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Album Review
by SashaS
3-7-2003
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| un-cut: Mercury Music Prize snub! |
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un-cut: 'The Un-Calculated Some'
(M Records)
un-cut’s eclectism ain’t Mercury panel’s taste
The Mercury Music Prize nominations of a few days ago is a list of a dozen names that has left most of the Brit-media and music lovers in a mood of… well, quizzical magnitude. Athlete and The Thrills getting named?! C’mon, there have been better albums than these two meek debuts? OK, Blur told their record company not to put their album forward, but Coldplay and Radiohead getting the nods, as well?
The Mercury’s prize giving is supposed to highlight the new, the brave, the frontier-moving, or what? Where is Goldfrapp, where is Ladytron, where is the subject of this revue, un-cut? The band’s debut album, ‘The Un-Calculated Some’, is certainly above the Norah Jones’s UK answer that is Terri Walker? Or the token-indie woman, Eliza McCarthy? What about The Darkness, is this turning into a comedy award? And, it isn’t that funny, after all.
un-cut is fronted by Jenna G, a diva in the making if we’ve heard one lately, who has also starred in Danny (‘Trainspotting’) Boyle’s ‘Strumpet’ as the lead character. She was already working with a Hip-hop collective Subliminal Darkness when un-cut producers Darren and 2D recruited her to voice their musical vision. Last year’s independently released ‘Midnight’ became a sizeable underground hit that sold its 10k copy run, leading to this major deal.
‘The Un-Calculated Some’ is an album that finds its inspiration in Motown days and Northern Soul period but takes these roots to build on something fresher, re-shaped and re-phrased, flirting with myriad of genres, from big band to chansons, from ska to cabaret to film music of the 1960s, for a soundtrack to zeitgeist. It takes about 45 seconds of ‘Midnight’ to get me feet moving and by the third track, ‘Things You Do’, there is a need for a shower, the state that is exacerbated by keying in impressions while dancing round the desk.
The current single ‘Fallin’’ is a bit too lo for their usually energetic approach although Jenna handles vocals with ease, confidence and style; ‘No Way’ is the first vehicle for her fatale singing, taking you by the hand to a bedroom region of imagination, aided by a subtle reggae echo. (She is of the pin-up looks, to help the illusion.) ‘Chinese Silk’ surpasses the best moments M-People have ever dreamt up, ‘Off Key’ is a superb theme music for a 1970s ‘Blaxploitation’ movie; there is the bass-driven jazzy-grooves, partly spoken-word, of ‘Music Is M’, while ‘Loveless’ is an R&B to shame Beyoncé and ‘Senseless’ is a track of enormous emo-proportions. ‘The Un-Calculated Some’ is varied, classy, gilded with impassionata.
And this album doesn’t deserve Mercury nomination more than Floetry? Why, because these two have been somewhat successful in the USA/been nominated for a Grammy? Mercury jury should face the music after taking the earplugs out!
8/10
SashaS
3-7-2003
un-cut’s album ‘The Un-Calculated Some’ is available now on M Records/WEA
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