Accordion, brothers: Alison Goldfrapp studies the moon, Brandi Younger torments the harp

At the end of the beach and vacation season, the suddenly returned heroes of the turn of the millennium, young jazzmen and aging rockers, each in their own way, were pleased with new albums. Izvestia will tell you about the most interesting albums of August that you might have missed.

Alison Goldfrapp

Flux

Alison Goldfrapp returns with her second solo album after parting ways with her partner in the Goldfrapp duo, composer and keyboardist Will Gregory. Keeping her last name in an understandable way, Alison modestly hid the name somewhere in the depths of the envelope (unless, of course, you were able to purchase a "physical" copy on vinyl or CD). Nevertheless, from the first bars of Hey Hi Hello, which opens the album, it immediately becomes clear that what awaits us is not an attempt to return to past achievements, but an updated and in a good way pop version of the English madcap. Stadium synth-pop with choruses of Kylie's scale, what domestic critics usually call "hits" even before the songs hit (if at all) any chart.

However, amidst this dense ecstatic euphoria, "oddities" in the spirit of the old Goldfrapp suddenly appear. Strange Things Happen, in which Alison switches to an upper register that is not very typical of her, sounds like a strange mix of Donna Summer and Kate Bush. Goldfrapp co-wrote and co-produced all the tracks, and it feels literally on a physiological level: "she was beautiful, but cold as ice." The songs here are beautiful, sometimes unexpected, suitable for dancing and just listening, but still they come not from human, but from almost Lovecraftian places. Those where "moon slime sparkles, the light vibrates in a supernatural ascent," as Alison sings in the song Reverberotic.

Craig David

Commitment

The slightly forgotten Brit returns to the stage with his ninth studio album. It is symbolic that Commitment is released on August 8, 2025 — just a week before the 25th anniversary of his debut Born to Do It, the songs from which sounded from almost every iron at the beginning of the millennium, including in our open spaces, felt "almost divine." In an interview before the release of the record, David emphasized that he worked sedately and slowly, since now he has a contract with his own label, and the sharks of show business can powerlessly clap their teeth on the sidelines.

The new songs balance between nostalgia and a modern sound. There's UK Garage, R&B, house, and trendy afro rhythms - in short, all the eclecticism that once brought the artist fame. David will probably find his audience today, as he still avoids too bold experiments. Here and there, seemingly unexpected, but clearly strictly thought-out and calculated accents appear — however, this is exactly how pop music is made "for adults."

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Moskwitch

"Black and White"

Moskwitch is a project of Roman Khomutsky (Uratsakidogi) and Alexander Koryukovets ("Affinage"), and thus can safely claim to be a Russian indie supergroup. The duo's second album was once again made with the involvement of a host of collaborators — from "Juna" and "Shatunov" to Lekha Nikonov and Polina Gildina, but it already feels like a full-fledged and integral work, and not a report on gatherings with friends. If the debut "Blues" often dissolved into the personalities of the guests, now a quarter of the tracks were recorded without external participation, and Khomutsky's voice forms a recognizable core of sound.

The main structural element of the album is the accordion of Koryukovets. He does not decorate the arrangements, but builds their architecture, sometimes in several superimposed layers, and sounds not like a folk stamp, but like an organic voice in a modern rock texture. Hooks are often based on repeating the name of a song in the chorus, a technique that has been tried by Status Quo and, God forgive me, AC/DC, but certainly works on such material. The lyrical hero of the album is torn to heaven, then to the depths of the sea, then goes into the native Russian stuff, but does not lose his yard optimism. Even a cover of "From A(yes) to (ra)The "I" of Psyche fits into this aesthetic.

Brandee Younger

Gadabout Season

Brandy Younger is one of the few harpists who have managed to bring the instrument out of the orchestral shadow and give it a relevant sound. Having grown up in Hampstead and attended grammar school, she absorbed the tradition of Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. On the legendary jazz label Impulse! Younger has cemented her reputation as an artist capable of combining technical precision with a sense of modernity, and Gadabout Season continues this line, but with a different emphasis.

In the new album, Younger relies on intimacy and integrity, completely abandoning covers in favor of his own compositions. Together with Rashan Carter and Allan Mednard, she creates a sound environment where every pause is as significant as a note. There are almost no attempts to "cross a hedgehog with a hedgehog", that is, jazz and modern R&B (which many contemporaries sin against) and sharp dynamic moves, which makes the album both collected and predictable. Vivid episodes like Breaking Point or End Means featuring Shabaki Hutchings stand out against the background of a steady pace, hinting at the potential for greater risk. Overall, it's a masterfully mature piece of work, deliberately done in a "comfort zone" for both performers and listeners.

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Uno Nyssoo

"Memories of childhood. Pop music"

Melodiya continues its program of digital reissues of various vinyl rarities from the Soviet period. Now it's the turn of the patriarch of Estonian jazz, Uno Naissoo. In 1977, his "Childhood Memories" sounded like a rare compromise between pop lightness and jazz freedom. Today, this record finds its voice again — clear, slightly faded from time to time, but that only makes it warmer. Nyssoo does not quote folklore directly, he works with moods: a foggy morning by the shore ("Coastal Waltz"), a march with light irony and the echo of bagpipes ("Impromptu March"), the final vocalization of Lea Gabral, as if releasing the listener into his own childhood memories.

The arrangements allow each theme to breathe — sometimes through rhythmic mobility, sometimes through transparent harmonies, and sometimes through long, unhurried saxophone phrases by Lembit Saarsalu. The presence of the then-young Tynu Naissoo at the piano also makes the album a family story — from father to son, from generation to generation. It's easy to imagine these pieces in a playlist next to Gabriel Yared's soundtracks or ECM's chamber works. And besides the aesthetic value, it's a reminder that we once lived in the same country and listened to the same music.