's as good as his debut, which is the peak acoustic poetry period for me, but those three tracks aside it is undoubtedly a very good album, deserving of a lo-mid 4.
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Playlist submission: Love Calls You by Your Name

Shalimar
The guy released 331 soundtracks!

I may have missed it, but it feels like this would have been ripe to have been rediscovered in the 90s, as a kitsch, ironic listen. But I think that would be an unfair way to look at it, as I thought this was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it, finding it a very appealing and enigmatic mash up of 50 and 60s cinema and TV music tropes, with a psychedelic-funk 70s vibe, all through the filter of a Bollywood soundtrack.

Title Music is an excellent opener, bits of spy film and Blaxsploitation combining, and One Two Cha Cha Cha is brilliantly catchy, interpolating That’s The Way and incorporating Latin rhythms. Countess’ Caper / Shalimar is emblematic of what I like so much about this - a jazzy opening, giving way to a polka/waltz but, a move into a John Barry-esque horn part, then a Spaghetti Western section before a Sci-Fi/Star Wars ending. None of it feels forced or daft, you get the sense after so many soundtracks he’s just decided to do whatever he wants, and it works, a great track. Baby Let’s Dance Together and Romantic Theme I love too, and Hum Bewafa Hargiz Na Thay is a great closing track. In between there are some great, more ‘straightforward’ Bollywood tracks and I particularly liked Naag Devta, Aina Wohi Rehta Hai and the very catchy Mera Pyar Shalimar.

I really enjoyed this, it’s got a very likeable eccentric charm and some very catchy melodies and hooks, and I will definitely come back, so I’ll go for a 4.
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Playlist submission: Countess’ Caper / Shalima

Neu! 75
I absolutely love the first side of this, where Klaus Dinger’s more ambient focus predominates, particularly on the superb Seeland and Leb Wohl. Isi is also excellent though, a fantastic combination of their characteristic motorik drumming with that dreamy ambience, harking back to Hallogallo and Fuer Immer, I think.

It’s taken me a while to appreciate the second side, having always preferred the mood of the first side, but over time I’ve come around to it. Hero is clearly hugely influential, you can hear the early forming of punk in its sneering vocals and abrasive noise. After Eight similarly combines their galloping motorik rhythms with a harsher guitar sound than they previously used. E-Music sits in the middle, somewhere between the proto-punk sound, the experimental noise of their previous 2 albums and some of the ambient of side 1.

Put both sides together and it's an excellent album, influencing both ambient and punk, as well as Bowie, an easy 5.
🆕🆕🆕🆕🆕
Playlist submission: Seeland

Fuzzy
On paper I think I should like this, but apart from Wish You Well it really didn’t leave much impression on me. I wasn’t keen on his voice, and although there is nice slide and overall playing is fine, it sounds too roomy and distant, making it feel musically quite flat and cold. It also really reminded me of Calenture by the Triffids, which was not a plus.

It’s not a terrible album, I’m just terribly indifferent to it. I can’t think I’ll listen again so I’ll go 2.
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Playlist submission: Wish You Well

Oedipus Schmoedipus
I’ve not heard of this or Barry Adamson, although reading about him he has a great background, which resonates across this album. It's a bit of a curate’s egg, not everything quite lands but it's often interesting and it has some absolutely super parts and moments across its imaginary movie soundtrack sprawl - although it feels more like each track is a soundtrack to its own movie, rather than a connected, joined whole.

Set Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis is superb, surely an influence on My Star, the Motown/70’s rock beat underpinning a vaguely eastern sounding string arrangement. The presence of Massive Attack and Tricky is clear on Something Wicked this Way Comes, although it does slide a little towards the end into a kind of kitschy pastiche of loungey film scores. The Vibes Ain’t Nothin’ but the Vibes feels like it flirts with that same feeling, although the string arrangement behind the jazzy keyboard and Nighthawks at the Diner style atmosphere keeps it just about on the right side of it. It’s Business as Usual has a great unsettling sense to it, an answer phone horror film.

Miles trips a bit close to that loungey pastiche, becoming very close to being the soundtrack to some b roll footage on Holiday ‘97. Dirty Barry is great though, the discordant jazzy horns and overall sense of Bernard Herman disquiet is excellent, balanced by the similarly jazzy, but more restrained In a Moment of Clarity, which nice evokes a 60s kitchen sink drama (or Ringo on the riverbank in A A Hard Day’s Night). It’s very very 90s, but I like Achieved on the Valley of the Dolls, Billy Mackenzie’s diacritic vocals and the twangy guitar giving it an unusual feel. The Big Bamboozle is obviously a Bondian/60’s spy inspired track, and although it hits the right marks, I think it also falls into that same trap of being a kitschy pastiche. The Sweetest Embrace is great though, Nick Cave giving it a typically vaudevillian quality.

