Albums of the week: Rejjie Snow, Belle and Sebastian and Deeta Von Teese

The week's biggest new releases reviewed by our experts

Rejjie Snow - Dear Annie

(300 Entertainment/BMG)

***

It took years for British grime MCs to get the respect that was due from US hip hop stars, DJs and record labels, so the burgeoning Irish urban music scene will probably have to wait its turn. Alexander Anyaegbunam, better known as Rejjie Snow, is the exception: a Dublin-born rapper who’s been embraced by North American producers such as Rahki and Kaytranada.

Five years on from his first EP, Snow’s finally got around to releasing an album that suggests hip hop is now just a starting point for his inventive tunes. Like Anderson .Paak, he croons as much as he raps over soulful funk and languid grooves.

At 20 tracks, it’s a sprawling debut, though his collaboration with Norwegian singer Anna of the North shows a sure touch for potential pop hits.

By Andre Paine

How to Solve Our Human Problems — Parts 1-3

(Matador)

****

Family and maturity are the thematic heart of Belle and Sebastian’s latest release, a triptych of EPs. “It’s tough to become a grown-up/ put it off while you can,” Stuart Murdoch reflects on the excellent I’ll Be Your Pilot, in what is one of the band’s most introspective and grown-up records for years.

With everything from sprawling pop-psychedelic harmonies on Everything is Now to experimental shimmering synth-pop on Poor Boy and whimsical indie-pop on Sweet Dew Lee, the EPs are expansive, breathing new life into a band now more than two decades old. They are at their best when they allow their music to emerge organically on EP sessions — it’s a format the band imaginatively command.

By Elizabeth Aubrey

Dita Von Teese - Dita Von Teese
(Record Makers)

**

This is a profoundly silly album. Dita Von Teese, right, is many things: burlesque glamourpuss, Playboy cover star, designer, author, entrepreneur. A singer she is not. But that didn’t deter the mercurial French disco composer Sébastien Tellier from writing 10 songs of squelchy erotic synthpop for her on spec after watching her perform in Paris, describing her as “a creature of dreams, totally out of reach”.

When Serge Gainsbourg did this sort of thing he deliberately chose bad singers and made them sing at the limit of their range as he liked the effect of submission and strain. But the tension isn’t there with Von Teese. Still, Tellier is a composer of rare panache. His pastiches of bad French Eighties pop are frequently hilarious and the spoken-word Parfum almost convinces you this was a good idea.

By Richard Godwin

Everything is Recorded - Everything is Recorded
(XL)

****

Having impeccable taste doesn’t mean you’re good at the practicalities — ask any music critic. So there’s no reason why Richard Russell, head of XL Recordings and thus the man who spotted everyone from Dizzee Rascal to Adele, should also have the musical talent to make a great album of his own. Yet Everything is Recorded is a tremendous achievement.

It sees Sampha and a sampled Curtis Mayfield duetting on the exquisite Close But Not Quite, gruff Nigerian rapper Obongjayar joined by jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington on the rubbery groove of She Said, and everyone from London rapper Giggs to Peter Gabriel elsewhere. It’s a rich mix that suggests Russell has been wasted in the boardroom all these years.

By David Smyth

Julia Biel - Julia Biel
(Rokit Records)

****

Singer and pianist Julia Biel is something of an enigma, a London treasure hiding in plain sight. It’s anyone’s guess why the award-winning frontwoman of longtime Brixton collective Soothsayers hasn’t hit the big time. This solo album, her third, confirms her knack for penning smart, intimate songs and delivering them in a voice both crystalline and dreamy.

There’s a bittersweet, early Norah Jones-ish quality to tracks such as Something Beautiful. Dead Slept Rough, with its clever instrumentation by Idris Rahman, Biel’s co-writer, simmers with heartfelt anger. From love and loss to joy and pain, Biel runs the gamut. While too personal, perhaps, for harsher spotlights, this is still a delight from start to finish. She plays the Jazz Café on March 1.

By Jane Cornwell

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