New music
Thomas H. Green
The Roundhouse is a melee of moneyed cosmopolitan twentysomething trendies. The beautiful people are out in force. My God, there are some delicious women and men here, expensively dressed, uptown couture to the hilt, a hefty smattering of languages from around the globe. Unexpectedly, for me at least, 22-year-old Chilean-American electronica prodigy Nicolas Jaar has the most chi-chi gig in London tonight. This is not a plus – the queues at the bar are half-an-hour long, dilettante party people buying rounds of exotic shots and bottles of bubbly, waving wodges of tenners about. And while Jaar’ Read more ...
bruce.dessau
I don't know if Mark Ronson was too busy or too expensive to produce Maverick Sabre's debut album, but although his name does not feature in the credits the spirit of the mixmeister behind Back to Black looms large here. Which is both a plus and a minus. If you loved the immaculate retro-soul of Amy Winehouse – and Plan B's soulman rebirth – you will love 21-year-old Michael Stafford's impressive stab at the same sub-genre. If you don't? Poor you. I'm sure there is someone from The X Factor to meet your musical needs.Lonely are the Brave has much going for it. For starters, Stafford has a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The Chemical Brothers have long had one of the most vital shows around. It’s a visual spectacular that can only be likened to peak-time Pink Floyd or Jean-Michel Jarre, yet precision-tooled, without the bombast of those acts. Their long-term visual designer, Adam Smith, is mostly responsible and now he’s shot a concert film of the electronic duo’s appearance at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan last year. Smith has directed a few bits and bobs before, notably the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit, and he’s the perfect choice to take the Chemical Brothers experience into the cinema.He doesn’t, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The dust will eventually settle around the flapdoodle about withdrawn albums, whether Lana Del Rey is authentic, a fabulist construct or rubbish live. And when it does, this, the debut album, will be left. There’s no doubt that “Video Games” and its follow-up “Born to Die” were terrific singles, sieving the existential drift of Julee Cruise and Chris Isaak through a hip-hop sensibility. The package was completed by the irresistible Del Rey voice, a downer-dosed Stevie Nicks.Whatever the carping, the former Elisabeth Grant’s name is all over Born to Die. She – as Lana Del Rey – has written Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Laura Veirs may be increasingly seen by some as an “undiscovered gem”, but to others she still comes over a bit too corn-fed to warm to. Of course, the much applauded Year of Meteors and July Flame contain some mighty pretty moments, but there’s also a sense that they belong to a slightly smug American West-Coast eco-culture. But now, recent mother Veirs has released an album of “children’s folk songs,” gaining rave reviews. Would last night's show find her fuzzy and huggable, intimate, or just a little too worthy?When Veirs walked on stage in a “vegan chic” vintage pea-green dress and horn- Read more ...
howard.male
Last night was one of those occasions when I found myself looking forward to seeing the support band more than the main act. This wasn’t because Senegal’s sublime Orchestra Baobab haven't delivered a transportive heart-warming set of Cuban and soukous grooves every time I’ve seen them live. It was simply because Belgium-based Congolese rapper Baloji made Kinshasa Succusale - one of my favourite albums of last year.This extremely diverse collection of tunes relies heavily on a talented array of guest musicians (Amp Fiddler, Konono No1, Royce Mbumba and La Chorale de la Grace, to name but Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
A semantic side effect of my longish involvement in music culture has been hearing certain phrases pass from fringe slang obscurity to mainstream acceptance. Among these is the term “chill out”, purloined by ravers from the hippies to describe post-club Ecstasy comedown music, especially after the KLF used it. By the early 2000s, however, “chill out” was tired and ubiquitous, conjuring images of candlelit Primrose Hill dinner parties where Zero 7 played predictably, coolly in the background.If there was a tipping point in this process it was Air’s extremely successful 1998 debut album Moon Read more ...
graeme.thomson
Exactly three years ago, late in the morning of 29 January, 2009, the news began to circulate that John Martyn had died at the age of 60. I spent the following 24 hours or so talking to many of his cronies to help assemble a tribute feature for a music magazine. Chris Blackwell, the man who had signed him to Island in 1967, had just stepped off a plane in Jamaica. He sounded fuzzy and uncertain. He knew Martyn was dead but needed details. “What happened, I haven’t heard?” he asked. Pneumonia, I told him. “Ah, God, that’ll do you in.”Bert Jansch sounded even more doleful and lugubrious than Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
If The Wombles had made this it would likely raise a smile despite its lame, lazy nostalgic guitar pop. It even goes as far as to include a feeble version of seminal skiffle song "Rock Island Line". The harsh words it deserves, however, are tempered with pathos, for Ringo 2012 only garners limelight because its creator was drummer for the biggest band of all time. Despite the constant Beatles hagiography of the frotting heritage rock press, these days no one under 50 has personal recall of their epic impact (the rest of us watch BBC Four documentaries and sigh). The Beatles led Western pop Read more ...
peter.quinn
Soweto Kinch's set last night as part of the eXplorations mini-series featured gluttony, envy and a host of other vices. No, not A Life in the Day of an Investment Banker, but a tantalising glimpse of Kinch's take on the Seven Deadly Sins.Presenting material from Kinch's most recent release (The New Emancipation) in the first half, “Trying to be a Star” set the mood for the entire evening: a riotous mix of sax, bass, drums, pre-recorded material and spoken/sung elements, with Kinch flexing his singing voice on the chorus hook. From the outset, his rhythm section of bassist Karl Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Before The Beatles touched down there in 1964, British pop was barely a concern for America. The first in this three-part series took The Beatles arrival as the year zero for British pop’s conquering of America. An entertaining canter through an over-familiar slice of pop history, Go West was enlivened by some top-drawer talking heads including Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page. No Rolling Stones though.But it was great to see members of The Animals, Hollies, Searchers and Zombies given the chance to reminisce. American context came from veteran DJ Larry Kane, New York Doll Syl Sylvain, Jackie Read more ...