There is another Barry Adamson album on the list, which I’m intrigued to hear after this, but I’m not sure where to score this. For its uniqueness, sense of fun and exploration and ability to distinctly evoke different cinematic genres it’s in the 4s, but on the other hand not everything lands fully and I’m not sure how frequently I will come back to it. On balance the former outweighs the latter I think, so I think it scrapes into the 4s.
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Playlist submission: Set Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis

Treasure
Cocteau Twins are another one of those bands I think I would like based on the odd song (and Teardrop) that I’ve heard, but have never got around to listening to properly.

The opening two tracks in particular are superb, with the ethereal ambiance and idiosyncratic vocal melodies that one might expect from Liz Fraser. Aside from Aloysius and the brilliant closing Domino I don’t think anything else quite reaches those heights but it is still a great album of evocative reverb and echo atmospheres and sounds. You can definitely hear some cross pollination with The Smiths in that big echoey sound - Perseophone and Amelia share some DNA with Last Night I Dream Somebody Loved Me - but on occasion it does feel too echoey, losing a bit of intimacy and feeling like some of the atmosphere is escaping, like helium escaping a party balloon.

Still it's a great album with some great tracks and a lovely feeling of otherness, so it’s deserving of a 4, and I’m looking forward to getting Heaven or Las Vegas.
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Playlist submission: Ivo

The Sensual World
‘I turn to my computer
And spend my evenings with it
Like a friend’
And we thought Michael Franti was prescient.

This is probably a 5 solely due to the phenomenal This Woman’s Work, but the rest of the album is excellent too, a fantastic continuation from Hounds of Love, with a few elements of The Dreaming.

According to the same thing we are all going to read, she was apparently influenced by James Joyce, and recorded part of it in Dublin, which you can hear throughout the album, but in particular in the way the fiddle weaves through the superb title track. There are more Irish echoes in the rhythms of Love and Anger, alongside David Gilmour’s guitar, and in the creepy, moving The Fog, making an excellent opening 3 songs. I love how Reaching Out musically echoes the lyrics, and you get a sense of grasping for something. Heads We’re Dancing reminds me a little of Marianne Faithful’s Broken English in its synth line and rhythms, and it’s another great track.

Deeper Understanding really describes the excitement and descent into co-dependence when getting deep into a Goldeneye session. Never Be Mine is perhaps the only lull, but only in contrast to the rest of it, and the excellent Never Be Mine which follows. Rocket’s Tail has elements of something from The Dreaming, and I love Gilmour's guitar and the Bulgarian choir. And then it ends with the unsurpassably good This Woman’s Work.

I think this rewards repeat listening, although I was into it pretty much straight away, which I probably wouldn’t have been before doing the list and having given The Dreaming and Hounds of Love proper listens. In any case this is great and an easy 5, not just for This Woman’s Work, but for the excellent music on the whole album.
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Playlist submission: This Woman’s Work

Tanto Tempo
Is there any other way than breezy to describe this sort of album? I don’t think there is, because it is breezy - gently swaying bossa nova rhythms and instrumentation with hushed and laid back vocals, evoking evenings strolling along beaches with pastel v necks slung nonchalantly across shoulders, the gentle lapping of the waves getting your rolled up linen trousers wet.

I’m not so into bossa nova that I can differentiate it greatly from other albums in the genre, but I do like it. However I don’t find the tracks where it combines electronic elements with the core sound that interesting as on Alguem or the bonus track No Return, or when it deviates into insipid funk on Bananeira or when it lands on something like the uncomfortably upbeat Close Your Eyes. The more straightforward songs like the opening 4 songs of Samba de Bencao, August Day Song, the title track and Sem Contecao or Son Nice or Samba e Amor I find are far more engaging.

For an album and genre that trades on lightness of touch, it is also a bit long at 45 mins. 30 minutes would probably feel like the right length for something like this to skip along amiably and end before it gets too cloying.

It is very easy going, and very listenable, if not the most heavyweight of albums - making it the most three-est of threes.
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Playlist submission: Tanto Tempo

Since I Left You
I was aware of this at the time, but somehow it passed me by, even though it feels like something I would have liked circa 2000-2001.

