New music
bruce.dessau
Two very different Antipodeans are performing in London over the weekend. Having seen Nick Cave more times than you can shake a didgeridoo at, the time has come for this reviewer to scrutinise Rolf Harris – pop star, painter of the Queen, sentimental presenter of cuddly animal shows. When the spritely 82-year-old appeared to tumultuous applause I suddenly recalled that I had seen Harris on this very stage in 1999 alongside Cave, Kylie Minogue and Barry Humphries in a nightmarishly bizarre Meltdown gig. It was easy to forget his contribution. That night Rolf was somewhat overshadowed by Read more ...
Russ Coffey
As with the likes of Sia Furler or Nerina Pallot, Ron Sexsmith’s songs always seem to outperform him. “Secret Heart” did Rod Stewart proud, Feist regularly plays “Brandy Alexander", and he has even offered Justin Bieber a tune. Yet despite Sexsmith’s Tin Pan Alley skills, his shabby schoolboy looks and limited vocals make his own albums mainly connoisseur items. His new offering, Forever Endeavour, is unlikely to buck that trend. Still, it’s chock full of beautifully crafted, thoughtful songs.The keynote here is soft Seventies country-rock. There are twangy guitars, strings and horns aplenty Read more ...
Chris Mugan
“Tschernobyl… Harrisburg... Sellafield… Fukushima” reads the display above the four figures standing impassively below like toys, suddenly turning these harbingers of the computer age into proselytisers for an anti-nuclear energy policy.Kraftwerk’s reinvention as agitpop polemicists, if only for Radio-Activity, is just one surprise in a two-hour set that cements their place as a seminal cultural force whose key works reward close reappraisal. It is night two of The Catalogue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, their typically thorough concerts series that sees them play eight albums over successive nights. If Read more ...
Chris Mugan
Childlike wonder is a rare emotion at a gig, so gasps of delight are doubly jolting as the first images appear to float out of the mammoth screen behind the stage and float over our heads. These are notes of musical notation that cascade from a car radio at the moment when the dial shifts in "Autobahn", the track where Kraftwerk’s concepts first properly coalesced and that gave their breakthrough album its title. The German electronica pioneers are to play 1974’s Autobahn in full as they begin an eight-night residency revisiting much of their back catalogue in order.It is also their first Read more ...
joe.muggs
If you listened to the last archived Arts Desk Radio Show you'll have heard me play a couple of tracks from this, and it was all I could do not to play more. As so often I'd gone into the studio with the previous couple of days' post pile and started picking through it for CDs to play. Usually this is a faff involving flicking through tracks and hoping one will jump out, but as soon as this one went into the machine, every single track got a tick by its name.The name Fimber Bravo meant nothing to me and I hadn't read the press release to find out the provenance of the album, but the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There’s a certain kind of melodic post-millennial metal band where the songs seem to be merely a process of ritualistic, firmly fixed reference points. From Avenged Sevenfold to Bring Me The Horizon and thousands more, gargle-shouted thrash vocals and juddering - but supremely over-produced - hardcore guitars are interspersed with howled, harmonised choruses. It’s a formula that ostensibly roars yet is actually pristine clean, lacking dirt, grit or punk venom. It rarely wanders from a well-beaten path. Welsh four-piece Bullet For My Valentine have done very well out of it, multi-millions in Read more ...
mark.kidel
Toumani Diabaté is the uncontested star of the Malian kora, but his Bamako neighbour Ballaké Sissoko is a close rival. His natural modesty, reflected in the coolness of his musicianship, has prevented him from acquiring the international status of Diabaté, but what he lacks in worldly ambition is amply compensated by an unassuming yet heart-warming spirituality.At Peace is in some ways a sequel to Chamber Music, the award-winning album Sissoko made with the versatile French cellist Vincent Ségal. Ségal, the producer of the new CD, has avoided merely serving up Vol. 2. This time around, the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Marcos Valle: Marcos Valle/Garra/Vento Sul/Previsão do TempoIn 1968, having already done time in Sérgio Mendes & Brazil 66, Marcos Valle was selling bossa nova and samba to America, appearing on The Andy Williams Show in a blazer and roll neck. By the year’s end he was back in Brazil, which at the time was ruled by a fully-fledged dictatorship. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil would go into exile but Valle wilfully chose the opposite path. His music and appearance changed: the former moving away from popular Brazilian styles and incorporating outside influences; the latter becoming Read more ...
bruce.dessau
"Gonna shake the house," rasps Mark 'E' Everett on "Bombs Away". It is the first track of his tenth album and it certainly sounds like a statement of intent. Everett has often come across as something of a gloomy rock and roll runt in recent years, but this time around the worm appears to be turning and he ain't taking any cotton-pickin' nonsense any more.It is pleasing to note that the lyrics definitely have a gutsy, defiant optimism about them, albeit alongside Everett's usual misery: "watching the death of my hopes", he sings on the Johnny Cash-tinged, countrified sob story "On the Ropes Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Dagenham MC Devlin, who initially made a name for himself on the London grime scene, has often been called the British Eminem. This would, at first appear, to be a rather trite assessment, down to his being a talented white guy at the heart of a black scene, but on further inspection it holds a certain amount of water.The 23-year-old’s second album, following 2010’s amusingly titled Bud, Sweat and Beers, showcases pop suss, a tendency towards the operatic, a theatrical sense of self-mythologising melodrama, and dense, aggressive, pithy verses interspersed with melancholic, melodic choruses. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The notice saying “table reserved for Lord Chelsea” in Cadogan Hall’s foyer bar instantly signalled this show was likely to be more rarefied than your normal pop concert. It was in keeping with the grandeur of this early 20th century, Byzantine-style former church a minute from Sloane Square. The tone was further elevated by this being a rare, small-venue British outing for Jane Birkin, an actual, proper star.Arriving on stage, head bowed, Birkin began the evening with “Requiem pour un con”, a song her former partner Serge Gainsbourg wrote for the film La Pacha in 1968. Over 90 minutes, she Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Thao Nguyen is a versatile lady. Nearly two years on from her blissful, tUnE-yArDs-produced collaboration with indie songwriter Mirah, this third album with her own band the Get Down Stay Down brings her back to her exuberant, experimental roots. From the title track’s bouncy rallying cry to the softly-spoken duet with Joanna Newsom at the album’s mid-point, We The Common would be a boundary-pusher for most acts. For Nguyen, it’s just another day at the office.Inspired by her first visit to Valley State Prison through her involvement with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, “We The Read more ...