Would you like a side project with your Hot Chip?

ELECTRONIC

Hard Feelings, Hard Feelings

(Domino) ***

Alexis Taylor might bring the falsetto for Hot Chip, but New York disco doyenne Amy Douglas shows what a female vocalist might sound like, on this side project with the Chip’s Joe Goddard. The dreamlike pulsation of Dangerous is both electronic and erotic: “Three o’clock in the morning, hands slip without warning, now I can’t breathe.” There are the inevitable echoes of Hot Chip tunes like Flutes (Running Out of Time) and Love is the Future (You Always Know): “You should only ever allow yourself the luxury of crying over someone once… To feel this again with the initial intensity means you make a choice.” Ambient ode About Us provides a change of pace, and there’s the late-night trancelike release of Holding On Too Long.

POP

Jess Chalker, Hemispheres

(Independent) ***1/2

Also in a synth-pop vein, though more ’80s new-wave, is London-via-Sydney artist Jess Chalker, previously known as one-half of We Are the Brave. Stupid Trick, perhaps the biggest earworm on her first solo outing, is front-loaded to pull you in immediately, while Hoops and Cynical are other standouts. Sweeping synth and distinctive bass give the atmospheric Dance in the Rain an Icehouse quality. Indeed, ’80s new-wave influences are a common thread, while vocally Chalker recalls Martha Davis or Lana Del Rey “I cried down the phone when you said you would follow me anywhere” she sings on West Hollywood, while Secrets channels Paramore’s Part II (with an Iva-Davies-like “ah ah ah-ah ah-ah ah-ah”). Love is a battlefield for the dramatic march of Cover Fire, while stirring piano and strings-driven ballad Cathedrals is a cover of Jump Little Children.

COUNTRY

Matt Ward, If I Was in Dallas Tonight

(Social Family) ***

South Australian country crooner Matt Ward is the genuine article in an increasingly inauthentic world on this, his No.1 Australian-country-charting sophomore album. “Everybody’s getting tattoos/buying big trucks/playing country music these days, I can’t tell who’s real and who’s fake,” he laments on Tattoos, Trucks and Country Music. “Crowds don’t listen like they used to no more,” he observes on twang-heavy Come Up For Air. Meanwhile, Bondi’s No Place For a Cowboy is one of the most straight-ahead rockers in the set: “I’ll always take red over blue.” Didn’t Write a Song About You is a swaying duet, while Broken Baggage is straight out of the golden age of rock ’n’ roll. If I Was in Dallas Tonight is a storytelling effort borne of Ward’s experiences and crafted in the heartlands of both Australia and the US.

Originally published as Hard Feelings, Jess Chalker, Matt Ward: New album reviews