Although structurally it is cut from similar cloth to Endtroducing, it doesn’t quite carry the same sense of gravity or depth. That’s not necessarily a criticism, as Entroducing feels so much like its own unique, singular world that it’s not really a fair comparison. But where Endtroducing immerses you in its intricacies and solemnity, Since I Left You has a flittier sense, skipping around more lightly, feeling more horizontal than vertical, leaning more into Daft Punk style house rather than low-key hip hop.

It is an excellent album in its own right though, and it is a great achievement to make something so good from 3,500 samples, what a labour of love. And although there are some standout tracks - the title track, Flight Tonight, Electricity, Frontier Psychiatrist, Etoh, Little Journey, Live at Dominoes and Extra Kings are all great - I think it’s better as a whole piece of music, moving between tracks and upbeat and downbeat excellently.

I’m glad the list made me finally listen to it. I'm not sure it’s at the top tier, but it's a great album, and I’ll definitely be revisiting, so a high 4.
🌊🌊🌊🌊
Playlist submission: Frontier Psychiatrist

Dry
I sort of put off listening to this for a while. Let England Shake is one of my favourite albums from the list and I loved Stories From the City when it came out, and although I liked Rid of Me, I feel like I’m less interested in her early period, just as I’m not really into that early 90s grunge US alt rock sound in general.

However I really enjoyed this, particularly over the first half where it’s very strong. Oh My Lover’s sludgy tempo is great, feeling like a deliberate feint before the unequivocally direct O Stella and the fantastic Dress, with its chugging rhythm and string coda. Victory is excellent too, its caustic slide matching the tenor of the lyrics, and Happy and Bleeding is brilliant too, a kind of grunge-country track with an brilliantly oppressive bass sound. Sheela-N-Gig caps the belting first half with another excellent, scratchy, biting track.

Hair doesn’t feel as strong, sounding a little more rote in comparison, but Joe is great, rhythmically dense and frantic, with a faint air of disco and funk, and Plants and Rags is great too - portentous strings and a creepy western-horro feel. Fountain and Water feel similar to Hair to me, not as strong as the songs around it, feeling slightly less inspired than much of the album.

I think I prefer this to Rid of Me, but I wouldn’t put it on the same level as Let England Shake or Stories from the city, so I’ll stick with a high 4.
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Playlist submission: Happy and Bleeding

Devil Without a Cause
Big ‘You wouldn’t know all the girls I’ve had sex with, they go to a different school.’ vibes with this.

This is currently the 4th worst ranked album on the list, and I’m trying not to let that fact colour my judgement (although if it did it would be a poo-brown colour).

It’s not necessarily that he’s a poor rapper, which is undoubtedly true, or that this album is pretty bad, which it definitely is, it’s more that the whole thing is just a bit lame and embarrassing, giving off divorced dad in the garage energy, spending all his redundancy money on his rapping.

Having said that, some elements of it as dumb party music aren’t actually that bad, on Cowboy the harmonica and initial groove are fine. Roving Gangster isn’t actually that bad compared to a lot of contemporaneous metal, Wasting Time isn’t necessarily that far from Give Out But Don’t Give Out era Primal Scream and Only God Knows Why is a comparable to most modern country. But the problem is that as soon as he opens his mouth on each song it descends quite rapidly, through terrible lyrics, terrible vocals or terrible autotune (or all 3).

But in between that it's pretty uniformly bad. Bawitdaba, I Am the Bullgod, Somebody’s Gotta Feel This, Fists of Rage and Fuck Off in particular, full of empty posturing and embarrassing lyrics.

I didn’t really want to listen twice, as I wasn’t keen on him getting another 14 pence from me in streaming royalties, so I skipped through each track a few times, in case I missed something. But I don’t think I did. It’s definitely a bad album, but I don’t think it's as execrable as other albums we’ve had so I’m not sure it's a 1. I’m not sure what I mean but maybe its stupidity is it’s saving grace, it at least isn’t as interminably self important as say Slipknot, so I think it just, _just_ scrapes a 2. But I wouldn’t be sad if I gave it a 1.
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Playlist submission: Cowboy

New Forms
Although rhythmic repetitiveness is the nature of the beast (actually nature of the _beats_, amirite?!), I like how there’s a lot of jazz and hip-hop influence weaved throughout this, particularly with the use of upright bass, most effectively on Brown Paper Bag.

