New music
Barney Harsent
Back when this was the plain old Brixton Academy, before Britpop, before New Labour, before the world wide web had weaved its way into our homes, before the war on terror, before the nebulous notion of ‘content’ had yet to ruin everything and devalue everyone, I saw Ride play a gig here. It was ace.Tonight, it seemed as though everyone who had been there that night was back: older, wider and balder perhaps (the ratio of men to women was roughly that of a pre-suffragette parliamentary cabinet), but with the anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve. It’s a heritage gig of course – let’s not Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The title Tape Hiss instantly telegraphs a dissatisfaction with today’s digital world and, fittingly, the all-analogue second album from Rotterdam’s Rats on Rafts could soundtrack a half-remembered Eighties evening taking in a bill of Britain and New Zealand’s most singular post-punk survivors. Their musical inspirations ring through loud and clear. But – and it's a massive but – these Lownlanders do it better and more ferociously than any of their forebears.Most prominent in the mix are the two-step swing of early “Pink Frost” Chills and the unwavering rolling crescendos of “Going up” and “ Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Hawklords were one of the first splinter groups from late Seventies Hawkwind, when Dave Brock and Robert Calvert were joined by bassist Harvey Bainbridge, Pilot’s Steve Swindells and drummer Martin Griffin for a short-lived but brilliant incarnation.Thirty years later, Hawklords was reborn from the ex-Hawkwind survivors' club – Nik Turner, Ron Tree, Danny Thompson, Jerry Richards, Alan Davey, Adrian Shaw, Harvey Bainbridge, Steve Swindells and Martin Griffin among them – to play benefits for dear departed Hawk alumni Robert Calvert and later Barney Bubbles, the band's visionary set and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
I spin about the gravity-free access chambers of Levantis’s Romantic Psychology 1. He calls this entry experience “Exploding Boxes”. I ping about for four minutes, finding my bearings, disorientated, my weightless form clanking into equipment, each sound rendered opaque and radio-mic metallic. I push through an airlock. The next area – "Red Blocks" – is in darkness. Must be some sort of engine in here, judging by the low, echoing hum. This lasts for five minutes and it’s spooky. I’m glad to move beyond it. My senses pulse. Is there a lifeform? Something’s going on, certainly. “Yoghurt” thuds Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The Kinks have turned 50 last and nagging talk of a reunion is still in the ether. In the absence of the real thing, there is a double-disc greatest hits album surfing the wave of latter-day Kinksmania. Meanwhile a kind of Kinks reunion stormed the West End in the shape of Sunny Afternoon, written by playwright Joe Penhall from an original story by Ray Davies.Taking the band’s glorious songbook as its soundtrack, the musical follows the Kinks from their first number one “You Really Got Me” through to the end of the 1960s when they were allowed back into America after a four-year ban caused by Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Georgie Fame: The Whole World’s Shaking – The Complete Recordings 1963–1966Last month, theartsdesk’s Reissue CDs Weekly tackled a collection of albums by Faces which, despite great remastered sound and noteworthy bonus tracks, was a thoughtless, cheapo package ill-befitting a band of such popularity and status. This splendid new Georgie Fame box set is exactly the sort of thing the Faces release could and should have been.The meat of The Whole World’s Shaking – The Complete Recordings 1963–1966 is Fame’s four albums from the period: Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo, Fame at Last, Sweet Read more ...
Katie Colombus
In terms of musical gravitas, style and general swag, Peter Andre ain’t no Frank Sinatra. He’s not even a Michael Bublé, but like Strictly Come Dancing in which the pop star is currently appearing (and which, by superfluous marketing cohesion, this album is released alongside), Come Fly With Me kind of sweeps you up and bounces you around a bit. Like a shop-bought cocktail from a squeezy metallic pouch, it's sweet and slightly fake, but it does the job.With all the very best tunes to watch girls go by – "Fly Me To The Moon", "I’ve Got You Under My Skin", "Come Fly With Me", "Mack The Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Coming to this, the second album from big-voiced, baby-faced David Gahan lookalike John Newman, I was keen to see how he’d progressed. After the occasionally satisfying blend of old soul and new production on Tribute, would Revolve allow him to evolve and perhaps hone his sound further?Not really, is the answer. His voice is great – let’s get that out of the way from the off. No complaints there, the voice can stay. However, having pulled in Greg Kurstin to work on his follow-up, the result is an album that has more to do with the incessant, pummeling and exhausting day-glo colours of Katy Read more ...
theartsdesk
Not just a mere rock star but spiritual guru, peace campaigner, political icon, thorn in the flesh of Richard Nixon and the CIA, and ultimately martyr. John Lennon, who would have been 75 today (9 October), has proved an impossible act to follow. Even his former songwriting partner Paul McCartney, who's hardly been deprived of adulation over the last few decades, can't get over the fact that Lennon has achieved that mythic status known only to a rarefied handful. "The fact that he's now martyred has elevated him to a James Dean, and beyond," Macca moped in a recent Esquire interview. We can Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Fashions in art and music come and go in less time than it takes to read a Buzzfeed list. So there was something uncannily satisfying about star pianist Alan Broadbent’s admission that he’s been working on last night’s collection of entirely new songs for the past 50 years. He and Georgia Mancio showed last night at the Watermill – a popular, ambitious club whose extensive programme belies its suburban location at the social club of insurance firm Aviva – how with the highest standards of skill and craft it’s possible to create something completely new within a respected musical tradition. Read more ...
mark.kidel
Athens, 1987: Youssou N'Dour opens for Peter Gabriel on a world tour. It's a wonder – and to his credit – that the British rock star should dare follow such a powerful performance. Few bands at the time could produce such a seductively joyful sound.Dakar's super-talent hadn't yet succombed to the lure of international audiences. Although he'd begun to move away from the explosive party music of the lengthy grand bals with which he would entertain Senegalese audiences for three to four hours, he was still wholeheartedly true to his roots: the unique combination of African and Afro-Cuban Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The three-toed sloth moves at a maximum – that’s maximum – of 10 feet per minute. It’s thought to be the slowest animal in the world. While on a train hugging the north Kent coast however, I reckon I could give it a, figurative, run for its money. I’m on my way to a tiny venue in Ramsgate to see understated US rock band Sebadoh, whose album count is in double figures, on a tour that will see them joining Lemonheads in London for a high-profile gig. Well, at least that’s the plan.Jump forward about three hours and I’m in the back of a cab speeding towards home with a massive grin on my face Read more ...