Now Hear This: New music from ROSALIA, Bob Dylan, Pearl Jam, Dua Lipa and spotlight artist Empara Mi

In her weekly column, our music correspondent goes through the best new releases

Roisin O'Connor
Friday 27 March 2020 16:41 GMT
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Guernsey-born singer Empara Mi
Guernsey-born singer Empara Mi

Can there ever be too much of a good thing? Not where music is concerned – especially when we're all sequestered in our homes with time to burn. This week is a cavalcade of brilliant new tunes.

The Independent’s album of the week is Dua Lipa’s fantastic Future Nostalgia, a dazzling disco and funk-influenced pop masterpiece. I think this observation from our critic Helen Brown (read her review here) is spot on: “Although Lipa was born and raised in north London, her formative years of pop-discovery (from age 10-15) were spent in her parents’ native Kosovo.

“I wonder if that distance from London’s cosmopolitan superiority allowed her to embrace the cartoon joy of pop culture with an eastern European earnestness that might not have been considered cool back in Britain.”

My colleague Alexandra Pollard reviewed my other favourite album of the week, Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee. It’s an entirely different listening experience: under her lilting, honeyed vocals is a simmering tension, while skipping Americana rhythms are countered by a moodier rock sound. Read Alex’s review here.

I reviewed Pearl Jam’s new record, Gigaton, which is very good – I’ve added “Seven O’Clock” and “Retrograde to this week’s playlist. Rosalía’s new ballad “Dolerme” (“Hurt Me”) is a searing account of a tumultuous on-off relationship; French newcomer Tessae has released her new, self-titled EP: a trio of slick, trap-influenced jams. Producer Dirty Freud has teamed up with singer Eckoes on the glitchy “Lies”, and Run the Jewels get psychedelic with DJ Premier and Greg Nice on “Ooh LA LA”.

One song really worth spending time with is Bob Dylan’s surprise track “Murder Most Foul”, a 16-minute behemoth inspired by the assassination of John F Kennedy. Over rich timbres of cello, fiddle and arpeggiating piano, shimmers of percussion, the whine of a violin – Dylan huffs and puffs stanzas that manage to namecheck half of the culturally significant figures and events of the Sixties. It’s an intense and moving experience that seems to call for calm, and a moment of reflection, amid all this madness.

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I love the new track (and video, starring frontman Will Toledo’s alter-ego Trait) from Car Seat Headrest’s forthcoming album Making a Door Less Open (out on 1 May via Matador). The instrumentation is super breezy – energetic drums from Andrew Katz, chirpy synths and warm bursts of horn – with lyrics that seem to reflect, fondly, rather than with sadness, on a past relationship.

Brian Fallon’s wonderful album Local Honey is out – I love it all but “Lonely for You Only” is a favourite: So come talk to me, I can't see inside your head/ There's a bitter beast that comes to feed on the things we never said/ Tell me all the vicious things that no one knows but God/ You simply ain't the worst that I've seen stumbling through the dark.” Superb songwriting.

5 Seconds of Summer have released their latest LP, CALM (apt), which is rammed with pop-rock numbers (I’m glad they’ve steered away from the pop-punk sound). There’s some Harry Styles-esque tracks on there (“Red Desert” has gorgeous, woozy harmonies and a California vibe), but also epic pop anthems such as single “No Shame” and the seductive, Prince-inspired “Wildflower”.

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My spotlight artist this week is Empara Mi, a fantastic singer who just released her mini-album, Suitcase Full of Sins. Check out my Q&A about her latest release, plus the video for her song “No More”.

– Tell me about your new music, was there anything in particular that inspired you?

It's crazy, genre less, free. I’ve felt completely unencumbered recently when it comes to music. Everything I am putting out and going to put out is because I love it and it felt completely right at the time. I’ve realised that if I don’t believe in what I’m doing, I can't expect anyone else to.

The single ’No More’ from the album more or less embodies that feeling for me. It's about getting rid of that suitcase full of sins that you’ve been lugging around with you and finally giving yourself a chance to live free from the burdens we put on ourself.

The song samples the vocals of a female prisoner, singing about acceptance and freedom, which I thought beautifully captured the sentiment of song being a mixture of desperation, temptation and longing to feel free again. I’m inspired by film and the idea of taking people on a journey with the music and visuals. I like to pretend that my album is a movie and every song is a different scene with its own twists and turns to shock and surprise people when they’re not expecting it.

– What else have you got lined up for the year?

I had planned on touring so hopefully that can still happen this year. I will find a way to perform even if it is entirely from my living room, because I have so much music to put out and I want to be able to showcase it in all its glory!

– What's your number one self-isolation tip to stave off boredom?

Create! It doesn’t have to be music, but do something that you didn’t think you could do, or that you didn’t think you’d be good at. Connect with people, get on FaceTime, check on your friends you haven’t spoken to in a while. My parents live in Guernsey so I’ve been using an app called Houseparty which is pretty much FaceTime, so all of our family can talk at the same time and play games which is something we only usually do at Christmas, now my dad’s sent us all an itinerary of game scheduling so I’m pretty booked up for the foreseeable, not sure I’ll have time to get bored!

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