CDs of the week

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The Horrors
Primary Colours (XL)
***

The title of the second Horrors album may be a rare joke, as these five Southend trick-or-treaters have previously strived for a shade darker than black. However, though the gloom rarely lifts on their latest collection, it's far more varied in tone and style. They've expanded their list of influences beyond the bloody punk of The Cramps and The Sonics to the dramatic guitar effects of My Bloody Valentine on Do You Remember and the pulsing Krautrock of Neu! on Sea Within a Sea. The unusually uplifting synth line of Who Can Say might even put you in the rare position of humming The Horrors.
David Smyth

Peaches
I Feel Cream (XL)
****

A Berlin-based Canadian former schoolteacher who isn't going to see her thirties again, Merrill Nisker is an unlikely trampler of convention. Yet, as Peaches, her overtly sexual take on gender politics allied to swaggering disco naughtiness has been equal parts gigglesome and provocative since the turn of the century. Her fifth album is laden with her trademark thumping electro glampop — Mommy Complex is thrilling — and she's never sounded quite so focused. More surprisingly, Mud and Lose You, are, by her Amazonian standards, almost lovelorn ballads.
John Aizlewood

Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band
Outer South (Wichita)
****

Leaving his Bright Eyes guise behind him, Conor Oberst takes off on another musical adventure with his new Mystic Valley Band, who he got together to record last year's Conor Oberst LP in an adobe house halfway up a mountain in a place called Valle Mistico. This gives you precisely the flavour of the music — loose-limbed and by turns loud then laid-back. Slowly (Oh So Slowly) and To All the Lights in the Window are more rock than Oberst's usual folk, and while the sound is occasionally reminiscent of Neil Young, I am most put in mind of Tom Petty on a freewheeling day.
Pete Clark

Jazz

Laurence Hobgood
When the Heart Dances (Naim)
****

Whenever Chicago singer Kurt Elling comes to town the ear is drawn to the tasteful work of his longtime pianist and musical director, Laurence Hobgood. While a keyboard dazzler among the most brilliant on his night, Hobgood is also a deep thinker capable of the sort of contemplative playing revealed here. With only double-bass veteran Charlie Haden for company, plus guest vocals by bossman Kurt (who sings lustrous versions of Stairway to the Stars and a Duke Ellington ballad, Daydream) he produces a beautifully laid-back hour of music with a 3am feel to it.
Jack Massarik

World

Baka Beyond
Beyond the Forest (March Hare Music)
****

Baka Beyond have been promoting and collaborating with Baka pygmy musicians in the rainforests of Cameroon since the early Nineties. They've built the Baka a music house and channelled royalties from the various recording projects back to the community. Some of the most beautiful music in the forest is the yodel-like “yelli” singing of the women which is at the heart of this album, but the agile vocals are backed by a beautiful forest-like texture of guitars, flutes and various percussion instruments. Experiencing it live at Bush Hall on 8 May will be a treat.
Simon Broughton

 

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