ALBUM REVIEWS
“I’m what a rockstar looks like” were the words of a young and exuberant Master Peace, speaking to NME four years ago. It’s a statement that the London artist, born Peace Okezie, has since followed through on, bridging the worlds between rap, punk and indie through singles like 2019’s ‘Night Time’ and The Streets collaboration ‘Wrong Answers Only’. He now finds himself armed with a range of styles, which continue to seamlessly interchange in his music.
Mashing explosive beats with groovy guitar lines, ‘How To Make A Master Peace’ vibrates with energy from the get-go. Opener ‘Los Narcos’ channels the riffs and textures from The Hives’ heyday; later on, ‘Get Naughty!’ pairs bombastic production with call-and-response vocals.
The arrangements here are also defined by their basslines, which vary in pace and intensity, from low-key (‘Happiness Is Love’) to rhythmic and wickedly addictive (Georgia team-up ‘I Might Be Fake’). On the latter, layers of synths build a foundation for the track’s curveball of a chorus, making it the catchiest sing-along on the album. It’s a masterclass in organised chaos.
Okezie even ventures into pure pop territory on ‘Heaven’: ““Let me see paradise,” he sings, teasing a wave of euphoria before the track shifts towards an electro-house break. It makes for a real standout moment, while also cementing Okezie’s status as a burgeoning creative force.
ALBUM REVIEWS
Listening to Karin Ann’s debut album ‘Through the Telescope’, you’d be forgiven for not realising that the Slovakian singer-songwriter is just 21-years-old. There is a knowing darkness to this music, which brims with observations earned through experience and the mystique of an author with many stories to tell.
“All his skin eaten by worms / Nothing left there / A pile of bones”, Ann sings on ‘Pile of Bones’. For all its macabre imagery – a through line across the album’s 14 tracks – the song is delivered like a fairytale, with Ann’s soft, ethereal vocals floating like wisps of smoke around its beating heart.
Her singing voice is light, calling to mind the ease and indie droll of Faye Webster and Frankie Cosmos. It all feeds into the album’s curious mix of light and dark, as Ann sings through honeyed whispers of deep emotional strife, from losing faith to leaving childhood behind too early, embedding these dark secrets in twinkling melodies and delicate guitar strings. “The band keeps playing while I continue to cry”, she sings softly on dollhouse-like track ‘The Band Keeps Playing’. “Maybe they won’t see that my dress keeps tearing / And it’s swallowing me”.
Ann’s songwriting is at its strongest when it goes for specifics. There’s queer love song ‘Olivia’, ‘A Song for the Moon’ – a love letter to the darker sides of herself – or ‘My Best Work of Art’, the album’s lovely closer that chronicles Ann’s reclamation of her own identity through the lens of painting and brushstrokes.
After a tough few years fighting illness and cutting her teeth in music, Ann delivers a confident and unflinching debut album. ‘Through The Telescope’ weaves her personal struggles into beautiful, potent songwriting, which she gives space to breathe amidst lush vocals and rich, but never overblown instrumentation. Dancing deftly across folk, rock, country and pop, and spanning emotional landscapes from lovestruck to melancholy, this is a most precocious debut.
