New music
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Brian Fallon, The Gaslight Anthem’s heart-on-sleeve frontman, would be the first to tell you that there’s nothing complicated to it: big songs with tons of heart; love and death and the last light of fading youth, all to the accompaniment of your favourite songs on the radio. Inspired in no small part by hometown heroes (let’s get the Springsteen references out of the way early, shall we?), the New Jersey band’s major-label debut ramps up the big rock choruses, but retains an intimacy through its wistful lyrics and Fallon’s bruised vocal delivery.Lead single “45” delivers a typically anthemic Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Before last December’s O2 Deep Purple gig, I heard one denim-clad middle-aged man arguing to another that the absence of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was irrelevant. Rather, without keyboardist Jon Lord, this was Purple in name only. Moreover the band had brought an orchestra along. What a cheek, given that Deep Purple’s iconic Concerto for Group and Orchestra had been 100 per cent Lord’s baby.Sadly it was announced this morning that rock music’s great crossover pioneer had passed away. Jon Lord had suffered a pulmonary embolism and Twitter started to chirp with heartfelt messages of Read more ...
Steve Clarkson
As a giggling toddler posed for a photograph next to a pink sheep, a man in a Barbour jacket moaned about losing his garlic-crusher. On the lake, smitten newlyweds enjoyed a gondola ride, while, somewhere else, an elderly couple watched a show so moving it made them cry. Yes, this could have happened in one place only – the leafy surroundings of Henham Park, near Southwold in Suffolk, at Latitude Festival.The arts event has just enjoyed its seventh July, and retains a vibrant cultural miscellaneousness. In fact 750 music, theatre, art, comedy, cabaret, poetry, politics, dance, literature and Read more ...
howard.male
In the grim windowless warehouse that is the Village Underground, Eighties hip-hop-pop princess Neneh Cherry told us that her current return to all things jazzy and experiment was born just down the road in Acton. This is only interesting in the sense that her three collaborators, The Thing, actually come from Sweden where Cherry herself is also based.After several minutes of competitive screaming from both Ms Cherry and Mats Gustafsson’s baritone sax, a groove started to form from the primal free-jazz swamp and a song recognisable as Martina Topley-Bird’s “Too Tough to Die” gradually Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Occasionally sounds from the dance underground come blasting into the wider pop world through sheer zest. It’s not that these tunes veer from the essential clubland blueprint of simply keeping the dancefloor full – as opposed to rock’n’pop’s focus on songs and melody – but that their ebullience makes them irresistible to a wider audience than was ever anticipated. Think of The Prodigy, Chase & Status or Dizzee Rascal’s “Bonkers” and now add Sleepin’ Giantz to the list.Sleepin’ Giantz do not have major-label backing so may not be thrust immediately into the wider limelight but, musically, Read more ...
theartsdesk
Jimmy Page: Lucifer Rising and Other SoundtracksKieron TylerWith Led Zeppelin established as world-beaters in 1971, Jimmy Page was probably entitled to take some time off. Instead, in the wake of the release of their fourth album, they criss-crossed the world in 1972. When at home, Page somehow found time to work on the soundtrack for the Kenneth Anger film Lucifer Rising. It’s been bootlegged and the first official appearance of this mysterious chapter in Page’s musical life plugs a gap. Page himself has released it on his own label and contributes brief liner notes.Strictly speaking, this Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After his über-memorable performance at Her Majesty’s jubilee concert, the next step on Sir Elton John’s journey through 2012 is just as arresting, but less likely to be dusted off at such conventional occasions. In fact, it’s hard to see how he could even perform his new album outside a club setting. Good Morning to the Night could have been a colossal misfire. It’s not. It’s spiffy.The story of its genesis doesn’t need repeating in detail. Sir Elton heard and liked Australian electro-dance duo Pnau, scooped them up for his management portfolio and offered access to the masters of his early Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
When he joined up with John Oates, Daryl Hall became half of one of the most successful duos in pop history, which has sold upwards of 60 million albums. From the mid-Seventies to the late Eighties, the pair notched six platinum albums and posted a remarkable streak of hit singles. Six of them were American chart-toppers, including "Kiss On My List", "Rich Girl", "Private Eyes" and "Out of Touch", while even the ones which didn't reach Number One became pop standards anyway, including "Sara Smile" and "Family Man".Born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania in October 1946, Hall majored in music at Read more ...
Nick Levine
There's something about Frank Ocean that sets him apart from other male R&B singers. It's not the letter he wrote on his personal blog last week revealing that his first love was a man. It's his songwriting: Ocean sketches out a scene with economy and aplomb, then illustrates with indelible detail.Ocean's stint with the Odd Future collective, home to several controversial but verbally dextrous rappers, will have sharpened his pencil. But he's clearly a natural storyteller and a keen observer anyway. See how he skewers the lifestyles of "Super Rich Kids" with a single line: "Too many Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It is sometimes hard to be enthused by midweek gigs. Last night was one of those occasions, at least for the 30 seconds I thought I was going to be watching most of the show on the iPhone screen of the six feet of beard that planked itself in front of me just in time for the music starting. Those are the nights you need, as Sharon van Etten might say, “something that’s hard to describe”. Something that changes your mood, and makes you smile, and doesn’t happen all of the time. Something fun.If you’re at all familiar with Tramp, the third album from Brooklyn-based van Etten which came out at Read more ...
theartsdesk
Peter has just come back from Lagos, so the first part of the show is a brief tour d’horizon of the dynamic Nigerian pop scene, featuring Asa, Tiwa Savage, 2Face, Flavour and D’Banj, the “Koko-Master”, who has just had his first UK Top 10 hit with “Oliver Twist”. Also discussed is the musical marriage and messy divorce between Don Jazzy and D’banj, who has signed to Kanye West's label world-wide, as well as the fact that Ye is rumoured to be an Illuminati. Is Nigerian pop about to go global? Quite possibly.Joe has been in Paris listening to the first play of the revolutionary new Mala album: Read more ...