The Selecter
Subculture (DMF Records)
5/5

THE SELECTER were one of the original crop of British ska bands on the 2-tone roster who also included the Specials and Madness and their current incarnation — fronted by original vocalists Pauline Black and Arthur “Gaps” Henderson — reformed back in 2010.
But this album, while true to the original sound and spirit of the band, is as fresh as a daisy.
Many of the songs are instant classics, with truly inventive melodies and rhythms at least as good as those released back in the 1980s and the lyrics remain as charged and relevant as ever.
Breakdown, with shades of The Specials’ Ghost Town, deals with police brutality while Babble On savages the sanitisation of war, inspired by a disgust at the latest Israeli bombing of Gaza.
Like the best reggae, this is music that maintains a positive, feel-good vibe without shying away from the brutal realities of inequality, poverty and war.
Music for a long, hot summer.

Review by George Fogarty

Kelpe
The Curved Line
(Drut Recordings)
3/5

THE CURVED Line is the fifth album from Kel McKeown — aka Kelpe — and it’s an impressive, highly listenable set of percussive, chilled-out electronica.
Fans of acts like The Avalanches and Tycho will find a lot of musical nourishment on tracks like the dreamlike Chirpsicord and blissed-out opener Doubles of Everything.
Presumably carefully assembled in the studio, the album’s beautifully layered soundscapes — check out the forest sounds on the gorgeous Morning Two — approaches the majestic ambition and futuristic impressionism of Yoshimi-era The Flaming Lips.
And, like the best of Bonobo’s electro-jazz music, the beats manage to tread the delicate groove between sounding both busy and relaxed at the same time.
Yet with no vocals and often little to differentiate between individual tracks, it’s perhaps best viewed as particularly good background music. But damn cool background music at that.

Review by Ian Sinclair

Grace Petrie and the Benefits Culture
Whatever’s Left
(www.gracepetrie.com)
5/5

THIS latest album from the left-wing Grace Petrie is a stirring bulletin from the front lines of the struggle against a rapacious British political elite.
Refreshingly, Petrie goes beyond the Punch and Judy politics of Labour v Tories.
“The only red politics I’ve seen are Green,” she sings on the title track, before going on to slam Labour’s support for workfare on You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys (You Pay Nothing, You Get Nowt).
It’s not all politicking. Over her band’s folk-pop, Petrie sings of relationships gone wrong on The Last Love Song, a cutting kiss-off to a former infatuation, and the break-up blues The Heartbreak Handbook. There are cheeky musical nods to Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan too.
One hesitates to use the cliche Voice of a Generation but if anyone encapsulates the frustrations of life under Cameron it’s Petrie. Superb.

Review by Ian Sinclair