electronica
Thomas H. Green
The time of giving is here and what better presents than great slabs of lovely vinyl; sounds that bring joy to all. Our last theartsdesk on Vinyl of the year is packed with boxsets and reissues as well as a couple of seasonal bits. From a Shrek picture-disc to Kate Bush's entire back catalogue to Los Angeles’ latest alt-tronica, there are more music flavours here than even Santa can claim (having been to his crib, we can assure Santa’s vinyl collection is pretty limited, with the exception of a wall of Doom Metal). So, theartsdesk on Vinyl wishes you a top 2019 and every good thing for the Read more ...
Katie Colombus
I’ve noticed a stark shift in transition of the kind of music I want to spend my time listening to over 2018. I’ve slowed down. I’ve started listening to Radio 6. I’m a little bit in love with Mary Anne Hobbs. And I bought a record player.Constructed playlists of relentless bangers have been replaced by a mellow experience of sound – tactile and intimate. The mere nature of placing needle on vinyl makes me sit nearby, take time to stop what I’m doing, and just listen. I'm tired of the relentless buzz and noise of being always on, the addiction to 'results' whether of Spotify most Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s the season of giving so theartsdesk on Vinyl feels compelled to draw your attention to Unicef’s Blue Vinyl campaign. This sees 17 celebrated albums auctioned off in special editions on givergy.com with all proceeds going to Unicef’s Children's Emergency Relief Fund. Albums include classics by David Bowie, Kate Bush, Alicia Keys, Ozzie Osbourne, Jimi Hendrix and… The Spice Girls. Go and have a look. Meanwhile, watch out next week for the boxset-jammed Christmas theartsdesk on Vinyl special, but right now, here’s the first of our two December editions. What’s new and juicy and plastic? Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Recent years have seen a boom in music documentaries. They are, after all, relatively cheap to make and have a readymade audience. Their narratives are usually similar, and so it is with The Man From Mo’Wax: fame and glory, followed by a fall from grace, followed by self-reflection, absolution and a glimmer of fresh success. What many of them also offer is a sense of wild passion, of the raw, unfettered power of music. This film has little of that. It’s a tale of too-cool-for-school hipsters (at least, that’s how we’d term them now), with the too-cool-for-school-est of them all, Mo’Wax boss Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Enough hyping! This month, without further ado, let’s head straight to the reviews…VINYL OF THE MONTHLOR Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (Lo Records)With Public Service Broadcasting’s The Race for Space making a noise only three years ago (and First Man doing the rounds at the cinema), who’d have thunk there was an appetite for more moon landing-based electronica. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t, but Belfast DJ-producer LOR has gone for it anyway, with a deliciously warm and quirky two sides of technotronic goodness. A lunar orbit rendezvous is the process by which astronauts travel from their Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
London’s Palace Theatre this week celebrated the thousandth performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened there back in 2016. Like everything else JK Rowing puts her hand to, it’s been an outrageous success, taking the post-Hogwarts wizarding world further into the future than any other part of the franchise. At least that’s what I understand: I’ve only watched four of the films and read none of the books. However, the music from the production, in and of its own right, assuredly has something.Imogen Heap has been many times around the music biz block, never quite making it Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“That’s what we fucking do!” So says Maxim at the concert’s very end, surveying the sweating, raving carnage of 4,500 souls before him. One of The Prodigy’s two frontman, he stands still finally, after spending the rest of the gig pacing and rushing up and down the lip of the stage like a caged panther. We all know what he means. He means that his band have wrung us out, taken us to a fervour of devil-may-care limb-swinging derangement. The Prodigy always bring the party and, yet again, 28 years into their career, they wreak havoc in a way very few bands of any age or era can.The stage Read more ...
Guy Oddy
One of the major abiding musical memories of the late 1990s for many wasn’t so much five Mancunians ripping off Beatles’ songs, but Keith Flint of The Prodigy, growling “I’m a Firestarter/Twisted Firestarter” while all kinds of electronic battery was let loose. The Essex Crew may no longer be the media folk devils of “Firestarter” and “Smack My Bitch Up” but they still pack a mighty punch and No Tourists, their first album since 2015’s The Day Is My Enemy and their seventh in all, is ample proof that Liam, Keith and Maxim have no intentions of sitting on their laurels anytime yet.Rocking a Read more ...
theartsdesk
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why. Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small but perfectly sleazy work of sweary, cynical brillianceBob Dylan - More Blood, More Tracks ★★★★★ The fourteenth volume in the Bootleg Series is a keeperBrad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution! ★★★★★ Prolific improvising pianist creates the apotheosis of the piano trioThe Breeders - All Nerve ★★★★★ Kim and Kelly Deal - plus Read more ...
Owen Richards
It’s been a tough few years for Sŵn Festival. Once a genuine rival to fellow urban festivals Great Escape and Sound City, recent events have fluctuated between one-dayers and a string of ticketed gigs. 2018 marked the biggest change yet, but also a return to the multi-day, multi-venue format. Founders Huw Stephens and John Rostron announced they were handing over the reigns to Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff’s leading music venue. This fresh injection of enthusiasm and experience was just what the festival needed. This year, Sŵn was spread over four days: large single gigs on Wednesday and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Ex Mykah is a multi-instrumentalist and producer on the LA music scene who’s worked with the names such as Mark Ronson and Miike Snow. His own debut album sounds very far from either of those. Instead it comes from the warped, alt-hip hop end of the pop spectrum, while also recalling that brief Noughties blog flourish “chillwave” (the likes of Neon Indian and Washed Out). This is music dipped deep in a woozy, druggy feel, but which also never wanders far from an actual tune.Ex Mykah is Colombian-Cuban-American Bryan Senti who deeply resents the direction his country has taken and the PR Read more ...
graham.rickson
Handel: Works for Keyboard Philippe Grisvard (harpsichord) (Audax)Mention Handel's keyboard output and most folks (including saps like me) will think of his eight imposing Suites… and that's about it. Which is why harpsichordist Philippe Grisvard’s new collection is so useful in plugging the gaps, an attempt “to explore the different faces of Handel”, taking in the years between 1700 and 1740. Grisvard also throws in short pieces by musicians who played a key role in Handel's development. Like his teacher Friedrich William Zachow, whose little Capriccio in D minor is a treat: its four minutes Read more ...