New music
Thomas H. Green
John Lydon (b. 1956) is the singer and creative engine of Public Image Ltd. He was previously the frontman of the Sex Pistols. The latter group broke up in January 1978 when he was 21 but their brief career continues to cast a giant shadow over popular music, defining punk rock. Lydon, however, went on to form the musically more intriguing Public Image Ltd, releasing era-defining albums such their eponymous debut and, perhaps the ultimate album of the post-punk era, Metal Box. He went on to work sporadically with varying PiL line-ups during succeeding decades but reappeared with a newly Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Some consider Heartless Bastards to be the best band you’ve probably never heard of – albeit blighted by an awful name. Others say the Texas-based four-piece are merely a jumped-up garage band. Wherever you stand, though, one thing is beyond dispute – the awesome power of Erika Wennerstrom’s voice. For much of last night she sounded like the love child of Robert Plant and Janis Joplin. And when the band hit its stride you could almost smell the oil and sweat of their Midwestern blue-collar origins. Particularly the sweat. The subterranean Borderline club was about 35 degrees, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
According to the press release for Contrepoint, “AIR have not split up.” Nicolas Godin, one half of the French duo, goes on to say: “We weren’t surprising ourselves anymore… I’d made a statement with AIR and I wanted to go back to the classical world, to grow up musically; to renew myself.” What that actually reveals about his attitude towards the supposedly still-extant AIR is moot, but the result is Contrepoint, his first solo album. It is based around the music of Bach.It’s best to ignore the silly opening cut, “Orca”, a synth-and-metal hybrid reminiscent of a speed-induced Rush and begin Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Bands that stand out live often disappoint on record: it can be difficult to capture the energy, the ferociousness, the vitality that makes a group of musicians special when you freeze it in time. Experimental pop trio Micachu & the Shapes - who have the dubious distinction of being one of the best live acts I’ve ever seen yet one whose music I’ve never been able to enjoy at home - have probably come as close to doing so as is possible on Good Sad Happy Bad. The album began life as an extended jam session, sneakily recorded by drummer Marc Pell.The result is an album that sounds Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Isley Brothers: The RCA Victor & T-Neck Album Masters (1958–1983)Head straight for Track 14, Disc 10’s quadrophonic mix – which plays fine on a normal stereo – of The Isley Brothers’ version of Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze”. It’s an instant head-turner as it highlights melody lines in the vocal which were not apparent on the familiar single. The jazzy piano is also more to the fore. Then nip to Track 11, Disc 13’s instrumental version of “Harvest for the World” which, shorn of its vocals, reveals the complex arrangement and intricate, lush production of this seemingly Read more ...
Graham Fuller
John Lydon’s group went 20 years without cutting a studio album before issuing This Is PiL. A mere three years on, the singer and his bandmates Lu Edmonds (guitar), Scott Firth (bass) and Bruce Smith (drums) have produced an album as robust and playful as its predecessor. If only Lydon had had such a settled combo and the means to be prolific in the Nineties and Noughties.The bracing avant-garde experimentalism of Metal Box and The Flowers of Romance now a distant memory, PiL has arrived at a choleric post-punk groove seared by Edmonds’ bravura riffs. It’s as suited to Lydon’s fast, hectoring Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Once upon a time, there was a label called Whatever We Want. As well as releasing vital, uncompromising records by Gareth “Godsy” Goddard and French prog-rock sampling delights from Quiet Village, in 2008 a 12” called The Rose saw the light of day. It was by The Laughing Light of Plenty and it was a nothing short of a revelation.The perfect marriage of live feel and dance sensibility, it was pretty much the record that everyone wished the Stone Roses had released after their hiatus, instead of descending into heavy riffing cock rock. An album followed, but seemingly only in Japan or for the Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Nyanza is the province of western Kenya where this intriguing Anglo-Kenyan, inter-generational five-piece recorded their third album, exploring the region in which the Luo people created their music. The Kenyan contingent, nyatiti (a plucked lyre) master Joseph Nyamungu and Luo percussionist Charles Owoko are both from that tribe, with Londoners Tom Skinner (drums), Jesse Hackett (vox/keys) and Louis Hackett (bass) making up the remainder. There’s a narrative arc of sorts, as the music traces the band’s journey from opening track “Nairobi (Too Hot)” into Nyanza, with a centerpiece, “Nyanza Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Sunday. Brecon Beacons. Very early in the morning. I am woken, as I have been every 20 minutes or so since falling asleep, by water dripping on my head. So far, I’ve been able to ignore it, the pain of sitting upright outweighing the inconvenience of a wet head by a factor I can’t begin to fathom. Now, however, the hangover has lifted slightly and the need to piss is so painful I can no longer ignore it.After a walk to the toilets that sees my clothes absorb more water than I subsequently eject, I stagger back to the tent and am greeted by a flurry of activity I wasn’t expecting. It seems a Read more ...
Guy Oddy
In a way that is reminiscent of fellow Swedes and label mates Goat, Hills play a primal psychedelia that draws from a far broader spectrum of sounds than the usual garage rock and motorik grooves of their British and American fellow travellers. On Frid, their third album, vocals are largely put aside in favour of spaced-out instrumentals or chanting that suggests medieval plainsong fed into an effects box. While the guitar sounds and grooves of Tinariwen and Songhoy Blues rub up against the chemical drone of Spacemen 3 to make some serious pagan ritual music that both moves hips and flips Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Though beautiful, Depression Cherry is hard to love. The fifth album from Beach House – Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally – has the fragile exquisiteness of fine lace but is, as ever with the duo, so hazy it proves impossible to surrender to its drifting course. Just when its form seems within reach through an enervated fog, it’s suddenly gone – like vapour absorbed into air.The customary shadows cast by Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and "Surf's Up" Beach Boys are present and correct, but Depression Cherry still sounds more like Beach House than the musical well they have drawn from since 2006’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Julian Cope: World Shut Your Mouth, FriedIt’s a fair assumption Julian Cope’s record label Phonogram was committed to the idea that he could be a solo commercial and critical success. Teardrop Explodes, the band he had fronted, had charted and his face regularly featured in the new crop of glossy pop magazines. The announcement of the band’s split had come in November 1982, but it took another year for “Sunshine Playroom”, the first solo single, to emerge.The record label’s faith was demonstrated by approving a £20,000 spend for the single’s promo video – it was the first that photographer Read more ...