David Crosby continues creative hot streak with For Free

TONES AND I — WELCOME TO THE MADHOUSE

Toni Watson was just a busker playing to surfers and beach bum tourists in Australia’s Byron Bay before her song Dance Monkey went to number one in 30 countries. The effervescent synth-pop banger, about a depressing episode during which she was heckled by drunks, was notable for its weirdness.

It suggested Watson had more in common with eccentric Israeli Eurovision winner Netta than Lily Allen or Sia. But there is little of that on show on the 14 tracks that make up Watson’s debut album, Welcome To The Madhouse.

Songs like Don’t Sleep and Not Going Home remain comfortably within the defined limits of chart-ready pop, despite addressing important issues like mental health and online abuse. Watson is the owner of a unique voice — a squealing, energetic yowl — but it’s not enough to lift uninspired cuts like Dark Waters.

Despite this, she may still have the last laugh. “I’m so over people saying I don’t look right / There’s no place for you in music’s all I hear,” she sings on Westside Lobby. “But my song went number one in over 30 f****** countries / And I’m sorry if that offends you, my dear.” 5/10 (Review by Alex Green)

DAVID CROSBY — FOR FREE

The king of soft rock continues a creative hot streak that began with 2014’s Croz. For Free, which drops as David Crosby turns 80, is his fifth solo record since ending a 20-year hiatus from recording and releasing studio albums.

The ’60s and ’70s star enlists the help of Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Texan singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz as he tackles both covers and originals — including the Joni Mitchell song that gives the album its name.

The Fagen-written Rodriguez For A Night, an archetypal jazz rock odyssey, wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Steely Dan’s early records. Album opener River Rise and Secret Dancer, meanwhile, capture the wide-eyed harmonies of his folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Crosby’s son, James Raymond, serves as producer and gives For Free a glossy sheen that complements the tight and varied songwriting. He also wrote the final track on the album, I Won’t Stay for Long, a desolate ballad inspired by Marcel Camus’s 1959 film Black Orpheus.

“I’m facing the squall line / Of a thousand-year storm / I don’t know if I’m dying / Or about to be born,” he sings. Ostensibly about Greek poet Orpheus’s attempts to bring his wife Eurydice back from the dead, Crosby’s quivering vocal delivery transforms it into a rumination on longing and loss. 7/10 (Review by Alex Green)

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY — YELLOW

Emma-Jean Thackray approached her debut album by trying to simulate a “life-changing psychedelic experience” where for an hour viewers “see behind the curtain to a hidden dimension” in which we are all one.

Lofty ambitions, but if anyone can achieve them it would be Thackray — a singer, radio host, DJ and record label boss. Like a Yorkshire-born Sun Ra or Pharoah Sanders, her music combines spiritual elements with psychedelia and contemporary sounds, in this case raw breakbeat and house.

A host on DJ Gilles Peterson’s taste-making Worldwide FM, Thackray is part of a growing movement of jazz revivalists breaking through into the mainstream (see Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective and Nubya Garcia).

Her love of dystopian science fiction seeps through on tracks such like the psychedelic house music heater Say Something but this isn’t just jazz for geeks. Shared human experience is the tie that binds Yellow, an exemplary debut album from a burgeoning talent. 8/10 (Review by Alex Green)

WILLOW — LATELY I FEEL EVERYTHING

Willow is back and bringing the ’90s with her on new album Lately I Feel Everything. The 20-year-old daughter of Will Smith has evolved from her R&B and pop roots and turned to a pop-punk sound reminiscent of My Chemical Romance, Blink-182 and Paramore, who she notes were inspirations.

The already acclaimed opening track, Transparent Soul, featuring Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, sets the tone for Willow’s new era. But it does not overshadow the powerful, balanced harmonies of Come Home or moody rap of Xtra.

After 11 tracks, the sound palette could wear a little thin if it wasn’t for Willow’s energy and raw talent. Avril Lavigne, the album’s most obvious influence, stars on the powerful duet Grow, a self-help anthem that could easily soundtrack a mid-2000s teen drama.

“I just need to grow,” Willow sings and it really does feel she has come into her own with her latest album. 8/10 (Review by Naomi Clarke)

OH BABY — HEY GENIUS

Oh Baby remember the golden age of the synth-pop duo and are on a mission to drive it into the future. Distant cousins Rick Hornby and Jen Devereux met at a family funeral and their second EP, the five-track Hey Genius, adds new wave, disco and German electronica influences, as well as Blade Runner.

Fascinated by the idea of machines conveying or creating emotion, they tend to use old synths and drum machines, giving a hint of warmth to their icy persona. Opening track and single Cruel Intention is the soundtrack to a late-night neon-soaked journey through the heart of the city, before I Need Somebody To Love Tonight takes you to a sleazy club as dawn approaches.

A slow-burning version of Patrick Cowley’s 1979 disco classic, it recreates the feeling of dancing with tears in your eyes, with Devereux recreating the vocals Sylvester added to the original instrumental. The melancholy In Her Car seems to reference Blondie’s Heart Of Glass in its lyrics and evokes that track’s metallic sheen.

Oh Baby hope to play some shows over the summer before recording another EP in San Francisco, and in the meantime Hey Genius is the soundtrack to your electric dreams. 8/10 (Review by Matthew George).