Record review: Bill, Sebastian, Margo Price, Chico e Chica, Elio Tofana and Fred Hirsch with Esperanza Spalding

By surprise announced last Monday Bill and Sebastian his new album, An unexpected multiplier If we consider that the former, a little bit of the formerreleased this past May (after seven years without delivering an album of new songs, courtesy of the soundtrack Bagnold’s Summer Days2019). There is at present more liberal free will than at other times, and the Glasgow group exercises it as it pleases An album that gives a certain atmosphere of rejuvenationcultivating a collection of records that transition from “songwriter” to disco, wrapped in a familiar aura of candor and melancholy.

Late developers It was conceived at the same sessions as a little bit of the formerIn the middle of 2021, when the pandemic haze still lingered and glimmers of light began to emerge. Perhaps the group’s forced withdrawal led to an examination of conscience in its essence and origins. Whatever it was, it was noticed In addition to nature In this songbook, not inferior to last year’s, which begins with astonishing insolence: nude julietWith Stuart Murdoch She was erected in an angry fringed troubadour with his bare chest.

Cobra constitutes the obligatory balance of forces between the various members of the group, with a voice Sarah Martin rides gently Give a little time, a soothing pop song against old grudges. And role Stevie Jackson in So at the moment‘, with its psychedelic reflections, ‘beach boy’ chorus and the line where he says he wants to ‘jump like Paul McCartney and wings’. The touch of voices, both masculine and feminine, retains its remarkable dynamics: Do you followwith a plot enveloping it Coward and dialogue between Stewart and Sarah. Although Marduk put the climax in the hands of a singer from outside the band, Tracian Campbell (from Camera Obscura), in When pessimists stare off the wall. A prehistoric theme by Bill and Sebastian, original from 1994, which makes us wonder why it was discarded during all this time.

Then there cathartic filter half the time when we were youngfor a very meaningful trip, and a successful return to pop synth from other times I don’t know what you see in me (Theme is borrowed from his friend Pete Ferguson, the Wuh Oh artist.) and the concluding part, the main title, which begins directly with the chorus and which, with its brassy and optimistic spirit, seems to invite us to interact and appreciate what we have, to “shake the cobwebs” and archive impossible desires, because we are still in time for them.

That’s what the whole album is about, more or less. Late developersfrom emotional delays, or Eternal teens. Syndrome leads Belle and Sebastian to get some pearls from their inexhaustible song collection. Jordi Bianciotto