sat 31/05/2025

New Music reviews, news & interviews

Album: Nick Mulvey - Dark Harvest Pt.1

Thomas H Green

Nick Mulvey’s first two albums, First Mind in 2014 and Wake Up Now in 2017, are among the loveliest singer-songwriter fare released this century. With his last album, 2022’s New Mythology, his ayahuasca-fuelled search for spiritual meaning went full-blown mystic. Where has it led him? To Jesus.

Alan Sparhawk, EartH Theatre review - an absorbing game of two halves from the former Low mainstay

Kieron Tyler

For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan Sparhawk moves ceaselessly. Whirling, arms sweeping like the sails of a windmill, gliding across the stage. He sings, his voice treated: auto-tuned, pitch-shifted. The only breaks come with momentary pauses to set rhythm tracks for the next song. Then, off again.

10 Questions for musician Michael Gira

Guy Oddy

Michael Gira (born 19/2/54) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, author and artist. He founded Swans, a band in which he sings and plays...

Album: Miley Cyrus - Something Beautiful

Joe Muggs

A couple of months ago, I wrote here that Lady Gaga was the godmother of the new generation of ostentatiously “theatre kid” pop stars – but actually...

Album: Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The...

Ibi Keita

Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end result feels...

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 90: Small Faces, ESKA, Luvcat, Dope Lemon, Celia Cruz, Monolake and more

Thomas H Green

The most monstrously huge regular record reviews in the universe

Album: Sally Shapiro - Ready to Live a Lie

Kieron Tyler

Dance music-inspired Swedish pop which lacks the necessary vital spark

Album: Anna Lapwood - Firedove

Sebastian Scotney

Broad repertoire and a strong concept

Music Reissues Weekly: Johnnie Taylor - Who's Making Love The Stax Singles 1966-1970

Kieron Tyler

Proof there’s more to the soul stylist than the first big hit

Album: Morcheeba - Escape the Chaos

Thomas H Green

More of the same from the trip hop perennials but delivered with tunes and ease

Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi

Mark Kidel

Tunisian country roots meet urban tech

Pixies, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - indie veterans pack the house

Guy Oddy

Black Francis and his crew blow the crowd up with tunes old and new

Album: Sports Team - Boys These Days

Thomas H Green

Genial guitar pop that leans into poshness, boasts smart lyrics, but lacks musical bite

Album: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film

Joe Muggs

Picking up their never-ending, archly peculiar groove, after 15 years

The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a feast of music from across the world

Caspar Gomez

Hitting Saturday shows by deBasement, Dog Race, Chloe Leigh, Oh Dirty Fingers & more

Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries

Kieron Tyler

The former Go-Betweens linchpin celebrates life’s quirks and temptations

Music Reissues Weekly: Chapterhouse - White House Demos

Kieron Tyler

What the shoegazers were up to before they were categorised as shoegazers

Songlines Encounters, Kings Place review - West African and Anatolian magic

Tim Cumming

Setting the scene for a weekend of close musical encounters from across the globe

The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into Thursday

Thomas H Green

Running the gamut from Japanese hip-house to Welsh LGBT stadium pop

Album: Rico Nasty - LETHAL

Ibi Keita

From chaos to control, Rico Nasty trades bite for balance

Lucy Farrell, Catherine MacLellan, The Green Note review - sublime frequencies

Tim Cumming

Two singer songwriters in their prime deliver a double header showcase in Camden

Album: Billy Nomates - Metalhorse

Guy Oddy

East Midlands post-punker tries on some yacht rock

Album: MØ - Plæygirl

Thomas H Green

Scandinavian singer injects a dash of outsider melancholy into her fizzing electro-pop

PUP, SWG3, Glasgow review - controlled chaos from Canadian punks

Jonathan Geddes

A no-frills set demonstrated the Toronto quartet's skill with a chorus and a mosh pit

Music Reissues Weekly: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe

Kieron Tyler

Exhaustive guide to how and why a music scene evolved

Supergrass, Barrowland, Glasgow review - nostalgia played with youthful energy

Jonathan Geddes

The Oxford group's revival of their debut album fizzed with excitement

Louis Cole, Roundhouse review - nothing is everything

Peter Quinn

Telepathic grooves and Mahlerian beauty collide in Camden

Album: Peter Doherty - Felt Better Alive

Tim Cumming

Doherty returns with his first solo album in almost a decade

'Classic-era prog’s Olympian pinnacle': Pink Floyd's 'Echoes' returns in their restored Pompeii concert film and as Nick Mason's band's vinyl hit

Graham Fuller

The band's legendary track from 1971 resurfaces not once, but twice

Footnote: a brief history of new music in Britain

New music has swung fruitfully between US and UK influences for half a century. The British charts began in 1952, initially populated by crooners and light jazz. American rock'n'roll livened things up, followed by British imitators such as Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard. However, it wasn't until The Beatles combined rock'n'roll's energy with folk melodies and Motown sweetness that British pop found a modern identity outside light entertainment. The Rolling Stones, amping up US blues, weren't far behind, with The Who and The Kinks also adding a unique Englishness. In the mid-Sixties the drugs hit - LSD sent pop looking for meaning. Pastoral psychedelia bloomed. Such utopianism couldn't last and prog rock alongside Led Zeppelin's steroid riffing defined the early Seventies. Those who wanted it less blokey turned to glam, from T Rex to androgynous alien David Bowie.

sex_pistolsA sea change arrived with punk and its totemic band, The Sex Pistols, a reaction to pop's blandness and much else. Punk encouraged inventiveness and imagination on the cheap but, while reggae made inroads, the most notable beneficiary was synth pop, The Human League et al. This, when combined with glam styling, produced the New Romantic scene and bands such as Duran Duran sold multi-millions and conquered the US.

By the mid-Eighties, despite U2's rise, the British charts were sterile until acid house/ rave culture kicked the doors down for electronica, launching acts such as the Chemical Brothers. The media, however, latched onto indie bands with big tunes and bigger mouths, notably Oasis and Blur – Britpop was born.

By the millennium, both scenes had fizzled, replaced by level-headed pop-rockers who abhorred ostentation in favour of homogenous emotionality. Coldplay were the biggest. Big news, however, lurked in underground UK hip hop where artists adapted styles such as grime, dubstep and drum & bass into new pop forms, creating breakout stars Dizzee Rascal and, more recently, Tinie Tempah. The Arts Desk's wide-ranging new music critics bring you overnight reviews of every kind of music, from pop to unusual world sounds, daily reviews of new releases and downloads, and unique in-depth interviews with celebrated musicians and DJs, plus the quickest ticket booking links. Our writers include Peter Culshaw, Joe Muggs, Howard Male, Thomas H Green, Graeme Thomson, Kieron Tyler, Russ Coffey, Bruce Dessau, David Cheal & Peter Quinn

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