New music
Asya Draganova
It seems fitting that Brighton, a city of youth culture and protest, is the starting point for a band like Squid. Their debut album Bright Green Field is a real statement: musically complex, energetic and entirely made up of new material. This record suggests a band that are determined to grow, as Bright Green Field balances the urgency and rawness of youth with elaborate and dark metaphors of social turmoil. Squid’s debut is also on track to become a classic for those who like their intelligently articulated yet angry post-punk and math rock, and more generally for those rock listeners who Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Rory Graham was always stoically familiar with life’s knocks. With a stage-name inspired by Galton and Simpson’s fatalistic family tragicomedy Steptoe and Son, and an underground hip-hop career hinterland in Sussex and London, this big 30-something man with a big voice and vintage soul sound was already richly experienced when his breakthrough anthem, “Human”, confessed he was only that.His debut album Human reinforced the message that a lifetime left plenty of room for mistakes, and moving past them. On a record comfortable with religious language as well as gospel sounds, key track “Grace” Read more ...
John Bungey
If you want to understand the psychic harm that prolonged lockdown can do to a man, then take a listen to Van Morrison's new 28-song set. Actually, you don't need to listen, the song titles say enough: “Where Have All the Rebels Gone?”; “Stop Bitching, Do Something”; “Deadbeat Saturday Night”; “They Own the Media”; “Why Are You on Facebook?”While Sir Van's vast catalogue is revered for transcendent love songs and joyous R&B, it also includes a sub-genre of complaint songs (“They Sold Me Out” on Magic Time or “School of Hard Knocks” on Keep it Simple, for example). With the singer stuck at Read more ...
joe.muggs
It’s funny how the most high tech music can sound very traditional. In the case of producer / instrumentalist / occasional singer Ziúr, it’s the tradition of her hometown of Berlin that is expressed in her whirrs, clangs and mutated voices. Here – as on her previous records with British labels Planet Mu and Objects Limited and Canada’s Infinite machine, and like most of the roster of her new home, Berlin’s PAN – the sound palette is hyper-detailed: glistening, crackling and booming with the kind of abyssal vastness and obsessional detail that only today’s processing power can generate. But Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Carolyn Crawford’s “Ready or Not Here Comes Love” is a 1971 recording. It sounds like a Motown classic from 1968 or so – a confident lead voice soars over backing vocals, light orchestration and a tight arrangement designed to get feet moving. Most of all, it’s about an instantly memorable melody.Kim Weston’s “It Takes a Lotta Teardrops” is as good. From 1967, it was co-written by Vicki Basemore, a Detroit-based writer who also co-wrote “Ready or Not Here Comes Love” and wrote for Motown too. Weston adopts a pleading tone on a similarly impactful track.Then there’s “The Intruder” by Melvin Read more ...
mark.kidel
Sufjan Stevens is not only prolific, multi-talented and wide-ranging in his experimentation, but he never fails to make interesting work. He’s undoubtedly one of the giants of American contemporary music. His originality and creative risk-taking have led to him being one of the most underrated artists of his time. His latest album – over two hours of instrumental composition and made during lockdown – is a daring, profound and fiercely personal requiem to his recently-deceased father.Convocations, hot on the heels of Stevens' s previous album The Ascension (2020) is a lengthy suite of both Read more ...
Robert Beale
Manchester’s Psappha have been proudly flying the flag of new and radical music right through the year of lockdown, and last night’s livestream, with two-and-a-half world premieres, one of them by Mark-Anthony Turnage, showed they haven’t given up making waves.Engaging many of Manchester’s most distinguished solo musicians – and performing in ensembles whose numbers would daunt many another music-making organization right now – their enterprise and dedication are breathtaking. This live-streamed event brought together, as scene-setter Tom McKinney put it, “21 musicians, safely distanced’ at Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
“Thank you. I think I’ve told you everything. I do have a couple more tunes, but I’ll hold them back for next time – I don’t want to bore you, it’s better that you leave here serene. A nice chord like this. (plays F major first inversion). A good impression. Voilà. Merci.”These were the matter-of-fact and typically considerate parting words with which Martial Solal left the stage at the end of his solo recital at Salle Gaveau in Paris on 23 January 2019, aged 91. It was only announced after the event that the pianist had decided it would be his very last concert. The evening was recorded Read more ...
Tunde Jegede
In this era when there is so much talk and discussion around crossing musical boundaries, diversity in music and inter-disciplinary work it seems strange that there is still so little knowledge of how, why and when it works. Ironically, much of this type of work and collaborative process is much older than we often think and give credit to.As a composer I have always been interested in this type of work because it speaks to my experience both socially and culturally. Having studied instruments and traditions in both the UK and West Africa, I was acutely aware from an early age of differences Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Let’s get this clear from the off, Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis’s new album is not an artistic statement on a par with her classic 1979 album Broken English. Nor I suspect, was that ever the aim. Instead, it’s a vanity project that consists of Marianne reciting a collection of work from the English Romantic poets of the early 19th century while Ellis and a few of his famous mates noodle pleasantly in the background. This isn’t to say that it isn’t a perfectly satisfying listen. It’s just not an artistic landmark and is more likely to soundtrack occasional moments in time rather than to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A few hurdles need jumping before grappling with the essence of Teenage Fanclub’s 11th album. Endless Arcade is their first without bassist and founder member Gerard Love. He, alongside Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley, was one of the band’s songwriters. And this is their first with former Gorky's Zygotic Mynci mainstay and solo artist Euros Childs in the line-up on keyboards. Blake and Childs made the Jonny album together in 2011. Childs has recorded a fair amount of other collaborations but joining Teenage Fanclub in 2019 was a different type of commitment. Following this arrival, TFC Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Lazer Guided Melodies was great. It still is. Spiritualized’s debut album built from what was already there in Jason Pierce’s previous band Spacemen 3 and took it into newer, more textured territory. While softer-focussed and more dynamic than Spacemen 3 there was still an edge, a brittle carapace which ensured Spiritualized was its own thing. There was also a gospel-informed sense of drama. What came together on Lazer Guided Melodies became the endlessly malleable raw material which Pierce is still redrafting. Indeed, his last album, 2018’s And Nothing Hurt, was recognisably one by Read more ...