electronica
Joe Muggs
Steven Ellison is one of the most fascinating figures in modern music. Son of Motown songwriter Marylin McLeod and nephew to Alice Coltrane, he's inspired in equal part by his own musical heritage, the slow-and-low hip hop of his home state of California, and British electronica and drum and bass. His fans include Damon Albarn, Erykah Badu and Thom Yorke (the latter appearing on this year's triumphant Cosmogramma album), his Brainfeeder and Low End Theory collective of musicians and DJs are among the hippest on earth, and the world is pretty much his oyster. But can he transform his intensely Read more ...
Joe Muggs
The Green Man festival takes place this coming weekend at the Glanusk estate near Abergavenny in the rolling hills of the Brecon Beacons. What begun in 2003 as a glorified gig for the husband and wife duo It's Jo And Danny has become the very epitome of the 21st-century “boutique festival” - indeed is very possibly responsible for that concept itself.As well as reclaiming the rock festival from bovine crowds and sensory overload, the Green Man also provided a nexus for a rising scene of hirsute youngsters intent on mining musical source material outside the standard canons of rock and club Read more ...
Joe Muggs
One doesn't want to be prejudiced about audiences, but when you go to see a show by a “pioneer of electronic music”, particularly one in his seventies, you most likely expect a crowd that are fairly male, fairly unfunky and tending towards the middle-aged. And to be fair, there were a good few paunches and beards in evidence at the Luminaire – but there were also a quite startling number of young, dressed-up, attractive and really rather groovy twenty-somethings of both (and indeterminate) genders milling about the place too.Listen to "Oscillations" and "Seagreen Serenades" by Silver Apples ( Read more ...
bruce.dessau
I don't know exactly what they do in the music classes at Putney’s Elliott School, but it seems to do the trick. Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green went there 50 years ago and now, after admittedly a bit of a lull, the school is positively spitting stars out by the vanload. Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, attended, Hot Chip's members are Elliott alumni and The xx are the latest schoolkids on the block, with their self-titled 2009 debut album tipped to be a serious Mercury Prize contender.Onstage last night, however, the Twilight-style black-garbed trio of vocalist/ bassist Oliver Sim, percussionist Read more ...
theartsdesk
This month's most interesting new music CDs according to theartsdesk music team includes a dark take on sex and consumerism by The-Dream, which is CD of the Month, "morally ambiguous" South London gangsta rap from Giggs, disco pop from Sia, Scissor Sisters and Robyn, "indietronica" from Grasscut and Tobacco, heritage rock from Tom Petty, immaculate jazz from David Weiss and a compilation of old Colombian dance music. Stinker of the Month is Eminem who is cordially advised to take up religion, get fat or do charity work. Reviewers this month are Joe Muggs, Thomas H Green, Bruce Dessau, Howard Read more ...
david.cheal
If the power-generating companies in the London area noticed a sudden surge in electricity consumption late on Sunday afternoon, I think I can explain why: many thousands of hair-straighteners and other beautifying devices were doubtless being put to use in the run-up to Lady Gaga’s show at the O2 Arena, the first of two nights in London. This was one of those shows that people got dressed up for, made themselves glamorous for; it was a big night out, and the result, as the O2 Arena filled up, was a sea of very straight and very shiny hair, often decorated with bows and flowers (though I also Read more ...
theartsdesk
This month's most delicious sounds found by our reviewers include a return to form by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett and bassist Charlie Haden, new electronica/grime from Rude Kid, impressive debuts from Villagers and Hindi Zahra, and the latest from Band Of Horses, Tracey Thorn, Teenage Fan Club, Nina Nastasia, Konono No1, Bobby McFerrin and the Ipanemas. CD of the month is by the "lovely and kaleidoscopic" Afro-Colombian band Choc Quib Town. Reviewers are Robert Sandall, Sue Steward, Howard Male, Graeme Thomson, Russ Coffey, Bruce Dessau, Thomas H Green, Marcus O'Dair, Joe Muggs, Peter Quinn, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Quasi, Bye Bye Blackbird (Domino) The "Bye Bye Blackbird" on offer here is not the jazz stalwart favoured by everyone from Peggy Lee to Miles Davis. It is, instead, a garage guitar-pop concoction from perennial underdog trio Quasi from Portland, Oregon, that prolific centre of American indie guitar raucousness. At the core of the band, ex-husband and wife Sam Coombes and Janet Weiss have always appeared happy, throughout eight albums, to veer into wilful lo-fi messiness whenever their natural aptitude for a tasty melodic song threatens to interfere. This time, though, they've blown it.The Read more ...
theartsdesk
This month's most intriguing and fabulous CDs are headed up by the strange and beautiful electronica of Scuba and a magnum opus from Natalie Merchant. Highlights include music from the offspring of the famous from Jakob Dylan and Harper Simon, maverick country from Willie Nelson and superior offerings from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, "hearfelt and hopping mad" music from John Grant, gypsy punk from Gogol Bordello, ethereal jazz from Food and a brace from South Africa. Stinker of the Month is the latest from the overrated Paul Weller. theartsdesk's reviewers are Robert Sandall, Joe Muggs, Read more ...
Paul McGee
One of the recurring themes in BBC4's recent documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth Of Germany, was the importance placed by so many of its participants upon transcending Germany's then-recent past. Move on several decades, and you now have a country with a rich, varied and unique musical culture that not only has a global reach and influence, but which can also afford the luxury of being able to look back at itself and even have a little fun at its own expense.The Berlin Sounds evening at this year's Ether festival highlighted all this and more, bringing together both veteran and modern Read more ...
Joe Muggs
“I'm moving to Berlin.” In artistic circles and especially those that include electronic musicians, over the past few years such a threat has become so commonplace as to be cliché. It's not without reason, though. For one, despite gentrification, Berlin has endless space (and empty industrial artistic “spaces”) and its cost of living is about a two-hundredth that of London. And just as importantly, it is more soaked in electronic music than anywhere else on the planet.From the Weimar Republic, through West Berlin's defiant isolation, the city thrived on decadent nightlife; electronic Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Two London clubs currently appear to be under threat. The Ministry of Sound, one of the most successful brands in club music's history, is kicking up a fuss because new housing block planned opposite it may make it vulnerable to noise complaints. Meanwhile, rumours have flown around over the last 48 hours that police are lobbying Hackney Council against Plastic People in Shoreditch whose licence is currently under review for reasons of “prevention of crime and disorder and public nuisance basis”.It's funny that these two have become news at the same time, as you could not find two more Read more ...