Tori Amos “Unrepentant Geraldines” Mercury Classics
After exploring orchestral and chamber music on her last few releases, the international piano goddess puts on a more folk-influenced wardrobe for her latest album, and it’s a good sound for her.
Amos has never had trouble mesmerizing her fans with her angelic voice and graceful manipulation of the ivories. Piano-driven songs like the sparse tracks “Weatherman” and “Selkie,” as well as lush songs like “Promise” will please longtime fans. The electro-tinged “16 Shades of Blue” and rock-ish title track have a nice exploratory edge to them as well. But it’s also kind of fun to hear her piano-playing take more of a backseat and share the spotlight with classical and acoustic guitars on the more light-hearted and whimsical-sounding songs like “Wedding Day,” “Maids of Elfen-Mere” and “Trouble’s Lament.”
Amos still weaves together the yin and yang of playful and serious tones and textures like few others can, and this album finds her once again in peak captivating form.
Chromeo “White Women” Atlantic Records/Big Beat
It is extremely hard not to get the feeling that Chromeo wholesale-jacked the blueprints from Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” for their latest album. But we can’t blame them for aping the living daylights out of that sound because it works, and summertime is the best time to serve up a heaping slab of lightweight disco-infused electro-dance pop.
Most of the album drips with the throwback disco grooves of Giorgio Morodor, Chic and The Commodores (the latter of which the album cover owes a stylistic nod to). Daft Punk served up the tasty hybrid of classic grooves and technology last year and hauled home a boatload of Grammys. Chromeo seems happy to follow suit, especially on tracks like the infectiously fun “Jealous (I Ain’t With It)” as well as airy and funky tracks like “Come Alive,” which could easily pass for an Earth Wind & Fire song, as well as “Somethingood” and “Over Your Shoulder.”
The album’s better moments are when they step outside the shadow of the globally famous French electronics robots they shamelessly copy. Songs like the frenetic “Sexy Socialite” and the gloriously dark “Old 45s” have the urgency of “Controversy/Dirty Mind”-era Prince. A soulful guest vocal by Solange gives the new-wave groove of “Lost on the Way Home” some much-needed gravity. And when most of the machines take a backseat and dial back the throttle, there are brilliantly heartfelt songs like “Ezra’s Interlude.”
Chromeo has copied the right formula for an excellent summertime party record and, with results like this, we can’t blame them.
Disclosure “Settle” Cherry Tree Records/Interscope
The debut full-length album by this U.K. electro/house duo has enough character to stand out among its heavyweight peers. Disclosure isn’t doing anything particularly groundbreaking or innovative with the genre, but their taste in grooves and samples is spot-on and downright sexy at times.
House artists can, a lot of times, be too focused on relentless mechanized grooves, bombast and whatever tricks they can pull out of their hats. Disclosure stays out of the digital-arms races and keeps it simple and effective.
There’s a refreshing throwback, late-1990s feel to the way they construct a song with restrained beats, ethereal synths and soulful vocal hooks on tracks like “Voices” and “Latch.” They also play around with unconventional arrangements and stylistic curveballs on tracks on the disorienting and distorted “Second Chance.” The album also gets pleasantly ambient on tracks like “January” and “Help Me Lose My Mind.”
If you are looking for an adventurous album to set the mood for an evening of low-impact socializing, definitely check out this album.
Röyksopp & Robyn “Do It Again” Cherry Tree Records/Interscope
It’s sort of strange seeing the Swedish pixie pop/electro/R&B firecracker that is Robyn in the ambient and trippy framework provided by the Norwegian duo Royksopp, but Robyn has never been one to get comfortable doing what is expected of her — and that’s what makes her so exciting.
The mini-album collaboration between the two artists gives each of them room to be themselves, with Robyn playing to this electronic circus on the title track and “Every Little Thing.” Those two are closest to Robyn’s electro-pop sound, but Röyksopp’s cold technological style steers the songs further into classic ’80s synthpop territory. The other tracks are more epic and sprawling, where Robyn’s contributions are more subdued.
This sonic playground is a bit darker than what we are used to hearing from Robyn, but we are not complaining. Ambient-techno Robyn still beats the breaks off 99 percent of the pop singers in the market any day of the week.