new music reviews, news & interviews
Kieron Tyler |
Reviewing The Clash’s 27 October 1976 appearance at Birmingham’s Barbarella’s, UK music weekly Sounds detected a particular, unique, characteristic of the band. Jonh (sic) Ingham identified “a Clash trick of everything dropping out except for Mick Jones' guitar, dropping back in two bars later behind a thundering crack from Terry Chimes' baseball bat sized drumsticks.”
Peter Culshaw |
The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music has been peerless over the years in presenting world/global music acts in one magical place. Only WOMAD is a serious rival as a long-established global music fest.
Mark Kidel
Ever since he crashed into the world with that eerie masterpiece, Maxinquaye (1995) – an album that has never aged – Bristol-born Tricky, once a…
Thomas H. Green
Mould are a post-punk sounding trio from Bristol. The press release says that their debut album is “13 tracks that explore the horrors of the outside…
Guy Oddy
This week saw something of a landmark gig for Birmingham’s ever-exuberant folkies, Bonfire Radicals. New album, Spaghetti Junction was revealed to a…
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a great deal, and hope you do too.
To take a monthly subscription now simply click here.
Or
Why not take an annual subscription and save a third off our monthly price simply click here.
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
Kieron Tyler
Making the case for wading through a hotchpotch of archive releases
Joe Muggs
Big disco balls and explosive affirmation make the stadium trio more ludicrous than ever
caspar.gomez
With no Glastonbury Festival 2026, our intrepid reporter offers us mementos and tall tales
Cathi Unsworth
As her collection of music by goth divas appears, the writer reveals the appeal of the dark side
Kieron Tyler
Intriguing second album from Los Angeles musical auteur
Kieron Tyler
Box-set tribute to the idiosyncratic - frequently fantastic - London R&B band
Tim Cumming
Reflective, poetic, instinctive songs of renewal and resilience
Thomas H. Green
Snappy, there-and-gone set fired out of Montreal
Jonathan Geddes
Crowd shows warmth toward the Londoner, back touring after mental health break
Joe Muggs
Detroit techno, avant-classical discord and visionary sci-fi in dark disharmony
Ibi Keita
A warm, nostalgic celebration of home and family
Ellie Roberts
The star’s 12-night residency is off to an impressive start
the future of arts journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
latest in today
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts…
Reviewing The Clash’s 27 October 1976 appearance at Birmingham’s Barbarella’s, UK music weekly Sounds detected a particular, unique,…
“Trump Arrangement Syndrome”, my propensity to see the world refracted through the lens of the omnipresent ogre’s cult, raised its head…
The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music has been peerless over the years in presenting world/global music acts in one magical place. Only…
Ever since he crashed into the world with that eerie masterpiece, Maxinquaye (1995) – an album that has never aged – Bristol-born Tricky,…
Mould are a post-punk sounding trio from Bristol. The press release says that their debut album is “13 tracks that explore the horrors of…
The regular scriptwriter for Yorgos Lanthimos’s films, Efthimis Filippou, has worked with another director, Karim Aïnouz, on Rosebush…
This week saw something of a landmark gig for Birmingham’s ever-exuberant folkies, Bonfire Radicals. New album, Spaghetti Junction was…
A voice at the start of dancer Aakash Odedra’s performance speaks out of the darkness about the Sufi myth behind what we are going to see,…
Pyschedelic music has always encouraged intergenerational influence. Thus West Midlander Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember, in his 1980s Spacemen 3…
Most read
It was back in 2019 when The Capture made its debut on BBC One, with writer Ben Chanan skilfully exploiting the sinister potential of deep-…
So, if you’re reading this you probably trudged all the weary way to the very end of I Know Who You Are. Or you didn’t but still want to…
As Literary Review's "Bad Sex in Fiction Award" recognises, there's not a lot that's funnier and more damaging to a story's credibility…
Five years have elapsed since New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey revealed that dozens of women had accused the movie…
When Amer Deghayes departed for Syria in a truck leaving from Birmingham, a worker from a youth arts organisation in Brighton had been…
Joan Wasser – aka Joan as Police Woman – is known as a sophisticated songwriter and a pretty groovy person. But most of all it’s her…
“Trump Arrangement Syndrome”, my propensity to see the world refracted through the lens of the omnipresent ogre’s cult, raised its head…
The baldness of the titles the writer-director Stefan Golaszewski gives his TV series — Him & Her, Mum, Marriage and now Babies — is a…
The journalistic addiction-memoir is a crowded genre these days: Details editor Dan Perez chronicles his massive intake of Vicodin and…
Bayard Rustin is a fascinating but little-known figure in US history: a civil rights organiser who worked behind the scenes on both the…