New music
bruce.dessau
Having excitedly put The Messenger on I thought my iPod was playing tricks and it had unearthed a previously unshuffled gem from Miles Kane. The opening track, "The Right Thing Right", is packed to the gills with the kind of well-coiffed mod-soul thwack that has helped Kane to make his mark. It's good, but it's terribly, terribly safe. If Marr wants to stop David Cameron listening to his new music as well as stop him from listening to The Smiths, as has been suggested in the press, he's going to have to come up with something less conservative than this.As it happens, The Messenger – Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There’s currently a bemusing wave of bands that combine electronic dance with indie stylings. Acts such as Foals, Everything Everything and Delphic are increasingly successful but seem to my ears, at least on record, to be neither fish nor fowl. Whenever they hit a decent dance pulse, they douse the flames with jangle-pop that just doesn’t seem to fit. Clearly many disagree as these outfits are increasingly popular and it’s claimed the live arena is where they come into their own. Time to find out.Tonight Delphic have the odds stacked against them from the start. Their gig doesn’t suit the Read more ...
theartsdesk
Whenever the words English and whimsy come together in relation to rock, writes Mark Hudson, the name Kevin Ayers is invariably invoked – not least by Ayers himself. The notably erratic, but gifted singer-songwriter and Soft Machine founder was hardly on the face of it notably English, having spent much of his childhood in Malaysia and most of his adult life lounging by the Mediterranean. But he consciously incorporated the gently surreal nonsense tradition of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear into his own brand of moon-gazing, slacker cool.The fact that the fetchingly tousled, psychedelic beat- Read more ...
Russ Coffey
These days not all sensitive folk-rockers with trembling voices can bank on easy audiences. Villagers main man Conor O’Brien is one who can – he’s been selling out concerts like nobody's business. This gig was no exception. O’Brien may be plaintive but he also has the reputation for being one of the smartest, artiest writers around. One critic has described his new LP {Awayland} as the first great album of 2013. Like its strange brackets, it can also be quite challenging.Almost every moment of gentle beauty on the record is matched by another of jarring electronica. Last night, although some Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Dido Armstrong’s first two albums are at numbers 19 and 29 in the UK’s all time best-sellers. The 41-year-old singer became an emblem of post-millennial dinner parties, of Bridget Jones-era singleton moping, and of post-electronica easy listening. Her success was massive but with it she became an easy target, mainly because she emanates Mogadon melancholy without emotional depth.OK I admit I loathe everything she put her hand to although I confess a soft spot for the chorus of “White Flag” – “I will go down with this ship/I won’t put my hands up and surrender/There will be no white flag upon Read more ...
theartsdesk
The sound of a heartbeat. A metronomic ticking. Two men confessing that they’re mad (even if they’re not mad) as a cash register chings. Another man’s manic laughter. A harsh industrial grinding noise. Screams. And then some rock music, Olympian in its distance and instantly cinematic, but with a hint of the blues…If you don’t know by now you’re listening to “Speak to Me” and the start of “Breathe,” the combined sound collage/song that kicks off The Dark Side of the Moon, you’ve had your head under the sand for 40 years. Unless, of course, British prog rock was never your cup of patchouli oil Read more ...
theartsdesk
Mick Rock was the court photographer of glam. Among the (un)usual suspects found in his lens were Lou Reed, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. But no one played up for his camera quite like Iggy Pop.The proof is in the six images released today as limited-edition art prints to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Raw Power. Each of the editions is overlaid with handwritten lyrics from "Raw Power" and "Death Trip", and are individually hand signed by both Rock and Pop.Jasper Rees on Mick RockThe photographs capture the feral intensity of Iggy as shaman showman. But from this distance they also Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Currently finishing off the NME Awards Tour with Django Django and Miles Kane, this lot seem about as New Musical Express as it gets. Which is to say that, from a cynics perspective, their NME championing is almost off-putting. Given the recent history of such promotions, they were liable to be yet another retrogressive indie unit whose guitar sound is indiscernible from their peers or, indeed, multiple bands of the last two decades. And it’s true, the music on 180, named after the Lambeth venue where they had a residency, could have been made at any point between now and 1980, perhaps Read more ...
peter.quinn
Born in London in 1978 to a Barbadian father and British-Jamaican mother, Soweto Kinch is one of the most exciting and versatile young musicians to hit the British jazz and hip hop scenes in recent years. Following a degree in modern history at Hertford College, Oxford, Kinch has carved out a music career that has so far led to two Mobo wins for best jazz act (2003 and 2007) and a Mercury Prize nomination for album of the year in 2003. As well as recording and touring, Kinch curates The Flyover Show, an annual music and arts festival in Birmingham which he has recently started to produce Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s not much of a surprise that My Bloody Valentine have eventually followed up 1991’s Loveless. They’ve been playing live with increasing regularity, with the same line-up as back then. The way the new album has arrived – with no warning via a new website – isn't so surprising either. Despite the widespread co-opting of their sonic template, what is surprising is how much m b v sounds like My Bloody Valentine.Being confronted with the real thing is a jolt, putting the pretenders in the shade. m b v is as beautifully opaque and seductive as Loveless, sounding like nothing other than Kevin Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
A couple of weeks ago on BBC’s Question Time one of the pundits airily commented that until recently no-one in the audience would have heard of Bamako, the capital of Mali. That wouldn’t be the case were there any world music fans there – for them, the country (perhaps only with Cuba as a rival) has the strongest and most renowned music heritage anywhere.There are more general reasons for the supremacy of Malian music, including its accessible, bluesy sounds and the fact that Francophone African music has always had a boost through Paris, the most global-music-friendly city in Europe. More Read more ...
mark.kidel
Anaïs Mitchell is one of America’s leading new folk singers, a protégée of Ani di Franco. She is a poet steeped in the archetypes of Greek mythology, old stories that she has evoked in a contemporary setting, not least in her re-telling of the Orpheus myth, Hadestown.It is hardly surprising then that her latest album, made with Jefferson Hamer, should tap into the mother of all British American sources, the Child Ballads, a compendium of Scottish and English ballads, brought together in the 19th century by Francis James Child. These tales of love, death and sorcery are cousins of the Greek Read more ...