Music: Low-key femme

Albums of the week

INDIE FOLK

ROOMS WITH WALLS AND WINDOWS

Julie Byrne

Orindal

****

POP/R&B

ME. I AM MARIAH… THE ELUSIVE CHANTEUSE

Mariah Carey

Def Jam

***

Quiet, reticent, not wanting to draw too much attention to oneself - qualities that don't sit well together if you are a singer who pours his heart out on stage.

You think of afflicted musicians such as late folk minstrel Nick Drake or reclusive freak-folk godmother Vashti Bunyan, who was awestruck to perform at the Esplanade in 2010 as part of the Mosaic Music Festival.

They sing unobtrusively, murmuring into the background. If they could vanish, they would.

Seattle's Julie Byrne has that same discreetness. She slurs and lets vowels blend into one another.

Her debut album, Rooms With Walls And Windows, cobbles material from two limited-edition 2011/2012 cassette tapes, You Would Love It Here and Teen River.

They were recorded live in Chicago, where she used to live.

Perhaps, because they were committed directly into tape without much post- production, they feel ephemeral, a document of an itinerant soul. The effect is similar to listening to a less mannered Julia Holter or an unvarnished Chan Marshall of Cat Power.

Words can mean only so much, and Byrne trails off and lets the pause hang in the air. Her voice, residing in the raspier, lower register, is unusual for an indie folk songstress, but even more so for the way it never feels guttural or world-weary.

A gossamer gauze hangs over doleful ruminations on memory, loss and meanings of home, as you lulled into a deceptive calmness. On the softly strummed Marmalade, she confesses: "All I want is a brick house with a porch that wraps around/All I want is land enough for my child to roam." The earthiness never once feels patronising.

"And I do travel alone, but yours is not a number I can call on the phone," she sings in Holiday and, instead of explicating the line, she hums, making you wonder what she means. And so, you sit, a little stirred.

Less is more, is an axiom which Mariah Carey, an R&B-pop diva, has come to understand at this stage of her career.

Obviously a very different singer to the folk balladeer Byrne, she's made a career out of a splendiferous five- octave range and that dog whistle of hers, which she is wont to unleash every 20 seconds just to make sure you sit right up.

The imperious solipsism of her 14th studio album - Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse - commands, no, demands attention, but with Carey these days, she'd deliver it with a wink and maybe a butterfly or two.

She understands that with great vocal power comes great responsibility, and a dollop of humour. She doesn't really take herself too seriously.

Whether it's the disco-happy missive You Don't Know What To Do or an ode to her babies called Supernatural, she sounds supremely comfortable in her own skin.

Who cares if the album doesn't sell as well? She's glad to cruise along, poke fun at herself sometimes, than break out into fits to get some attention.

Pop/R&B

XSCAPE

Michael Jackson

MJJ/Epic

***½

The King of Pop is resuscitated in a tomb-raiding adventure and, hey, he sounds spookily alive.

Xscape is a 17-track hologrammatic feat engineered by Epic honcho L.A. Reid and refreshed by a stable of producers from Timbaland to Rodney Jerkins.

It's Michael Jackson at his most relentlessly upbeat. In Do You Know Where Your Children Are, an outtake from the 1991 Dangerous album, he harangues lousy parents amid bouncy synths. In Love Never Felt So Good, a 1983 song co-penned by Paul Anka, he sounds effortlessly chilled.

Best of all is Place With No Name, a fantastical doozie that jets you to an arcadia where everybody loves everybody, if you know what I mean.

Blues rock

TURN BLUE

The Black Keys

Nonesuch

****

Heartbreak underpins The Black Keys' eighth studio release.

Singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach, reeling from a divorce, mopes gorgeously in garage blues.

"Just leave me alone," he rasps in Year In Review, as drummer Patrick Carney doles out the beats and producer Danger Mouse casts some magical desert dust.

Against this cinematic landscape of serpentine riffs and seething bass, The Black Keys writhe and kick some butt. Fever, for instance, raises the temperature with punch-drunk drums, disco- relic synths and greasy guitars as it builds up to a thunderous finish.

The Black Keys are turning blue, and you're left breathless.

Pop

GLORIOUS

Foxes

Sign of the Times/Epic

***

Hands up, those who have heard of Foxes.

No? No one. The Southampton lass, real name Louisa Rose Allen, has actually won a Grammy this year for best dance recording for Clarity, a song by dance producer Zedd.

For her debut album, Glorious, she's going for the slick Ellie Goulding- gone-Florence Welch route - it's electronic dance music writ large for drama-mama F/X.

It dutifully dots the i's and crosses the t's - a helicopter whirrs in Talking To Ghosts, and Let Go For Tonight thumps and launches into a chorus of 1,000 freaked-out angels.

She wants to be the modern-day Catherine looking for Heathcliff in a dance club.

kaichai@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on June 19, 2014.
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