New music
Tim Cumming
While his old friend and sometime touring companion Bob Dylan has just re-entered Capitol Studios to record a new set of standards to follow the Sinatra-inspired Shadows in the Night, Willie Nelson’s latest release for Sony Legacy focuses solely on the brothers Gershwin – he was awarded the Gershwin Prize in 2015.Nelson, for whom this territory is like a second skin, and one he wears lightly, picks out a most charming late-career foray into the gold standard of American popular song. It's the latest in a fairly long list of albums in the genre, topped by his first, 1978's Stardust. Since Read more ...
peter.quinn
With Peter Andre butchering Frank Sinatra on the one hand ("Reality TV swing", as Ray Gelato aptly put it) and Annie Lennox massacring Billie Holiday on the other, it was heart-warming to hear two artists performing standards and originals with such care, insight and sensitivity.After they'd opened with an arresting snippet of Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce”, a massively swinging take on Peggy Lee’s “I Love Being Here with You” saw Martin slipping in some deft lyrical changes (“I’d love to kiss George Clooney’s nose”), while the first of several towering scats lit up “Comes Love” like a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The second album by Russian shoegazers Pinkshinyultrablast neatly side-steps any language-barrier issues either by submerging their mono-monikered singer Lyubov’s voice into their sea of noise, or ensuring that what is heard could be wordless singing along the lines of The Swingle Singers – even though she sings in English. As it should be with music so much about texture, the sound of Pinkshinyultrablast marks them as virtuosos of the indirect.However, where they draw from is clear. As it was with their debut album, 2015’s Everything Else Matters, Cocteau Twins, Lush, Slowdive and, of course Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Lizzy Mercier Descloux was an early adopter. In 1975, she travelled from her Paris home to Manhattan and saw The Ramones, Patti Smith, Television and the Richard Hell-edition Heartbreakers. Although the first issue of the New York fanzine Punk came out at the end of the year, punk rock was not yet quite codified. Nonetheless, there was a scene and something new was in the air. Descloux had to check it out and on her return to France, she co-founded the new music monthly Rock News.The new magazine was dedicated to The Velvet Underground. Iggy Pop was its first issue’s cover star. There were Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The thing about having a very distinctive voice is that it gives the audience something to latch onto. That’s all well and good, but it can also mean people find it easier to hear without listening. As the familiar tones and comfortable cadences of King Biscuit Time and former Beta Band member Steve Mason drift in, it’s easy to see how people could simply think, “Ah, another Steve Mason album.” Which it is, to be fair – but it’s also the rather wonderful result of all his former experiments.From the Beta Band – the glorious, stumbling and staggering Beta Band, with their moments of ragged Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Back in the crucible of the early Eighties when Anthrax were forged, metallurgists spoke of the Big Four. Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer sounded like War, Famine and Death. Anthrax, from the East Coast, were Pestilence. Musically, the band combined the diabolical speed of Slayer with some of the British-influenced sound of the others. Yet, as time went on, Anthrax started to escape the confines of conventional metal, experimenting with hip-hop and a kind of groove, grunge sound. So, how do they sound now?More than ever, it would seem, like an apocalypse. “For All Kings” comprises all the Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Wayne Shorter and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra – that sounds like a dream pairing. Shorter, now 82, is one of the true greats, a saxophonist and composer with an enchanting and unpredictable approach that makes him instantly recognisable. He had a defining influence on Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet and on Weather Report and, for many, his current quartet represent the pinnacle of modern small group performance. Under the leadership of Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra have come to represent the pinnacle of repertoire big band playing, so this collaborative Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Wolfmother have made something of a name for themselves over the last decade or so by grafting classic 1970s hard rock moves onto stoner grooves and letting their freak flag fly. Anyone who is keen for more from the same template is going to be more than happy with Victorious, the band’s fourth long-player and first since 2014’s New Crown. Wolfmother’s line-up may have been somewhat fluid over the years, but the song more or less remains the same. Not that it’s a bad thing, as there’s always a place for lively, in-your-face heavy rock music.Nevertheless, new textures and flavours do Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The Brighton Festival 2016, which explodes into life again this year on Saturday May 7, has revealed its programme. Guest Director Laurie Anderson sent a short film in support of the occasion, while Chief Executive Andrew Comben, acknowledging this as the 50th edition of the Festival, added: “Every year since 1967 some of the greatest artists, performers and thinkers have come together with some of the most open-minded and enthusiastic audiences anywhere for a festival whose home is one of the most artistically rich and geographically blessed places in the country.”Indeed, the theme of this Read more ...
Andrew Cartmel
In its former life as the Millennium Dome, the O2 housed a diamond collection which attracted one of Britain’s most spectacular heists. Last night featured something considerably more valuable – the composer Ennio Morricone on tour, celebrating 60 years of music, accompanied by the magisterial forces of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, the Kodály Choir from Hungary and the Csokonai National Theatre Choir. In his 87th year Morricone is small, deliberate, but surprisingly youthful and snazzily dressed in black.His baton floated in the air and music of aching melancholy lifted from the Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Described by Courtney Pine as "the most exciting jazz band to come out of the UK" and hailed in the press as the new young lions, Empirical broke cover in 2007, topping album of the year charts with their self-titled debut and picking up wins at the prestigious EBU/European Jazz Competition and the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award all within a few months.Originally a five-piece, with Kit Downes on piano and Jay Phelps on trumpet, they settled on their current line-up of bassist Tom Farmer, drummer Shane Forbes, altoist Nathaniel Facey and vibes-player Lewis Wright (a new recruit) in 2008. A trio Read more ...
Matthew Wright
The boisterous trio of Noah Lennox (drums, vocals, samples), David Portner (guitar, samples) and Brian Weitz (electronics, samples) have now released ten albums as Animal Collective. They also work individually under their aliases, Panda Bear, Avey Tare, and Geologist (are those all animals?), respectively. Previous albums have included Strawberry Jam (2007), and Centipede Hz (2012), but this latest has a higher-minded angle, concerned, say the band, “with art (Cubism, Dadaism, and the distorted way those artists viewed the world) and the human experience”.Aside from the opener, “ Read more ...