New music
Javi Fedrick
As son of the famous Blockheads frontman, Baxter Dury has always had big (new) boots to fill. Over the last 15 years though, he’s become distinguishable in his own right for his Chiswick accent and roughened-up pastoral music. Both are just as present in Prince of Tears as they have been on his previous albums, but with friends Madeleine Hart, Jason Williamson (Sleaford Mods) and Rose Elinor Dougall (The Pipettes) providing guest vocals, it’s an album that engages with a wrenching variety of humanity's different sides, often more shade than light, rather than being just about the music.Single Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Sleaford Mods are not just those two sweary guys with a laptop from Nottingham. Their unique mix of acerbic, politically conscious lyrics and lo-fi earworm loops have rightfully earned them a growing and devoted following across the country. Indeed, the audience at Manchester Academy is packed with moody 20-somethings and middle-aged punks. Rather than appearing intimidating, however, the atmosphere is full of camaraderie and childish excitement, as everyone waits for these de facto voices of the disaffected to take to the stage.First up, though, is Nachthexen, an all-female four piece Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols was issued on 28 October 1977. It’s an anniversary worth marking. Forty years is a long time and the decades between then and now have not reduced interest in the band or the punk rock maelstrom surrounding them. Naturally, yet another reissue of the album has just appeared – an unnecessary repackaging of 2012’s 35th-anniversary limited-edition configuration – but although British punk rock was kicked off by the Sex Pistols, they were not the whole story.This romp through 20 memorable moments could be all about Johnny Rotten’s band and nothing Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s now thirty years since Courtney Pine stepped out from underneath the shadow of the Jazz Warriors with his debut solo album, Journey To The Urge Within, and his unforgettable contributions to the Angel Heart film soundtrack, to stake his claim as British Jazzman Number One. It is a position which he has resolutely refused to relinquish since then and one that is definitely confirmed by his nineteenth solo release, Black Notes From The Deep.While Pine’s last disc, 2015’s The Ballad Book, featured a set of duets with pianist Zoe Rachman, Black Notes From The Deep sees a complete change of Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Seeger. A name to strike sparks with almost anyone, whether or not they have an interest in folk music, a catch-all term about which Peggy Seeger and her creative and life partner Ewan MacColl (they didn’t actually marry until a decade before his death) had strong feelings. Pete Seeger, Peggy’s half-brother and the legendary composer of “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, was more tolerant. To him “the folk revival” in its broadest sense owes much, not least because he spent the years of Senator McCarthy’s “red scare” banished from the airwaves and so teaching folk Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Committed fans of Emerson, Lake & Palmer are spoiled for choice when they need to feed their passion for prog rock’s most eminent trio. Decent shape original pressings of their albums can be picked up for under £10. There are at least six different CD editions of their 1971 album Tarkus, more of their others and much of their catalogue was re-reissued on CD between 2014 and 2016. Archives have also been scoured for previously unreleased material. In 2001, two box sets of live shows (one with seven CDs, the other with eight) were released. And still, the repackagings, the reissues keep on Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Both Rhode Island’s Downtown Boys, and Washington D.C.’s Priests sit at the centre of today’s feminist punk scene. As stated in a recent Downtown Boys press release, they oppose “the prison-industrial complex, racism, queerphobia, capitalism, fascism, boredom, and all things people use to try to close our minds, eyes and hearts”. This, perhaps, explains why the promoters have listed the night as a “radical double bill”. Having also both released extremely well received albums this year - Cost of Living and Nothing is Natural respectively - they descend on Manchester’s Deaf Institute amid a Read more ...
Katie Colombus
I have a confession to make. The first time I heard "This Town" – the debut release for Niall Horan's new album – I thought it was Ed Sheeran.Which gives an indication of the general level of acceptability of Niall’s first solo foray outside of 1D – "This Town" is sure to stick around the airwaves for a while. Overall, Flicker is pretty mainstream in comparison to his fellow Directioners, who’ve opted for stylistic gimmickery (Zayne Malik), faux-rock-kitsch (Harry Styles), or impregnating super-famous celebs (that other one)… Niall has opted for a stalwart’s strategy, capitalising on his Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
British singer-songwriter Nick Mulvey’s new album, Wake Up Now, is one of the year’s finest. However, there’s a moment on the single “Myela”, a heartfelt Afro-Latin stomper protesting the plight of refugees, which can grate. The song suddenly stops and female backing singers begin a nursery rhyme chant of “I am your neighbour, you are my neighbour”. On record it seems trite; however, in concert at this eye-pleasing, airy Bexhill-on-Sea venue, it’s transformative. Mulvey and his five-piece band use the sequence as a launch pad for a cosmic jam, before settling into a brief snippet of Gary Read more ...
Guy Oddy
For those who are unsure of Bootsy Collins’ place in the funk pantheon, he is the bassman who put the One into James Brown’s “Sex Machine”, “Soul Power” and “Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing”, as well as everything that came out of the first ten years of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic. Suffice it to say that Bootsy Collins is a funk colossus and, along with Clinton, one of the architects of P-funk: that sweet spot where Jimi Hendrix gets down with James Brown and they party for all they’re worth.A man with this kind of standing inevitably attracts a bit of an entourage and there are no Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s a long time since The The were bothering the charts with songs that, while often witty and thought provoking, resolutely viewed the glass as not only being half-empty but also way too small. Matt Johnson’s last The The album-proper was released in 2000 and although there has been some soundtrack work since then, last year’s Record Store Day single, “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming”, was a pleasant reminder of Johnson’s pessimistic-pop-with-a-hook, and set up expectations of new tunes and maybe an album of the stature of 1986’s mighty Infected.Ever the contrarian, Johnson hasn’t followed this Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Super Besse are from the Republic of Belarus, Europe’s sole dictatorship – a country where freedom of expression and opportunities for individual self-determination are limited. As there’s little musical infrastructure in their home country, the label they are on is Latvia’s leading independent imprint. Despite the obstacles, the Minsk-based trio – named after a French ski resort – have played across mainland Europe. La Nuit* is their second album.Given where they are from, Super Besse would be notable whatever the nature of their music. However, what they deal in and how they put it over Read more ...