New music
Thomas H. Green
Russian trio Gnoomes have created small waves over the last couple of years with their woozy psychedelia. One of its defining factors is the way the band have utilised Soviet-era synthesizers. During the Cold War it wasn’t only weaponry and the space race that defined the endless competitiveness between the United States and the USSR; the technologies of sound were also an area of rivalry. For those seeking to make strange and wonderful analogue electronica using kit many miles away from brand names such as Korg and Moog, then, there are rich pickings. One such is Gnoomes drummer Pavel Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Releases dedicated to previously unisssued live recordings can be tricky. The variables at play don’t necessarily ensure that what’s in the shops is worth investigating. The audio sources may be of sub-standard quality or capture an off night. Some live performances are by rote: touring acts can do the same set night after night and things get stale. Who wants to hear yet another version of a familiar composition or song? It goes on.Equally, there may be a chance that what’s heard for the first time (officially) might be an essential addition to a stellar back catalogue. Then, there are Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The disappearance of a band for a while calls for a re-set. A reminder, perhaps, of why you fell for them in the first place. "[10 Good Reasons for Modern Drugs]", the four minutes of minor-key chaos that opens the new album from The Twilight Sad, is exactly that reminder: a title written by a computer programme, a sound like an air raid siren, and James Graham’s raw, tender, aching voice, screaming “I see the cracks all start to show” in a tone at once unhinged and pure.It Won/t Be Like This All The Time arrives with its own mythology, the band’s staggeringly intimate records and live Read more ...
David Nice
Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir: three names on quite a list I reeled off earlier this week when someone asked me why the compositions of Rebecca Saunders, in the news for winning the €250,000 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, make me lose the will to live, and whom I’d choose instead. Saunders gets a look-in at the very end of this Kings Place year of music by women, Venus Unwrapped, so I'll just have to try again. Meanwhile the first three, communicators all - as Saunders is not, for me - kicked off Bang on a Can's affably presented gallimaufry celebrating 27 years of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Norway’s Hedvig Mollestad Trio reset the dial to what jazz fusion sought to do when it emerged, and do so in such a way that it’s initially unclear whether they are a jazz-influenced heavy metal outfit or jazzers plunging feet-first into metal. Riffs form the basis of their instrumentals, with improvisation following on from that though within rigidly structured formats. A composition's main melodic themes and rhythms are never far away. Theirs is not a music of aimless, flaccid noodling or of playing so mired in technical proficiency that it requires multiple degrees in musicology to grasp Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Why You So Crazy is a woozy, disorientating and spaced-out affair with a similar understated production to the Dandy Warhols last album, 2016’s Distortland. Long gone is the brash, anthemic guitar glam-pop of the turn of the century. In those days, the Dandys gobbled horse-size pills, wouldn’t touch you if you were the last junky on Earth, and just wanted to be Bohemian like you. They were hipsters, before that became a term of abuse, with songs littered with tongue-in-cheek humour and Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s snarky barbs. However, the Dandy Warhols certainly haven’t settled down into middle Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Well this is a treat. Darren Morrissey and Greg Marshall, London-based Dubliners who began their musical life in the fair city as front men of Deshonos, repeat the trick they worked with We Rise (2017), returning to their 2014 debut album And So It Began Again and re-recording an all-acoustic version.Called (not too surprisingly) And So It Began Again… Acoustically, the album was recorded as-live in the studio – two guitars, two voices plus some overdubbed oohs and aahs. And three bonus tracks: “Plastic Jack” and “Martha” which didn’t make the final cut of the 2017 original, plus an Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Its Dali-esque sleeve image captures Goes West perfectly. Over its 10 instrumental tracks, the music drifts inwards from outside as if introducing the endless open space of an intensely lit desert. There’s a sadness-tinged reflectiveness too; one which could bring on tears and induce a need to look heavenwards for support.Goes West is the fourth solo album from William Tyler, the guitarist in Lambchop and Silver Jews. He’s set his electric guitar aside for this acoustic-bedded set. A full band accompanies him and Bill Frisell guests on the final cut, “Our Lady of the Desert”. John Fahey Read more ...
Tim Cumming
It’s not often that music of this kind gets a release outside of Morocco, and Arc Music and the producer/musicians must be applauded for curating such an intense, inside view on the ecstatic release of Sufi music across the kingdom, often drawn from a simple street or domestic setting. Jebda mixes the voices and music of six professional singers and players with an array of street musicians brought together by producer Abdesselam Damoussi, who encountered them en route through the Jemaa el Fna of Marrakech to his 15th-century riyad and studio, fitted out with Neumann microphones to record Read more ...
Liz Thomson
It’s more than 10 years since Katie Doherty, a new-minted music grad championed by the Sage-based Folkworks collective, was named Newcomer of the Year and released Bridges, her debut album. And Then is only her second – which is not to suggest she’s been resting on her laurels. In the intervening years she’s worked as a musical director for the RSC among other stage companies and has appeared alongside Ray Davies and the McGarrigles – and, as “Tiny Little Shoes” suggests, she has had a baby. The album comes elegantly packaged, a gatefold with pull-out lyrics and credits, and the CD contained Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The title comes from a slogan used in a 1920s newspaper ad for Weinberg’s, a gramophone, record and sheet music shop in Brick Lane. Readers saw the words in Yiddish though. Brick Lane was central to London’s Jewish East End and those who lived in the area after the escaping the eastern European pogroms of the late 19th century brought their popular culture with them – a popular culture which, like any other arriving here, evolved and enriched Britain.Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World: Yiddisher Jazz in London's East End 1920s–1950s collects British Jewish-themed jazz and dance Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Monzen Nakacho is an old and distinguished part of Tokyo that’s renowned for its nightlife. It’s also the moniker that Worthing musician Gary Short has given himself for his 21st century keyboard wizard persona. Short’s output has been called “giallo synthwave” because it owes a certain something to the music of 1970s Italian horror films, most especially prog band Goblin’s synth-driven soundtracks to the movies of Dario Argento. With his second album, however, he has upped the ante and moved well beyond his influences.Almost entirely instrumental, except for light vocoder vocals layered into Read more ...