Tony Stamp reviews the sneering dance-punk of Auckland's Vanessa Worm, a righteous new collection from Little Simz, and Makaya McCraven's rhythmically adventurous jazz.
Mosaics by Vanessa Worm
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A local musical success story from the last few years concerned a Dunedin-raised musician who moved to Melbourne and got signed to the Scottish label Optimo, renowned for its progressive dance music. For her follow-up Mosaics, Vanessa Worm has gone independent and honed in on what makes her minimalist take on punk-infused dance music work.
That she tweaked her real name Tessa Forde into Vanessa Worm gives some indication of where this artist is coming from. Her Instagram bio reads ‘freak of nature’. She’s now based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, but there’s still some Dunedin in her musical DNA, and while the single ‘Lost Memories’ pairs a percussion loop and club-friendly kick drum with sneered lyrics like “I’m here checking my phone in misery”, the following ‘Everything U Do’ uses live guitar and bass in a track you could comfortably describe as ‘post punk’.
The cross-section between dance and punk music was staked out in the 1970s and 80s by bands like Gang of Four and Liquid Liquid and had a renaissance in the 2000s thanks to LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture and others. Vanessa Worm is part of this legacy, but distinguishes herself by embracing a sort of primitivism - these tracks sound urgent; definitely not fussed over. You get the sense that once an idea presents itself it’s off to the races, whether it’s the synth drone of '111 BARE', or the killer synth bass in ‘Devil Game’.
The other way Worm stands apart is with fearlessness and dedication to sounding unpleasant. Her live performances can be confrontational, and often find her in amongst the crowd. Club culture as it was envisioned in the eighties was an ecstasy-fueled communal experience, so chafing against that creates an interesting tension.
The performances are freeform, and I wonder how much planning is involved in the studio. It often sounds like lyrics are tumbling off the top of her head.
There are moments of detailed texture on Mosaics, like the crunchy guitars on ‘Promised Land’, and times where it sweeps you away on its infectious grooves, as when ‘Title Not Known’ flirts with Tropicália in its synth squelches and bongos (supplied by Cory Champion of Borrowed CS). Then Vanessa Worm's vocals re-enter, annoyed and anarchic, to remind you whose album this is.
No Thank You by Little Simz
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In October last year, the British rapper Little Simz received the coveted Mercury Prize for her album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert - the latest accolade in a career that’s been full of them. Around a month after that, she announced a follow-up, and six days later released it. The year was almost over, and she was effectively ruling herself out of best-of-year contention by operating like this. The album’s lyrics make it clear this was intentional, and its title does the same more concisely: it’s called No Thank You.
The most immediate element here, apart from Simz’ voice, is its ornate orchestration: each track erupts at some point into brass or string arrangements. It’s produced by Inflo, who co-wrote all its songs; Cleo Sol co-wrote many of them and supplies occasional vocals. They’re the pair behind the UK collective Sault, who released a surprise orchestral album midway through 2022. I wonder if the sessions for this record were happening at the same time.
‘Gorilla’ features aurally appropriate brass honks, while ‘No Merci’ operates on restraint, only occasionally allowing a string section to blossom over a melodically similar loop.
It’s no accident that song is titled ‘No Thank You’ in French, but pronounced more like ‘no mercy’. She raps “You been tanning in the sun so now I’m gonna throw shade”, and proceeds to run through a list of grievances toward the record industry, like “They want you rushing life decisions over a three-course meal/ Next thing you know, you're doing free tours”, a reference to the American concert dates she cancelled once it was obvious they would leave her in a huge amount of debt.
Another line goes “You ain’t in the studio with me but want commission, and if I want to release my art I need permission”, a line that puts No Thank You’s release strategy into perspective.
It doesn’t take much digging to realise much of the vitriol is aimed at Artists Without a Label, a British distribution outfit for independent musicians, which sold to Sony Music for $430 million US. That vitriol runs through every track, and while her last album grappled with the differences between Little Simz the artist and Simbiatu Ajikawo the person, this one refuses to play ball with the music industry entirely.
There’s no self-pity though. Every track feels triumphant, and any time those strings appear, epic and cinematic. And there are plenty of hooks, notably the chorus to ‘Heart on Fire’, and the group vocals that open ‘Broken’.
Little Simz has a naturally mellifluous voice, and it’s pleasant just hearing her speak - even more so when she’s nimbly bouncing through the kind of wordplay that made her famous. Topics on No Thank You aren’t limited to industry angst but are always refracted through the lens of Blackness. Like all her albums it’s dense with information as well as feeling, a summation of her past year that’s at once effortless and thoroughly accomplished.
In These Times by Makaya McCraven
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On his website, American jazz drummer Makaya McCraven is referred to as a beat scientist. His latest album In These Times is described by his label as ‘polytemporal’, a term describing multiple tempos playing at once, which would seem to back up the 'science' part of that musical equation. But while the album does contain moments of challenging rhythmic malarkey, its main trait is how easy it is to listen to.
McCraven’s father was also a jazz drummer, and perhaps that’s what prompted him to go one step further and become a beat-maker in the production sense as well. His process involves sampling his own drumming, and his band mates' playing, then re-editing the audio into new compositions. It can be hard to tell, but there are often reminders of his affinity for techniques more associated with hip-hop.
The material for In These Times was generated in five studios as well as multiple live shows, then laboured over in the digital space for seven years, chipped away at while McCraven released six other projects in the meantime. In performance it’s apparent he’s a very skilled drummer, but repeat listens reveal the blurred lines between virtuosity and constructed complexity.
On the album, McCraven plays plenty more instruments than just percussive ones, including baby sitar, Wurlitzer and kalimba, and he’s joined by a host of performers on strings brass and piano, as well as Jeff Parker on guitar, who indie fans might know from the band Tortoise. Like everything here, contributions are carefully thought through, leading to tracks like ‘So Ubuji’, which uses harp and marimba to gorgeous effect.
On numbers like that, the album’s concept is slightly more apparent; you get a sense of the different parts drifting apart and then coming back together on the first beat of a particular bar. A title like In These Times obviously lends itself to interpretation in an age of unprecedented events, and as a reference to the makeup of the record, it’s a nice reminder to listen closer. I don’t think it’s an accident that the final track is called ‘The Title’, and is also the most rhythmically straightforward thing here.
