New music
Barney Harsent
2015 was a phenomenal year for new music. As such, choosing just one album seems an arduous if not impossible task. But Christmas is, as we know, a time where arduous tasks are very much the order of the day, as we inconvenience ourselves routinely and with at least the appearance of good grace.It’s been a year where some of the most moving and emotional music has been made using machines. Enigmatic house producer Man Power revealed himself to the world as Brit Geoff Kirkwood with a breathtaking, self-titled debut, while Ukranian producer Vakula (Mikhaylo Vityuk) wowed those who paid Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The year has seen great albums from the fringes – in English folk, Leveret’s beautiful instrumental debut New Anything, or Stick in the Wheel’s visceral, political, London stew of an album, From Here, and Sam Lee’s assured, exploratory second album, Fade in Time. In Jazz, there was the likes of Partikel’s String Theory on Whirlwind Recordings, and in World music, Songhoy Blues’ debut. However, the frontrunners for this writer's favourites of the year were both rock icons of wildly different hue – Keith Richards’ Crosseyed Heart and The Fall’s Sublingual Tablet.It took a while to settle on Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Is language a barrier to international recognition? Is English necessary to make waves worldwide? Musicians from the African continent and South America regularly perform in their native tongue beyond the borders of their home countries. But often they are – rightly or wrongly – marketed or pigeon-holed as world music, a branding which allows for eschewing the Anglophone. The always problematic label of world music can be and is debated endlessly, but one thing is certain: for Scandinavia, most internationally successful music is delivered in English.Of course, after setting quirky micro- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Choosing an album of the year is an exacting process. For an album to be arresting, it either has to come as a bolt from the blue or build on what’s come before in a way which represents an identifiable artistic development which takes things to new level while saying something fresh. Holding patterns and restatements of default settings will never have an impact, especially if they speak of or to comfort zones.Alina Orlova’s third album, 88, is arresting, a bolt from the blue and represents identifiable artistic development. Boxes ticked then. More importantly, it is also the album which has Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The news that Lush have reformed didn’t come as surprise. Their comparable contemporaries Ride and Slowdive had also done so over the past couple of years, and My Bloody Valentine – an influence looming over all three – returned in 2007 after over a decade’s abscence. Unlike the others, Lush, who were on 4AD rather than Creation, have reissued their complete catalogue as a box set during the run-up to re-hitting stages next May. Chorus has the potential to eclipse the reappearance as it doesn’t edit history like a one-or-so hour live concert.With Lush, editing is probably necessary to make a Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There's a line of argument – and a fairly convincing one – that this is the decade that pop culture lost its imagination. Right now the cinemas are booked out with the latest sequel to a 38-year-old movie franchise, my Twitter feed is collectively losing its shit to a new Twin Peaks trailer and a Stone Roses reunion is headlining half of next year's festivals. We haven't even been bothered to come up with a name for this decade, although when our children's children run nostalgic compilation shows dedicated to the "twen-teens" I will happily take the credit.Against a backdrop of Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Contemporary jazz is a world full of magpies – artists who flit between genres and build glittering nests of disparate musical influences. Rock up to a so-called jazz night today and the repertoire can come from anywhere, you’re as likely to hear Jimi Hendrix or J. Dilla as Jerome Kern, and pianist Brad Mehldau has played a role in making that happen.Over the course of the past twenty years, Mehldau has established himself as one of the most distinctive and influential pianists of his generation, a musician with a healthy lack of respect for musical boundaries. Cast an eye over the tracklist Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Bar-debating recently, I argued that Jamie xx wasn’t a full crossover success, more a fringe thing. The next day I heard his gorgeous tune “Loud Places” playing as incidental music on the Strictly Come Dancing spin-off programme It Takes Two. So I was wrong. I am pleased to be. This album deserves the widest exposure possible. The self-effacing producer has created a rich, wide-ranging smörgåsbord that dips into rave culture’s 27-year electronic journey without ever predictably replicating club styles or falling into pastiche. My full review ran in May so I don’t propose to rehash it, Read more ...
Matthew Wright
You don’t have to take it from me. “How Much a Dollar Cost” is Barack Obama’s favourite song of this year. The album also has 11 Grammy nominations, more than any other. But the unanimous praise for Kendrick Lamar’s third studio album and its sprawling kaleidoscope of voices and styles doesn’t imply a consensus about why it’s a great piece of work. Some, including Obama, love his head-on take on political injustice. Others cite his breadth and inclusiveness, both of the sampling, often of crackling, period tracks, and the cosmopolitan ease with which Lamar slips between the musical Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As theartsdesk on Vinyl concludes its first year of existence, vinyl is on the rise. There are justified moans that the boom is being taken over by predictably-curated, low quality, major label reissues aimed at 50-something men, causing the likes of Tesco to announce they’re entering the vinyl market. There’s truth in these claims, but “taken over” is too strong. These re-releases are a presence that sometimes hinders the swift appearance of more intriguing music and it can affect pricing, but there’s also an all-round blossoming of interest in vinyl which has a wider ripple effect. Vinyl is Read more ...
Russ Coffey
As many colleagues have remarked over the past week, Christmas is that time of the year when, musically speaking, all bets are off. Whilst some prefer the season's more artsy offerings, personally, I still enjoy the soothing and traditional. Which is why, as the wine is mulling and fire crackling, I may well be tempted to dip into the Wilde Winter Songbook: this new deluxe edition is a big soft hug of festive classics and Wilde originals.Proceedings start with a rousing duet of “Winter Wonderland”, featuring Rick Astley having a decent stab at some old time Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Any Christmas album worth its salt draws from the classics. Versions of, say, “We Three Kings”, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “Silent Night”, “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” and “The Little Drummer boy” are compulsory. What is not so inevitable is how these musical and seasonal chestnuts are tackled. All five songs are covered on Lit Up: Music for Christmas, and all five sound like they never have before.Astrocolor are from Canada. The five-piece from Victoria, British Columbia formed specifically to make a Christmas album like no other. Want a Massive Attack-style “We Three Read more ...