May 12 2008 11:39 am,
Santogold
‘Santogold’
(Lizard King/Atlantic Records)
If Björk claims to be a fan of your music, you know you’re onto something pretty special as well as a little left-field – after all, it’s hard to imagine her showing any love for The Kooks and The Kaiser Chiefs.
After dallying in Caribbean and West African drumming at university, a career in A&R with Epic Records and new wave/ska music as lead singer of Stiffed, White started writing for acts like Lily Allen, Res and Ashlee Simpson and most recently worked with Mark Ronson before pursuing her solo calling, but don’t hold that against her. These extremely eclectic beginnings combined with a love of Nina Simone, Bad Brains, The Cure and Talking Heads may seem a little strange, but on listening to ‘Santogold’ make complete sense. The debut is brilliantly eclectic and varied in sound, from the epic and melancholy ‘L.E.S Artistes’ and ‘My Superman’ to the insistent beats and scratchy thrash of ‘You’ll Find A Way’, ‘Shove It’’s reggae groove, the breezy rock of ‘Lights Out’ and the M.I.A-esque stompers ‘Creator’ and ‘Unstoppable’. Imagine Kate Bush duetting with The Pixies and you’re somewhere near to ‘I’m A Lady’ or eccentric ghosts coming up with electro hits and you’ve got ‘Anne’, and it surely doesn’t get more brilliantly bizarre than that. Plus its impressive list of top notch contributors – Diplo, Disco D, Sinden, Switch and FreqNasty – really speaks for itself.
Most importantly, however, the animal print accessories-loving singer has a knack for knocking out killer melodies; one listen to ‘Say Aha’ for example will have you humming its instantly catchy chorus for weeks, and despite all of the aforementioned influences on her music, ‘Santogold’ never sounds cluttered or directionless. In fact it is quite the opposite - this is a strong, bold, sassy and utterly distinctive debut which will have White’s counterparts scurrying back to the drawing board because it’s hard to imagine any up and coming solo artist in the world right now achieving anything even nearly as inventive this year. The bloggers may have got their teeth into Santogold first, but now it’s time for everyone else to get on board too. Modern music just got a hell of a lot more exciting…
Camilla Pia
