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Album review with Ian Sinclair: March 16, 2022
New releases from Father John Misty, Let’s Eat Grandma and Brad Mehldau
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Father John Misty
Chloe and the Next 20th Century
(Bella Union)
★★★★

US singer-songwriter Josh Tillman’s work as Father John Misty is so idiosyncratic and audacious he feels like an increasingly polarising figure.

His fifth album is unlikely to win over naysayers, though his many fans, like me, will lap it up. Opener Chloe sets the scene, a strings-laden Great American Songbook-style ballad, with Tillman smoothly channelling Sinatra as he tells the surreal story of the titular character who is “a borough socialist.”


Let’s Eat Grandma
Two Ribbons
(Transgressive)
★★★★


Brad Mehldau
Jacob’s Ladder
(Nonesuch)
★★★

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