GENEVIEVE ARTADI - FOREVER FOREVER

Released: 17/03/23

Genevieve Artadi may be best known as one half of the Los Angeles electro-funk-pop duo Knower, but I’d put money on this changing on the strength of her remarkable third album. If you can imagine what it might be like if Julia Holter fronted a band that consisted of Shibuya-kei legends Pizzicato Five, Thundercat, Tortoise and Pat Metheney going on a full-on modal jazz shred, then you’d be getting close to envisioning the majesty of Forever Forever.

‘Visionary’, the second track on the LP, is one of the best avant-pop tracks I’ve heard in a long time, with Artadi’s serene vocals gliding over myriad beautiful, serpentine hooks that cling for all their might to the continually shifting time signature. To write and perform pop music as thrillingly complicated as this (not for nothing Artadi has a bachelor's degree in Jazz Studies) it’s not enough to just be a virtuoso, you have to surround yourself with equally talented friends, and luckily for Artadi, her band, is just that – jazz-hybrid brats who, not unlike the aforementioned Tortoise, roughen the edges with a healthy dose of punk energy.