Real People 31 October 2019

Since the release of 2015’s Love Songs for Robots, Montreal art-rock savant Patrick Watson has endured all manner of hardships—the death of his mother, the end of a long-term relationship, the departure of drummer Robbie Kuster, and the loss of a friend to suicide. They’re the sort of life-altering events that can’t help but filter down into an artist’s work. But while the title of his eponymous band’s sixth album, Wave, references the emotional tsunami he was forced to navigate, Watson refused to let grief be his guiding principle. “I just wanted to make a really simple and beautiful record—a little bit like Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden,” Watson tells Apple Music. That focus yields some of the most elegant, lyrically direct songwriting of Watson’s career, as he deftly threads Lennon-esque melodies and lean acoustic/piano arrangements with orchestration. But Wave’s spare canvas also leaves Watson with enough space to indulge his love of off-kilter experimentation—as he explains, making a low-volume record is not necessarily the same thing as making a low-key one.

The three-year journey of self-discovery that led Emeli Sandé to her third album began at home. “Living with my family and seeing real life in action was so grounding,” the Scottish singer-songwriter tells Apple Music. “My sister and her partner are both teachers, and they're so responsible and such wonderful parents.” That home life has been the catalyst for 11 tracks that take in R&B, gospel and trademark widescreen ballads—all united by empowering lyrics. “When you see what really matters,” says Sandé, “I think that's when the honesty has to begin.” Let her guide you through the album, track by soul-baring track.

A hypothetical loomed over Devendra Banhart while he was writing Ma, one of those questions that changes your life no matter how you answer it. “I may not have a child,” he tells Apple Music, “and I thought, maybe I should make a record where I can put in everything I would want to say to them. And while doing that, you kind of realize, well, maybe it’s also everything I wish someone had said to me.” Building on 2013’s Mala and 2016’s Ape in Pink Marble, Ma finds Banhart continuing his evolution from freak-folk poster boy to one of the more subtle stylists in his field, touching on atmospheric bossa nova (“October 12”), string-saturated ballads (“Will I See You Tonight?”), and Velvet Underground-style folk-rock (“My Boyfriend’s in the Band”) in a way that feels playful but sophisticated, naive but self-possessed—the nature boy, housebroken but still alight with beautiful ideas. Amongst the songs are a handful of meditations on the plight of Venezuela, a country where Banhart spent most of his early years, and where much of his family still lives.

The concert recorded at the "Pop Session '77" festival in Sopot on July 26, 1977 is a real treat! After all, SBB is a trio (although in history, of course, the line-up has been expanded to include additional musicians, for example Sławek Piwowar), but SBB in… duo is not only a phenomenon, but an amazing challenge. This tape was found almost miraculously (hence, perhaps in the fragments of the recordings, the quality is slightly worse, but it is the only surviving recording of SBB as a duo).