CDs of the week

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Julian Plenti

MSTRKRFT

Frankmusic

Two Dancers

Kurt Elling

Khaled

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POP
PLENTI
Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper
(Matador)
****
Julian Plenti isn't skyscraper at all. In fact, he's Paul Banks, the busy Clacton-born, New York-based singer of the very much still active Interpol. He's also supermodel Helena Christensen's toyboy.

Typically, solo albums tend either to be the harbinger of solo careers or a time to pursue indulgences even the most generous-minded of bandmates would struggle to accommodate.

Curiously, Banks's is neither — Julian Plenti was his pre-Interpol stage name and he's been tinkering away at this album for years. While Interpol run the gamut of indie bands from Joy Division to New Order, Banks is a much more varied solo beast, incorporating the acoustic, echoey pop of Elvis Perkins or Bon Iver, some unashamed pop and a smidgen of avant-garde.

Banks pounds his way through the stomping Games for Days and concludes with the piano-led near-instrumental H (presumably inspired by Christensen). Best of all in a collection which must surely raise a few eyebrows in the Interpol camp is the extraordinary Unwind.

It contains Sowing the Seeds of Love-style brass tootling over reggae bass, multi-layered vocals, a false ending in the hushed middle section and, when you least expect it, the most abrupt of endings.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

MSTRKRFT
Fist of God
(Geffen/Polydor)
***
There's no time for vowels when you make music as fast and violent as that of Canadian dance duo MSTRKRFT — pronounced Masterkraft. Alex Puodziukas and Jesse F Keeler's synthesisers rage and growl, attaining a sound angrier than most guitars on 1,000 Cigarettes. Word Up reaches even greater levels of aggression thanks to a sweary contribution from rapper Ghostface Killah. The relentless fury gets wearing — the title track is the sonic equivalent of sticking your head into a hornet's nest — so thank heaven for John Legend, whose creamy R&B vocals on the piano-led Heartbreaker provide the only real change of pace.
DAVID SMYTH

Frankmusik
Complete Me
(Island)
***
Vincent Frank, the singer-songwriter behind Frankmusik, turned his attention from clothes to keyboards after dropping out of the London College of Fashion. His debut comes clad in the Eighties-indebted grooves which happen to be in vogue this year. Often it's a success: the strutting synth-pop of 3 Little Words is proof of his ear for a melody. Unfortunately, there are a few sandals-with-socks moments. Wonder Woman is Mika-meets-Scouting for Girls (not a compliment), while a dance-pop makeover of The Stranglers' Golden Brown — complete with the lines, “When you're around, everything's fun, we got to town and get quite drunk” — is just juvenile.
RICK PEARSON

Two Dancers
Wild Beasts
(Domino)
***
The name is misleading. This Cumbrian quartet, having reached the giddy heights of a second album, have mastered the art of the well-considered pop song. The lyrics are darkly poetic and hint at a contemporary paganism. Drums patter, guitars chime and lead vocalist Hayden Thorpe specialises in a lush falsetto which, while offering glimpses of a ripely baroque world such as that inhabited by Kate Bush, never succumbs to the overblown. The Fun Powder Plot and the two different versions of the title track are delicate yet somehow unsettling. Not unlike the Cocteau Twins, Wild Beasts live in a hermetically-sealed sonic world. And they can scratch.
PETE CLARK

JAZZ
Kurt Elling
Dedicated to You
(Concord Jazz)
****
Anyone who heard Kurt Elling singing at the 2008 London Jazz Festival will be delighted that his stylish celebration of the classic John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman album is now on disc. The original Dedicated to You was Coltrane's only recording with a singer, and it worked surprisingly well, Hartman's velvet baritone bringing out the great saxman's tender side. Elling's informative Kerouac-style prologue sets the scene before he launches into his versions of the ballads cut on that midwinter day. The results are inspired, with Ernie Watts's tenor solos mercurial and pianist Laurence Hobgood at his most supportive.
JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
Khaled
Liberté
(Wrasse)
****
Khaled is a world music star, but one who has veered between bland Arabic pop and the rebellious Algerian rai that brought him international attention in the 1990s. Produced by Martin Meissonnier, Liberté exposes the more traditional and acoustic side of his work, with Egyptian strings, accordion, violin and Arabic flute underpinning Khaled's rough-edged vocals. There are glorious songs here, notably the title track Liberté (Freedom) which is an anthem to his own musical style — rai. He also pays homage to Zabana, an Algerian resistance hero, and to the Gnawa, the Moroccan trance masters. He plays at the Tower Festival on 19 September.
SIMON BROUGHTON

 

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