I listened to the full 2 disc version a couple of times, which of course is very long. Too long really, as although it’s extremely well made and thought out, the virtually identical tempos and drum patterns do start to wane significantly over the course of the full 2hrs 20minutes (although Jazz on the 2nd disc is great). If I was a dnb aficionado I’m sure I would be better able to discern the small differences and nuances, although in general I think can appreciate there are subtleties across it, even if I might sometimes be oblivious to them

But the single CD version, from Railing to Destination, although also long, is much more easily digestible, and is in its own right a great album I think. There’s a couple of stand out tracks in Brown Paper Bag, New Forms, Digital and Heroes, and I like the more hip-hop fractured beat of Watching Windows and it’s great to work to, the rhythms and unfussy arrangements giving it a considered feel. And those jazzy accents also give a very appealing late night atmosphere, not really of a frantic dnb club night, but more of a staying up late to write an essay or play Championship Manager 97/98.

This really grew on me, especially when I just listened to just disc one a few more times, it has a sense of serenity, but is always interesting, full of little details, but also one of those albums that can drift past pleasantly, and a much better proposition with a greater sense of craft than say LTJ Bukem. As a 2 disc set it is flawed by it’s length, but as a single album I think it’s great, and it gets to a 4, as I’m definitely coming back to it.
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Playlist submission: Brown Paper Bag

Juju
It took a few listens for this to land with me properly. Initially, outside Spellbound, I felt underwhelmed, similar to Mask, but whereas the debt to Bowie on that album felt overbearing, this has a much more singular and interesting feel to it, with a genuinely dark and agoraphobic atmosphere, compounded by the relentless rhythmic density.

The guitars are also excellent, combining a hard, cutting sound with a swirling, almost psychedelic feel, and Siouxie’s at turns sweet and scratchy vocals and ominous, fractured lyrics add to the unsettling, brooding atmosphere.

The first half is particularly strong, Spellbound is a superbly implacable post-punk/gothic groove followed by Into the Light, a relatively immediate and open feeling song, but musically mirroring the lyrics brilliantly. I love the bass that carries Arabian Knights along with the tom toms and circling guitars, it's a great track. Halloween is also fantastic, elements of Joy Division and a great catchy refrain. You can hear both Station to Station-era Bowie and future industrial sounds in Monitor, completing side one with another great track.

I don’t find side two quite as powerful as side one, but there are still 4 great songs, the unrelenting throb of Night Shift, the nagging beat Sin in my Heart, the excellent guitars of Head Cut and the brilliant, moody, oddly shifting and unsettling Voodoo Dolly.

After initially struggling, this grew on me with each listen, the intricacies and portentous, sorcerous atmosphere getting under my skin, and it's a truly excellent album. 5
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Playlist submission: Could be many, I’ll go with Halloween.

A Short Album About Love
I’m not averse to a bit of The Divine Comedy, and I didn’t mind this at all. In someone else’s hands it could have been much worse (or if he had invited Ute Lemper along), he just about manages to stay the right side of musical theatre (apart from the cloying and annoying If) - whether that’s because he gives it a slight air of ironic detachment, or that it has a sense of humour, or that he is able to bring a sense of pop craft to it I’m not sure. And Everybody Knows is an excellent bit of chamber pop, a nice melody and a lovely arrangement without going too much into lounge pastiche.

Overall, it’s a decent baroque pop album, and I might give it a spin again, but I am certainly glad it was actually short. I’ll go 3.
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Playlist submission: Everybody Knows

Pelican West
I very much enjoyed this, an extremely agreeable album of relatively undemanding early 80s slick jazzy disco pop funk, with a great, breezy sound and feel, showcasing what a good songwriter Nick Heyward is.

Favourite Shirts and Love Plus One are an excellent opening pair, Fantastic Day is another great track, I really like Snow Girl and Calling Captain Autumn too, and although it occasionally meanders into some aimless slap bass jam cul de sacs, it’s never less than enjoyable, maintaining a great frothy, bouncy charm. And when the bass isn’t slapping the playing is exemplary, showing the clear influence of Berneard Edwards and the grooves of disco in general.

