Last month I thought I'd gone deaf. After decades of standing too close to the loudspeakers I'd finally got my comeuppance and my ears had given up the ghost. I was at Joan As Police Woman's gig at the Barbican and the music sounded like a muffled whisper, as if someone was talking to me from the other side of the room through a ball of cotton wool.Luckily it turned out that it wasn't me, it was them. Joan apologised for the sludgy mix and explained that it had been perfectly fine during the soundcheck but some gremlins had decided to rain on her sonic parade. The sound improved a little Read more ...

Some say that R.E.M. haven't made a great album since original drummer Bill Berry left in 1997. Others don't care whether they have or not. But regardless of whether Collapse Into Now is "great", it's an excellent R.E.M. disc which erases the memory of equivocal efforts like Reveal or Around the Sun. It does so by successfully re-establishing contact with the band's original strengths (guitars, harmonies and a whiff of folk-rock mysticism) and doing it with a barrelling rush of energy which verges on the phenomenal for a band now past its 30th birthday. Maybe it's taken this long for the Read more ...

Halfway through last night’s show, as songs segued and smooshed into each other, it became clear that Robyn has perfected a high-concept pop that’s impossible to place geographically. She might be Swedish, but bloopy Chicago house, Euro electro and synthetic Japanese new wave are in the mix. A human blender, she’s at a peak – visibly fizzing.Although she says she has a throat infection – probably the reason for the single-song encore (“With Every Heartbeat”) – she's constantly throwing martial arts shapes and flinging herself side to side as though she’s experiencing an alien attack on the Read more ...

On paper Jessie J is an amazing pop star. Great looking but not willing to play the eager-to-please dollybird, full of cheeky Essex girl vim and verve, clearly musically multitalented, thoroughly immersed in soul and funk, and with a healthy pair of lungs to boot – as her early solo YouTube appearances (see below) amply demonstrated.And there are bits of this album where she shows what she's capable of, in particular the high-kicking cabaret blues with dubstep bass of “Mamma Knows Best” in which she hollers her heart out like Christina Aguilera at her belting best. “Casualty of Love” is Read more ...

Since breaking through with her 1992 debut album Dry, PJ Harvey has constantly been on the move, changing and evolving, both musically and sartorially. Last night at the Troxy in East London was no exception. As she walked onstage dressed in a long black frock with a riot of matching feathers exploding from her head, she resembled Lady Gaga's bonkers West Country Edwardian ancestor.The music, on the other hand, was less harebrained, but frequently breathtaking, as Harvey worked her way through her new album. Let England Shake explores the nature of war, concluding that we do not seem capable Read more ...

Listening to The Human League’s Credo is a bit like listening to one of Ray Davies’s more recent outings – you know they’ve both said all they have to say years ago, but there is still something very pleasing about just hearing them do their thing. I use the word "say", advisedly, as part of Credo’s charm is its prosaic half-spoken words, strong on storylines yet purposely piling banality on top of cliché, where “stranger” rhymes with “danger” and we learn things like “There is a place the night people go/ There is a place that only night people know”.Musically Read more ...

The White Stripes may have just announced their retirement but theartsdesk can report that the boy/girl two piece is still alive and well in the form of She Keeps Bees, a Brooklyn-based band currently on a mini-tour around Britain and Europe. Here it’s the girl, Jess Larrabee on guitar, and boy, Andy LaPlant on drums. The sound is superficially similar to The White Stripes with Larrabee delivering gutsy blues rock guitar, but vocally she sounds more like PJ Harvey stranded in Tennessee during a full moon. The soon-to-be-released sophomore album, Dig On, was self-recorded in a log cabin in Read more ...

Oslo’s annual by:Larm festival celebrates Nordic music. Over the three days, just under 180 acts play Norway's capital: 142 are Norwegian, 15 are Swedish, with single figures each for Iceland, Denmark, Finland and even Greenland. Time presses, and hard choices have to be made about what to see. This year, by:Larm also hosted the inaugural Nordic Music Prize, awarded to Iceland’s Jõnsi, for his recent album Go. Overjoyed, but overwhelmed, in reaction he said little more than, “Thank you so much, I’m really bad at this.”HRH the Crown Prince Haakon Magnus of Norway presented the award. Quoting Read more ...

In 1970, Annie Nightingale became Radio 1’s first female DJ. The appointment was made somewhat grudgingly - DJs, believe it or not (and we’re talking about the likes of Ed “Stewpot” Stewart and Tony Blackburn here), were perceived to be “husband substitutes” and it was generally accepted that a female voice would alienate the listeners. And yet 40 years later, Nightingale is the only DJ left from the original line-up.She has always been passionate about discovering and sharing underground and new music – quite a heady mix over the past four decades - and thanks to her championing of Read more ...

It is a crowded market for primate reunions at the moment. In the same week that Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz announced that they are hardnosing the highway again minus Mike Nesmith, the original line-up of eighties pop nuts The Blow Monkeys release an all-new album. While the former will no doubt opt for pure nostalgia on their forthcoming tour, the latter, led as ever by Dr Robert, aka Robert Howard, are rather more creative.On this follow-up to 2008's Devil's Tavern, the shiny pop soul of "Digging Your Scene" and "It Doesn't Have To Be This Way" is largely gone, replaced by a Read more ...

Hot on the heels of the Pet Shop Boys’ foray into ballet for Sadler’s Wells next month, it’s revealed that Sir Paul McCartney has composed a ballet for New York City Ballet, a love story called Ocean’s Kingdom.Scheduled to premiere on 22 September, the four-act ballet so far has 45 minutes of music, and a cast of around 40. The New York Times reports that the first act is having its first run-through next Thursday at the Lincoln Center, NYCB’s home stage.The world premiere will be half of a gala programme including George Balanchine’s Union Jack, as a compliment to Sir Paul’s Britishness. Read more ...

This month's Singles & Downloads leads off with a new one from an absolute kingpin of US pop and hip hop. However, the focus is equally on the backwaters and curious places where other lively varieties of music dwell. From dancehall raucousness to erudite indie, from ranty punk to funk reinterpretations of American minimalist composition, all pop life is here and keenly assessed by Thomas H Green and Joe Muggs.Kanye West, All of the Lights (Def Jam) It is a preposterous notion, trying to cram vocals from Elton John, Alicia Keys, Fergie, John Legend, and Elly Jackson of La Roux all onto Read more ...