Album reviews: The Brian Jonestown Massacre plus Karen O and Danger Mouse – Lux Prima

Anton Newcombe sounds self-assured on The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 18th album, while a meeting of two wildly different minds proves fruitful for Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O and producer Danger Mouse

(Eliot Lee Hazel)

The Brian Jonestown Massacre – The Brian Jonestown Massacre

★★★☆☆

If you’ve seen Dig! – the chaotic 2004 documentary following The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s self-destructive spiral – you might be surprised to learn that Anton Newcombe is still alive. The film, for which Newcombe is perhaps best known, is a relic of the frontman at his most manic, heroin-addled, and self-sabotaging. “You f**king broke my sitar, motherf**ker,” he yelled in one oft-quoted scene, after initiating a mass brawl on stage.

These days, he is clean, sober, and – according to his Twitter bio – a horticulturalist. He’s still making music, too, with the “same” band, though after burning through approximately 40 bandmates, he’s the only original member remaining. The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s lucid, languid 18th album (which, somewhat bizarrely, is self-titled) arrives just seven months after its predecessor. It is to the prolific Newcombe’s credit that his songs rarely feel half-baked.

“My Mind is Filled with Stuff” is a wordless instrumental musing that steers just the right side of self-indulgence, filled with crunchy guitars, snares and wobbly riffs. “Remember Me This” is a surprisingly jaunty offering, though even its wooden blocks and bright guitars can’t lift the sluggish croak of Newcombe’s voice. Not that he’s ever been interested in singing like an angel. Female voices take over on “Tombes Oubliées”, a slice of woozy shoegaze whose French lyrics conform to Newcombe’s conviction (he has a lot of those) that “Anglocentricism is destroying cultures”.

Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 18th album might not be breaking any ground, or sitars, but 15 years after Newcombe nearly destroyed himself, it’s good to hear him sound so self-assured. Alexandra Pollard

Karen O and Danger Mouse – Lux Prima

★★★★☆

They say that opposites attract, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O has teamed up with Grammy-winning producer Danger Mouse for a collaborative album.

Lux Prima was born just over a decade ago from a drunken phone call from O to Danger Mouse – real name Brian Joseph Burton – during which the pair vowed they would work on something together. It wasn’t until after O had given birth to her son, though, that recording finally began, and there is a beatific sense of contentment on songs like “Drown”, with its Kamasi Washington-like choirs and stately horns.

Danger Mouse is known for genre-hopping collaborations with artists such as Beck, the Black Keys and CeeLo Green, and he applies that approach here, too: the album is an impressive mix of blissed-out synths, psych-rock guitars and trippy hip-hop beats.

Both artists are now in their forties, and O explores what that age means to her – as a woman and as an artist. Largely avoiding the harsh yelps that were once her trademark, she sings in a lilting falsetto on the swooning, Portishead-esque “Ministry”, and nods to Jane Birkin on the husky intro of “Leopard’s Tongue”.

She does, however, let rip on the glorious, bluesy grit of “Woman”, over tribal chants and crashes on the hi-hat, while on “Redeemer”, she belts out a classic O-ism: “You’re not coming for me / I’m coming for you.”

Lux Prima is an accomplished record – proof that two wildly different minds can work seamlessly together. Maybe drunk-dialling isn’t always such a bad idea. Roisin O’Connor