CDs of the week

Although he has not lost his penetrative social insight, I'm New Here is primarily a personal record, a catharsis perhaps or, at the very least, a working out in music of the man he has come to be. The record starts and finishes with the autobiographical fragments On Coming From a Broken Home (Parts 1 & 2) and the tracks are interspersed with Interludes, often little more than concise reflections on aspects of a man's troubled life.

The real treasure is in the songs. Me and The Devil is primeval rap, the stuff of chills and tingles down the spine. Although he would not have recognised his own work, original author Robert Johnson would surely have approved. Similarly, Scott-Heron does wonders with Brook Benton's I'll Take Care of You, a big, old-fashioned soul ballad, wherein the hero of so many spoken words proves he can more than hold a tune.

Producer Richard Russell deserves credit for setting Scott-Heron's voice in such a sympathetic soundscape, a world of telling beats and subtle echoes, best experienced on Your Soul and Mine, The Crutch and Where Did The Night Go. The record is a triumph for a returning heavyweight, bloody but unbowed.
PETE CLARK

POP
Massive Attack
Heligoland
(Virgin)
****
The fifth album from seminal Bristol duo Massive Attack has been seven years in the offing — and it's good to have them back on form. Robert del Naja and Grant Marshall, back on speaking terms again, are joined by a string of A-list admirers on an eclectic 10-track collection that proves they are still masters of the menacing, minimal soundscape. Babel is all breakneck beats and pounding bass, Splitting The Atom echoes the Gorillaz's twisted take on pop, and Flat Of The Blade is a disorientating blend of woozy synths, skittering beats and Guy Garvey's earnest vocals. When Damon Albarn lends his lungs to the yearning acoustic ballad Saturday Come Slow, you hope that Massive Attack won't leave it so long again.
RICK PEARSON

Sade
Soldier Of Love
(Sony)
****
Britain's most successful female singer is surely the nation's most enigmatic: Sade has kept the same backing trio since her 1984 debut; she has taken a decade's rest between albums and, safe in her Gloucestershire cocoon, she refuses to sully herself with much in the way of promotion. She's in her sixth decade and Soldier Of Love is her sixth album; it isn't quite as magical as her fifth, Lovers Rock, but its downbeat elegance, that alluring voice and the bereft beauty of Bring Me Home and The Safest Place make it a close call. The Moon And The Sky and the title track offer hushed drama, while Babyfather is almost upbeat. Expect a new album sometime in 2020.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

Yeasayer
Odd Blood
(Mute)
****
Brooklyn is so riddled with art-rock bands that it's no wonder some of them want to broaden their horizons. Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors have all recently followed MGMT towards an international audience by discovering the value of a good tune. Now comes this trio, proudly admitting: "We set out to make a poppier album." Gone is the low-key folkiness of their debut, replaced by sleek electronica and a real bounce to the rhythms of tracks such as Rome and O.N.E. They master the art of the catchy chorus on Ambling Alps, while Chris Keating's falsetto stuns on twinkling slowie I Remember. It's all supremely hummable with enough weirdness still going on in the margins to keep the beard-stroking hipsters on side.
DAVID SMYTH

WORLD
Django's Spirit
A Tribute to Django Reinhardt
(Trikont)
****
There have been a number of Django Reinhardt reissues to mark his centenary, but this is more interesting — 20 diverse tracks from a range of musicians inspired by the king of Gypsy Swing. There are a couple of pre-war Django tracks and some of his illustrious successors, Biréli Lagrène, Titi Winterstein and Dotschy Reinhardt. But what makes this collection stand out are the surprises — Czech rapper Gypsy.cz, Zaza Avec Cafe Manouche from Osaka and Mama Rosin's Frères Souchet, a Swiss trio playing a Django tune in Cajun style. It's gorgeous. It's wrapped up by Les Primitifs du Futur, the wonderful bal musette group in Paris, with a song about Django's spirit becoming an immortal cloud — referring to his classic, Nuages.
SIMON BROUGHTON

JAZZ
TRICHOTOMY
Variations
(Naim)
***
Welcome visitors to the Vortex earlier this week, all the way from Melbourne comes this interesting new-age Aussie trio led by award-winning pianist Sean Forlan. Their tuneful, scholarly music and full-ensemble approach to improvisation recalls the lyricism of EST and occasionally the energy level of The Bad Plus, but in a distinctive way. Occasional guests join Forlan, bassist Pat Marchisella and drummer John Parker, the most tasteful being the Chet Bakerish trumpeter Peter Knight, but leader-composer Forlan is the star. His rich chord voicings suggest an excellent straight-ahead player lurking just beneath the surface.
JACK MASSARIK