Our editor’s pick of the albums reviewed on these pages during the past seven days is Wake UP!, the debut album from Hazel English – revisit the 8/10 review and check out the album via Spotify:
“If the essence of pop is its disposability, what happens if you feel that the same applies somehow to you?”
“Hazel English – Australian born, Los Angeles resident – spent much of her adolescence writing poetry before becoming intrigued with the ideas contained in Guy Debord’s Situationist bible The Society of The Spectacle, which theorises that popular cultural tokens – sport, movies, art – are all placed in front of us as some vast distraction from the things that really count.”
“Translating this without irony into a medium like pop is something that requires either great finesse or a revolutionary’s flair for the polemical, but Wake UP! is a more personal journey, the title a note to self about having to constantly jolt the spirit out of the disorientating 24-hour-everything cycle.”
“Helping her turn these visions into reality were production gurus Justin Raisen (Sky Ferreira, Charli XCX, Angel Olsen), while English flew to Atlanta to work with Ben H. Allen (Deerhunter, M.I.A, Animal Collective), but to the singer’s credit there’s no discernible contrast between material, the whole album bathed in shades of wistful dream pop and sixties bubble-gum.”