As good as Favourite Shirts, Love Plus One and Fantastic Day are, it does however feel like it's missing one or two more killer tracks to really elevate it to a solid 4, and his vocals aren’t always the strongest. But as snapshot of sleek, effervescent early 80s disco-funk-pop it is excellent, evoking Jacuzzis, babycham and other bubbly things, so much so it lands as a 4 for me.
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Playlist submission: Favourite Shirts (Girl meets Boy)

Damaged
I’m not into Hardcore, although I kind of like that it exists in the musical landscape, so even though this was probably never really going to fully land for me, it was interesting to give it a spin.

It’s funny reading about how controversial it was at the time, and although it obviously still has a punk rock viscerality and weight to it, with 45 years of music between now and then it doesn’t sound madly different or particularly threatening at all.

Rise Above, Six Pack, TV Party, Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie and Damaged 1 were probably the stand outs, either through more memorable melodies or in the case of Damaged 1 through it’s slightly fractured, gloopy rhythm.

I’m glad I listened, it’s interesting to hear some early Henry Rollins, and it did grow on me a bit on repeat listens, some of the guitar playing is good in a kind of Stooges plus punky thrash way, and some of the riffs and songs kind of burrow their way in.

But it's another one hovering between 2 and 3. I can see its importance to the genre and its place in the musical map, but realistically I’m unlikely to come back to it, even with that contextual value. 2
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Playlist submission: TV Party

Deserter Songs
I was interested to listen to this having not heard it since it had its moment in the sun back in 1998/99.

Goddess on a Hiway is still an excellent track, I still like the intonation and lyrics of the chorus in Holes and Opus 40 is good, but overall I don’t think it holds up that well and it’s hard not see its popularity as a music critic driven campaign that somehow catches a moment, but ultimately doesn’t endure as it is really a fairly middling album. It’s also striking how much it sounds like the Flaming Lips (which makes sense as it was made side by side with the Soft Bulletin), who in turn had the critical spotlight shone on them a few years later with Yoshimi, a far better record, and perhaps is the album the media wanted this to be.

Anyway, while it has moments that transcend the prevalence of mid tempo sludge and winsomeness, and I don’t think it’s bad, I don’t find its overall tone of mawkish psychedelia particularly interesting either, so for me it sits somewhere around 2 or 3. In reality I don’t think I’ll listen again so I’ll go with a high 2.
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Playlist submission: Goddess on a Hiway

Brown Sugar
The title track is superb, and there are some great moments throughout, the jazzy accents, rather than relying purely on a 70s soul pastiche, gives it lightness and groove, the production has a warm polish to it, and the overall buttery smoothness makes it an easy listen.

However it is thematically and tempo-wise pretty one note, and no matter how sweet his voice is and how easily it slips by, it does suffer from a sense of repeating itself, making the full 53 minutes drag a little.

Alongside Brown Sugar, I like Smooth, the cover of Cruisin’ is good, Shit Damn Motherfucker is strangely catchy. I like Lady, although it carries quite a few neo-soul tropes, its minimalist funk groove is solid, and Higher is nice, even if it is fairly rote.

I don’t mind neo soul in general, and this, as one of the progenitors, is one of the better examples, but it still does butt up against the structural restrictions of the genre so it struggles to really elevate itself to more than an easy listening, solid to high 3.
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Playlist submission: Brown Sugar

Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury
You could say this is very prescient, that the social and political themes Franti (V ‘03!) raps about are very apposite today, or you could say same as it ever was - the inequities of 1991 aren’t just the same as they are in 2026, they are the same as 1977 or 1968 or 1951 or whichever year you might choose. Or you could say, like the album cover, it's all very obvious and simplistic - tv bad, government bad, inequality bad etc etc.

Musically it does feel caught between a kind of Public Enemy-lite and a more Jazzy golden age of hip hop sound, and it’s definitely more successful when it leans on the latter - the piano and flute parts of Famous and Dandy are much better than its siren laden intro. Television the Drug of the Nation is of course well known and it is great, if a little heavy handed in places, again leaning more on that golden age jazziness rather than the more frenetic Bomb Squad sound.

Language of Violence, The Winter of the Long Hot Summer, California Uber Alles and Water Pistol Man are all good too, variously low key and jazzy or in the case of California Uber Alles tracing the line of social protest and DIY from punk to hip hop. There are a few dips, Socio Genetic Experiment is strangely annoying and Music and Politics has the earnest discomfort of attending a slam poetry night.

It’s on the cusp of 3 and 4 - a lot of it is great, but for me it doesn’t quite seem to come together as a whole, so I’ll go with the highest of 3s.
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Playlist submission: Television, the Drug of the Nation