Miley Cyrus teams with Cole Haden for club‑infused album, critics warn of ‘bad weird’

It’s about time Miley Cyrus was recognised as pop’s prevailing kook. A veteran at 33, whose career peaked by the time she was 20, she’s a cultural figure of the psychedelic ’60s kind, the kind of pop star who definitely would’ve written a song with Charles Manson.

One day she’s out here hosting a tacky TV special in Solid Gold sequins, the next she’s inviting outré weirdos like Wayne Coyne or Ariel Pink or Harmony Korine into the studio to collaborate. With those bona fides, you’d imagine you could play her albums backwards and summon Satan, but somehow they always just sound like ABBA cast-offs or Bruno Mars-style AM-soul. I don’t get it.

On Bass Persuades, she’s dropped the last name and gone full club mode, enlisting indie provocateur Cole Haden of Model/Actriz as a partner-in-crime. His queer carnality and penchant for grinding distortion brings a daring touch to the (potentially) blasphemous Different Religion, Orbit and Innocent Ways. But in typical Miley fashion, it’s mostly a wreck.

The titular single, with its faux-Gaga disco stomp, is an odd attempt at spurring a generation from its apathetic malaise, a sort of Kids in America for the post-monoculture era. But its limping melody and confounding lyrics (“Ghosts went to Bermuda ’cause there’s no one to haunt”) inspire less abandon and more furrowed brow.

And then there’s Neon Signs, which might actually be the worst song ever, a bizarre tilt at Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s orgasmic Je T’aime... Moi Non Plus, recorded with Oscar-winning Miike Snow singer-songwriter Andrew Wyatt, who is 22 years Miley’s senior. It is simply grotesque.

And yet, somehow, it could be worse. At a time when Slovak breakout Adela is crafting chart-toppers with Cyrus’ peak sound, you’ve gotta admire Miley for sticking to her own weirdo wavelength. Someday, something good will come of it, surely? Robert Moran

Mike Nock & Leah Berry, The Gift

An exquisite dichotomy exists between the sweetness of Leah Berry’s voice and the worldliness of her words. “I move slow,” she tells us, “since the last time I found warmth in your embrace.” Yet, at the end, she’s affirming, “You’ll stay in my dreams.”

This complex love song about clinging to passionate memories is called The Gift, and the music was penned by pianist Mike Nock as a wistful instrumental. Berry sent her lyrics to Nock, and a collaboration was born. She set words to eight more tunes, and they also used Jo Lawry’s lyrics to Nock’s exotic Nata Lagal.

Embracing You is a variation on The Gift’s lyrical content, this time about a glance, a smile, an affair, and another love that will live on post-fling, like a soul that’s left its body. The terminated affair in Sunshowers sparks more overt bitterness, Dawn Bird is a poetic account of awakening in New Zealand’s Haast Pass, and Thinking of You is a reverie about a parent.

Nock, revelling in having words set to his music, responds with some of his most lavish lyricism, superbly supported by bassist Jonathan Zwartz and drummer Laurence Pike. John Shand

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