new music reviews, news & interviews
Tom Carr |
If there is only one artist who you could say is in their moment, then it would be hard to look past Charli XCX. Having set in motion a whole cultural zeitgeist with previous album Brat, the pop and dance extraordinaire has forayed into fashion and film, lending to the score of Emerald Fennel’s take on Wuthering Heights last year.
Liz Thomson |
London was where James Taylor got his big break when, after a rocky, drug-strewn apprenticeship in New York City, he reinvented himself as a solo performer and managed to get a demo tape to Peter Asher, who played it to his pal Paul McCartney. “Something in the Way She Moves” in particular caught the Beatle’s ear: "I just heard his voice and his guitar, and I thought he was great ...
Ibi Keita
Fans have been waiting for a new Strokes album for six years, and after a few listens, Reality Awaits left me feeling more disappointed than excited…
Mark Kidel
It’s always a pleasure to meet again with Charles Lloyd, whose sweet and expressive tone first enchanted me as a teenager in 1963, when he graced the…
Kieron Tyler
The key track gives the album its title. “Where the Fades Meet” opens with swelling strings, which are swiftly underpinned by groovy, shuffling,…
Help secure the future of arts journalism
In this era of algorithmic recommendation, opaquely sponsored content and AI slop, theartsdesk’s mission to preserve real journalistic and critical values has never been more important.
If you like what you see here, please join us in this mission.
Subscribing to the site will help us in our coming redesign and expansion.
If you do this before the 31st August this will be at our guaranteed founder’s rate:
your subs will never increase again.
Subscribe now for £5 per month.
or yearly for just £40.
Or if you simply want to support us with a one-off donation, you can do so here.
Thomas H. Green
The Canadian country superstar embraces her rhythm'n'blues side
Kieron Tyler
The welcome return of a foundational album of electronic minimalism
Liz Thomson
The Punch Brothers and a new sister: virtuosic
Joe Muggs
Surrealism, social observation and more muscular sound from the Leeds quartet
Kathryn Reilly
A powerful personal outpouring of joy and pain - with a great beat
Jonathan Geddes
The London quartet have taken to playing large venues with ease, as this career-spanning set showed
Ellie Roberts
The Philadelphia punk rockers continue to impress
Kieron Tyler
A partial account of how Brit-punk absorbed an aspect of reggae
Peter Culshaw
The Fez Festival Of World Sacred Music and the Fes Gathering bring the world together
Mark Kidel
Enchanted sounds from a haunted man
Thomas H. Green
Bristol band aren't happy but offer up the occasional sing-along
Guy Oddy
A new album is unveiled and old tunes are played for the last time
Joe Muggs
Decades of psychedelia and wonder packed into a puzzling construction
Kieron Tyler
The sound of detachment
Guy Oddy
Neo-folk songs that are woozy and atmospheric but thoroughly engaging
Kieron Tyler
First-rate salute to a creative colossus
Guy Oddy
An eardrum damaging evening spent with Birmingham’s Sunn O))) worshippers
Sebastian Scotney
Trio with Gene Calderazzo and Alec Dankworth is a jewel of British jazz
Thomas H. Green
Madonna and Stuart Price concoct a set that's bangin' and occasionally affecting
Joe Muggs
Boundaries not broken, but extraordinary interlocked playing, on the quintet's fourth album
Tim Cumming
The follow-up to comeback album 'Hackney Diamonds' is a raucous, joyful late-period classic
Guy Oddy
US freak-rockers exhume their final album of supreme bizarreness
Thomas H. Green
The hugest regular record reviews in the universe
Thomas H. Green
An entertaining second album full of feminist fun and lethal put-downs
latest in today
Forget Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with bells, cannons and military bands (most people have, but it was my introduction to the Albert Hall…
E Jean Carroll is the all-American modern woman: Miss Cheerleader USA 1964, gonzo journalist, TV counsellor, glossy magazine agony aunt and…
If there is only one artist who you could say is in their moment, then it would be hard to look past Charli XCX. Having set in motion a…
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s film was a surprise hit at Cannes last year, winning the Critics’ Week Grand Prize. It’s a ghost story that…
"It was insanely excellent," enthused one of the Järvi Academy Symphony Orchestra's young musicians about the Estonian Festival Orchestra's…
London was where James Taylor got his big break when, after a rocky, drug-strewn apprenticeship in New York City, he reinvented himself as…
If a week is a long time in politics, 30 years is an aeon in popular culture. It was in 1996 that Danny Boyle’s film of Irvine Welsh’s…
Fans have been waiting for a new Strokes album for six years, and after a few listens, Reality Awaits left me feeling more disappointed…
Can the 1916 Prologue of Strauss and Hofmannsthal added to a revised version of a 1912 opera-within-a-play setting the backstage…
Based on the novel by Marissa Stapley and telly-ised by screenwriter/creator Jonathan Tropper, Lucky is a rip-roaring tale of dysfunctional…
Most read
Fans have been waiting for a new Strokes album for six years, and after a few listens, Reality Awaits left me feeling more disappointed…
London was where James Taylor got his big break when, after a rocky, drug-strewn apprenticeship in New York City, he reinvented himself as…
I didn’t want to review Shania Twain. My sense of her is of ancient mega-selling hits I can’t stand. I didn’t even go to her Sunday…
Maybe it was the cold weather. Maybe it was the disparate list of comics on the bill. Maybe it was a host (Fatiha El-Ghorri) who said that…
"It was insanely excellent," enthused one of the Järvi Academy Symphony Orchestra's young musicians about the Estonian Festival Orchestra's…
Brazilian Formula One triple-champion Ayrton Senna was already legendary during his lifetime, but his fatal crash at Imola in 1994 brought…
What an extraordinary band are The Punch Brothers, a bunch of conspicuously talented musicians whose six albums never fail to delight and…
With the good looks and dash of his signature 1947 Triumph Roadster, the Jersey detective is back for a second season in his new…
If a week is a long time in politics, 30 years is an aeon in popular culture. It was in 1996 that Danny Boyle’s film of Irvine Welsh’s…
They stopped making the BBC’s original Bergerac in 1991, so you can hardly complain that this reboot is premature. John Nettles became…