New music
joe.muggs
The Seventies “Kosmische” music of Germany – the more spaced-out and synthesister-led counterpart to Krautrock that had its commercial apogee in Tangerine Dream – seems to be a gift that keeps on giving. Perhaps because the releases were for so many years mainly obscure and had to be hunted down by passionate and/or deranged followers, it has built a global network of followers who extend its principles into new music. From Gorillaz' Damon Albarn to techno legends like Carl Craig, its rippling synth patterns and sidereal twinkles can be heard woven into the fabric of popular culture. And Read more ...
howard.male
The Killer B’s have been heralded as a kind of alternative supergroup (their line-up consisting of ex-members of The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Chicken Legs Weaver and The Men They Couldn’t Hang) so my expectations last night were high. But a poor sound system, in conjunction with the band’s desire to play much too loud for that poor sound system, ended up making it very hard to judge whether I was hearing the future of rock’n’roll or just another pub rock band.The irony with full-on raucous rock‘n’roll is that it’s a fine art. You might think that it’s just about plugging a cheap guitar Read more ...
david.cheal
This is pretty weird stuff. Or at least, that’s the way it seems at first. If all you know, as I did to begin with, is that DJ Diamond is a 24-year-old DJ from the West Side of Chicago whose real name is Karlis Griffin, and that Flight Muzik is his debut album, then this will seem like music from another planet – one where notions such as melody, structure and listenability have little meaning; it’s music, but not as most of us know it.The rhythms are complex and multilayered – often there’s more than one going on at the same time: a hummingbird-fast heartbeat as the backdrop, with Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
WOMAD is in its 29th year, and ticket sales have gone up 29 per cent, we are told, with over 35,000 sold. World music, always rather beyond fashion, is thriving, at least in this live festival incarnation in Wiltshire. One criticism, according to The Independent among others (made by trendy middle-class people in a fit of self-loathing, generally), was that there were too many Cath Kidston tents and it has become too bourgeois. But there was enough strangeness and idiosyncrasy on display to undermine the idea that WOMAD has become complacent in its middle age.In fact, WOMAD has expanded Read more ...
sue.steward
Ten o'clock at night and the WOMAD air felt as hot as Dakar preparing for Baaba Maal. Sadly, given this year's hugely expanded audience, it was hard to see the stage unless you know how to glide to the front like a snake (which years of festival practice have taught me). Though I still missed close views of the opening three songs and the singer’s acoustic guitar accompaniment, it was impossible not to hear his voice, even adjusted to unusually soft and mellow soulful tones rather than the familiarly sharp, declamatory style that pierces the heart.A slow start and build-up was a plan Read more ...
mark.kidel
Late on Friday night at WOMAD, on the more intimate Charlie Gillett Stage in Charlton Park, there was an unusual cross-cultural treat. Ballaké Sissoko is one of Mali’s most accomplished kora players: not as well known as his Bamako next-door neighbour Toumani Diabaté and more firmly rooted in Manding musical tradition, but undoubtedly in the same class. Vincent Ségal is a brilliant French cellist who moves with consummate ease from the classical repertoire to free jazz. They are both technical virtuosi but neither of them plays to the gallery.
In a manner consonant with some of the Read more ...
howard.male
I’m pleased to report that the expression “like father like son” becomes more applicable to Vieux Farka Touré with each album he makes. But perhaps I should qualify that statement. It’s not about Vieux slavishly imitating the legendary Malian blues man’s unique guitar style, or becoming in any way a tribute act. But what The Secret represents is a certain maturing of his style and a noticeable calming down of his dependence on the kind of rock clichés and histrionics that can still mar his live performances.Also there are fewer nods towards hip hop or the dance floor. Instead the Read more ...
matilda.battersby
It was the invasion of the collapsible chairs at this year’s Co-operative Cambridge Folk Festival. From above it appeared that an army of extremely well-equipped picnickers was staking its claim on the quarter of a mile surrounding the main stage using only fold-up chairs, checked blankets and pints of cider, occasionally lobbing colourful balloon missiles into the air. To call it civilised would be an understatement. It was quite simply extraordinary how far people had gone in pursuit of convenience. Those of us poor sods who sat on the floor could barely see for the sea of green canvas Read more ...
joe.muggs
“Huxley! Electra!” called a plummy mummy to a couple of dawdling children. “Hurry up or you'll miss the BMX display!” Thursday night and Camp Bestival was, to a rather comical degree, looking like a playground for slightly funky middle-class families. Not that I was complaining – with an 18-month-old not so much in tow as leading the charge, I was extremely grateful for the regimented, relatively quiet campsite and the untold entertainments and comforts that CB provides. This was my first experience of a festival with said inquisitive toddler, and the experience of having to abide by his Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Cerebral Ballzy’s debut album is over in a good deal less than half an hour. Would that American R&B and hip-hop bands took a cue here rather than filling their CDs with 80 minutes of skits and filler, as if that offered more value for money. Not that Cerebral Ballzy are an American R&B or hip-hop outfit. They are, instead, a New York hardcore punk quintet whose name is designed to make anyone who hears it ask, “Who on earth is this?”Unlike some of their peers – notably the wonderful Deathset – Cerebral Ballzy make no attempt to update raw ballistic walls of guitar with new Read more ...
joe.muggs
The Anticon label is a deepy peculiar animal. Around the turn of the millennium, its core members – going by names like Boom Bip, Doseone, cLOUDdEAD, Jel and So-Called Artists – took a nerdy yet intensely psychedelic approach to hip hop, and ended up creating a woozy and out-there sound that prefigured a huge amount of currently hip music. Now that the appallingly named new shifts in stoner music - “glo-fi” and “chillwave” - are opening up the territory between indie and hip hop/dance again, Anticon seems hugely prescient, but with new artists like Son Lux, it seems the label is once again Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Spencer Krug must have problems knowing the name he should adopt. Over the past six years, he’s played with his main band, Wolf Parade, recorded as or with Fifths of Seven, Frog Eyes, Moonface, Sunset Rubdown and Swan Lake. Organ Music not Vibraphone Music Like I’d Hoped is his second release as Moonface, a guise he now reserves for his entirely solo work. Organ Music... is quirky, but worth hearing.
Wolf Parade (nothing to do with Wolf Gang) are often driving, anthemic indie rockers on a line between Animal Collective and Krug’s fellow Montréal dwellers Arcade Fire. Moonface, though, follows Read more ...