sat 05/07/2025

New Music reviews, news & interviews

Glastonbury Festival 2025: Five Somerset summer days of music, controversy and beautiful mayhem

Caspar Gomez

MONDAY 30th JUNE 2025“I think you’d better drive,” says Finetime, his face sallow, skull-sockets underscored by dark brown rings. He looks peaky.“Why?” I enquire. Sweat nodules down my face, my body, everywhere. So saline-intense it leaves powdery white steaks.“My eyes,” he replies, “They’re wobbling about.”

Album: Kesha - .

Thomas H Green

“I’m, like, pop star when I have to pop star, and then I’m, like, naked hippy when I can naked hippy.” So Kesha explained recently on the Jennifer Hudson Show, going on to say she spent most of her time romping in the woods and chasing butterflies.

Album: Claudia Brücken - Night Mirror

Thomas H Green

German singer Claudia Brücken has had a long and busy career, initially defined by her role in Propaganda. They were a cult 1980s band on ZTT Records...

Album: Mocky - Music Will Explain (Choir Music...

Joe Muggs

Dominic “Mocky” Salole has had a long career in which the tension between authenticity and pastiche has been a constant. Toronto-born, of English and...

Album: Brìghde Chaimbeul - Sunwise

Kieron Tyler

The first five-and-a-half minutes of Sunwise’s opening track “Dùsgadh / Waking" are taken up by a drone. Played on the Scottish small pipes – a form...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind

Kieron Tyler

How ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ transformed a London mod-pop band

Album: JF Robitaille & Lail Arad - Wild Moves

Thomas H Green

A set of graceful, wry melancholy from an Anglo-Canadian singer-songwriter duo

Album: Lorde - Virgin

James Mellen

Sombre self-examination and scratchy cellos fail to ignite on the New Zealander's new LP

Album: Bruce Springsteen - Tracks II: The Lost Albums

Liz Thomson

The Boss: Finding joy in imperfections

Brad Mehldau Trio, St George's Bristol review - exquisite intelligence

Mark Kidel

A brilliant trio in scintillating conversation

Ian Leslie: John and Paul - A Love Story in Songs review - help!

John Carvill

Ian Leslie loses himself in amateur psychology, and fatally misreads The Beatles

Album: BC Camplight - A Sober Conversation

Kieron Tyler

Brian Christinzio exorcises childhood trauma

theartsdesk on Vinyl 91: Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Tropical Fuck Storm, Sparks, The Sisters of Mercy and more

Thomas H Green

The vastest regular record reviews in the galaxy

Album: Durand and the Indications - Flowers

Mark Kidel

Languorous neo-soul to chill by

Music Reissues Weekly: The Sonics - High Time

Kieron Tyler

Handsome box set of seven-inchers celebrating the ferocious Sixties rockers

Album: Benson Boone - American Heart

Katie Colombus

Retro-Americana, pop-rock sheen, and big-hearted ballads - all with a wink

Album: Yungblud - Idols

Guy Oddy

Dominic Harrison’s latest disc fails to live up to the hype

Patrick Wolf, Rough Trade East review - the Kent-based bard refashions his new album ‘Crying the Neck’

Kieron Tyler

Despite its record shop setting, this magnetic performance is a show as such

Album: Loyle Carner - Hopefully!

Ibi Keita

The rapper takes a deep breath with his latest release

Album: HAIM - I Quit

Thomas H Green

The Californian trio convincingly continue their ascent to the top of the pop-rock tree

Bonnie Raitt, Brighton Dome review - a top night with a characterful, very American blues rock queen

Thomas H Green

The US star concludes her UK tour with a rockin' south coast send-off

Hidden Door Festival 2025 review - the transformative Edinburgh event's most site-specific festival yet

Miranda Heggie

Art and machinery align in former paper factory

Pulp, O2 Arena review - common people like us

Nick Hasted

Jarvis Cocker's mature muse proves ready to follow fans through their lives

Sam Fender, St James' Park, Newcastle review - Geordie Springsteen scores with celebratory homecoming

Jonathan Geddes

The singer's set was a passionate, emotional display of rock music

Album: Yaya Bey - do it afraid

Joe Muggs

The continued maturation of Yaya Bey and of modern R&B dazzles and nourishes at every turn

Music Reissues Weekly: Pilot - The Singles Collection

Kieron Tyler

How there’s more to the Seventies hitmakers than ‘Magic’ and ‘January’

Album: The Young Gods - Appear Disappear

Guy Oddy

Swiss electro-rockers unleash a techno-metal monster

Album: Sam Binga - Sam Binga Presents Club Orthodontics

Joe Muggs

A thrilling whirlwind tour of bass culture across decades and continents

Album: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - Talkin' to the Trees

Guy Oddy

Musical titan reflects on his life as he careers towards his 80th birthday

Footnote: a brief history of new music in Britain

New music has swung fruitfully between US and UK influences for half a century. The British charts began in 1952, initially populated by crooners and light jazz. American rock'n'roll livened things up, followed by British imitators such as Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard. However, it wasn't until The Beatles combined rock'n'roll's energy with folk melodies and Motown sweetness that British pop found a modern identity outside light entertainment. The Rolling Stones, amping up US blues, weren't far behind, with The Who and The Kinks also adding a unique Englishness. In the mid-Sixties the drugs hit - LSD sent pop looking for meaning. Pastoral psychedelia bloomed. Such utopianism couldn't last and prog rock alongside Led Zeppelin's steroid riffing defined the early Seventies. Those who wanted it less blokey turned to glam, from T Rex to androgynous alien David Bowie.

sex_pistolsA sea change arrived with punk and its totemic band, The Sex Pistols, a reaction to pop's blandness and much else. Punk encouraged inventiveness and imagination on the cheap but, while reggae made inroads, the most notable beneficiary was synth pop, The Human League et al. This, when combined with glam styling, produced the New Romantic scene and bands such as Duran Duran sold multi-millions and conquered the US.

By the mid-Eighties, despite U2's rise, the British charts were sterile until acid house/ rave culture kicked the doors down for electronica, launching acts such as the Chemical Brothers. The media, however, latched onto indie bands with big tunes and bigger mouths, notably Oasis and Blur – Britpop was born.

By the millennium, both scenes had fizzled, replaced by level-headed pop-rockers who abhorred ostentation in favour of homogenous emotionality. Coldplay were the biggest. Big news, however, lurked in underground UK hip hop where artists adapted styles such as grime, dubstep and drum & bass into new pop forms, creating breakout stars Dizzee Rascal and, more recently, Tinie Tempah. The Arts Desk's wide-ranging new music critics bring you overnight reviews of every kind of music, from pop to unusual world sounds, daily reviews of new releases and downloads, and unique in-depth interviews with celebrated musicians and DJs, plus the quickest ticket booking links. Our writers include Peter Culshaw, Joe Muggs, Howard Male, Thomas H Green, Graeme Thomson, Kieron Tyler, Russ Coffey, Bruce Dessau, David Cheal & Peter Quinn

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