New music
joe.muggs
“Post-classical” the FatCat label call it, and well they might. All three of the acts who played at the Barbican last night in one way or another used the instrumentation of the classical concert hall but in a way that was completely dislodged from tradition – not raging against it, nor fighting to escape it in the sense of high modernism, nor reviving it, but rather looking back on it as something other, something of a different era.Dustin O'Halloran's music is lyrical, strange and very pretty. It has something of the TV soundtrack about it, but as Noël Coward so rightly put it, it's Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Often it can seem the sheer struggle of early reggae gets lost in all that happy, spliff-smoking Rastafarianism of Bob Marley's Legend. For one-time label-mate Jimmy Cliff, however, there was never any sense of “every little thing's going to be alright”. In the 1972 film The Harder They Come, he played a musician forced into crime and eventually shot by the police. And as a singer-songwriter, over a 50-year career, he has sung of injustice and hope. Last night, in front of a rambunctious indigO2, a 64-year-old Cliff showed he has absolutely no intention of mellowing.This concert was Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It's hard to remember sometimes, as you hum along to the singalong refrains and soaring choruses of their relative hits such as "Trains to Brazil" or "Get Over It", that Guillemots have never been a pop band. Rather, the four-piece have always provided the musical manifestations of some of the more deranged ideas flitting through fabulously named frontman Fyfe Dangerfield's head at any given time. Songs that seem charming enough on the surface reveal more with every listen, whether it's the clever instrumentation or the lyrical flights of fancy or - as early as the band's debut - the 11- Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Being pigeonholed as "disco" became the kiss of death for many of the genre's lesser lights, but a select handful were able to transcend its limitations. Chic and the Bee Gees managed it, and so did Donna Summer, disco's so-called "First Lady of Love" whose career stretched over four decades. Having hooked up with Giorgio Moroder to help define the hypnotic, hedonistic message of disco, Summer was subsequently able to embrace pop, rock and gospel music. Her powerful, soulful voice lent conviction wherever her musical explorations led her.Her background and upbringing had left her equipped to Read more ...
Natalie Shaw
Scissor Sisters’ breakout cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” was so downright preposterous it looked likely to doom the New Yorkers to one-hit wonder status; it’s the kind of balls-out release that comes along only very infrequently. Thankfully for everyone, however, they’ve gone on to become one of our most treasured pop acts - headlining arena tours in the UK, enjoying life at the top of the charts and attracting fans from across the board.That gaiety, slink and uncompromised cultural slant have remained consistent throughout their nine-year reign in the mainstream. On the verge of Read more ...
graeme.thomson
In the eight years since the fourth – and very possibly last - Blue Nile album, High, Paul Buchanan has seen his band disintegrate and a close friend die. Little wonder, then, that his solo debut is a reflective record. The most cinematic of bands, the Blue Nile's ravishing sound-pictures generally came in widescreen; Mid Air may be a more intimate, art house affair, but it is no less affecting.Mostly recorded in Buchanan’s Glasgow flat over the course of a couple of years, there's not much to it: 14 songs, as beautiful as they are brief, consisting of soft piano, the occasional daub of Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Spoek Mathambo is one the year's brightest new hopes. From Johannesburg but based in Sweden, Spoek (real name Nthato Mokgata) plays with genres like few others. He makes radical, sometimes disjointed music, some of which - like his new single “Let Them Talk” from his recently released album Father Creeper - you can actually dance to.Spoek got a lot of attention last year with his cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control", but I began by asking him about Die Antwoord, the hilarious and brilliant white rap group who created a lot of waves in 2010. He and his band are currently on tour in the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In an on-point attempt to shake things up a bit, Artsdesk writer Joe Muggs suggested the new Squarepusher album should be reviewed by someone other than an old raver. There were, unfortunately, no takers so you’re stuck with me… an old raver. Then again, look on the bright side, look at this way - I’m fully qualified! Thus, although I cannot tell whether you’ll enjoy this if you wasted the last decade dredging slowly from The Strokes to Adele, if you revel in the sound of electronic trickery twisting your synapses inside out – wahay! – you’re home dry.Enough with the self-indugent intro, Read more ...
graeme.thomson
My, what strange and wondrous treasures await the record producer given exclusive access to the private vaults of a Beatle. He will, for instance, find entire radio programmes preserved on multi-track tape, and recordings of F1 cars roaring past at some unspecified race track. He will stumble upon a humbled Fab being given his very first sitar lesson by Ravi Shankar, and be privy to a brief musical moment beamed in across the decades from a room at the Jaipur Palace Hotel. There will be a few decent songs, too.One day every last 1/4 inch of this eccentric audio trove may well be exposed to Read more ...
bruce.dessau
If you are old enough to recall the heady excitement of running out of breath as you hurtled to the record store to buy a single on the day of release Words and Music by Saint Etienne will strike an instant chord. This deliciously melancholic concept album is a love letter to the manic pop thrill of music and the way it can overshadow everything and offer a means of emotional escape.As Sarah Cracknell dreamily sings on the statement-of-intent opening track "Over The Border", as a teenager she knew she should have been studying for her mocks but instead "just wanted to listen to Dexys, New Read more ...
theartsdesk
My Bloody Valentine: Isn’t Anything, Loveless, EPs 1988-1991Kieron TylerEach of these three CDs is essential. My Bloody Valentine’s 1988 Isn’t Anything and 1991’s Loveless were era-defining albums that time has done nothing to tarnish. The EPs they released around then are just as indispensable. But the world of My Bloody Valentine is as mysterious as their noise. Reissues were originally scheduled in 2008 and promo copies sent out. But nothing hit the shops. After that, the band began being seen live again, while main man Kevin Shields also cropped up playing with former Creation label mates Read more ...