New music
Liz Thomson
Recorded in Rhinebeck, upstate New York, the ninth album in Josh Ritter’s 18-year career strikes many moods, from the manic to the contemplative. It is, he has said, a record of storms, internal and external; of the darkness before a summer storm, “the smell of gathering electricity in the atmosphere” – literally and metaphorically. The cover artwork – he is an accomplished painter – is suitably evocative.Ritter has talked of his wish to escape “the shadow of my earlier self, my earlier work”, and of the discovery of “an exciting sense of dissatisfaction” – a curious phrase, perhaps, but one Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In February 1965, Melody Maker asked John Lennon about his personal enthusiasm for Bob Dylan material and Dylan interpretations. “I just felt like going that way,” he said about the new acoustic guitar-based material The Beatles were then recording at Abbey Road. “If I’d not heard Dylan, it might have been that I’d written stuff and sung it like Dominic Behan, or somebody like that.” Despite the non-committal answer, Dylan’s impact on Lennon was clear – the cap he'd recently been wearing was evidence of that.Out of the public eye, Lennon – after being hipped to the album by George Harrison – Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In the UK, the best-known version of “Shadows and Reflections” is by mod band The Action, who issued it as a single in June 1967. At that point, the north London outfit had merged their predisposition towards soul with a taste for American harmony pop and psychedelia. Covers of Byrds songs featured in their live set. The American song wasn’t originally theirs: it was co-written by Tandyn Almer, whose compositions were recorded by The Association, and had been issued in the States by Eddie Hodges and an obscure band called The Lownly Crowed. In The Action’s hands, and with George Martin’s Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Leveret (an old name for a young hare) got together in 2014. They comprise former Bellowhead fiddler Sam Sweeney, English concertina player Rob Harbron and accordionist Andy Cutting – three of the very best on the scene. Their tune sources range from the 17th-century songbook Playford’s Dancing Master, to the magisterial, semi-pagan "Abbots Bromley Horn Dance", first documented in August 1226, but probably much older, while their latest album Inventions features all original tunes.Theirs is a rich, sinewy immersion into the roots of English instrumental folk, guided by a mutual sense of Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Foo Fighters are a global superstar act. And why not, as the late film critic Barry Norman used to say. After seeing them at Glastonbury, they strike me as an irresistible proposition; their Sonic Highways TV documentaries, about music in American cities, are superb; and Dave Grohl, even after decades in the spotlight, still seems like a top fellow. Someone said to me recently they didn’t like him because he was “too nice”. That’s stupid, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to share a beer over a barbecue with him?Concrete and Gold involved a lot of barbecuing. Recorded at a studio complex on Sunset Read more ...
Joe Muggs
One of the more interesting developments of this decade is a blurring around the edges of modern soul music: almost a complete dissolution, in fact, of the boundaries of R&B. From the hyper-mainstream – Drake, The Weeknd, Future – via Solange, Frank Ocean, Blood Orange and Sampha, to fringe experimentalists like Atlanta's Awful Records, international Afro-diasporic collective NON and UK one-off Dean Blunt, R&B is being remade as dark, unpredictable and unsettling.It's into the weirder, gloomier end of this territory that Bristol trio Jabu fit with discomfiting comfort. They come out Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Danish pianist Søren Bebe has led a trio for 10 years, building a reputation as one of Europe’s most distinctive jazz ensembles. His warm, spacious and melodic sound is often compared to Esbjorn Svensson and Tord Gustavsen, or the influential sound/genre of German label ECM. Yet the lyricism of Bebe’s piano - balanced throughout by the energy and sharper edges of long-standing drummer Anders Mogensen - has an emotional accessibility that elicits a passionate response from audiences across jazz and beyond. In the last few years, he has launched a spectacularly successful sideline as a Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Nina Simone once famously declared all artists to have a duty to reflect the times in which they live. This a philosophy that has saturated the careers of all the members of Prophets of Rage during their times in such iconic bands as Public Enemy, Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine. So, it should be no surprise that the Prophets of Rage debut album is a muscular sonic push back against the so-called alt-right and the entrenched injustices of the American Way.“Living on the 110”, “Strength in Numbers” and “Fired a Shot” all rail against western capitalism and they’re quite a heady brew Read more ...
Robert Beale
Every 21st birthday deserves a party, and the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester celebrated the anniversary of its opening with a weekend of fun and "access" events, ending with a recital by four pianists on its four Steinway pianos – playing them all at once, in eight-hand arrangements.It was very different from the opening 21 years ago, when orchestras dominated the programmes. This time even Manchester Camerata, the chamber orchestra with which the hall co-promotes events, moved round the corner to play in the gallery at HOME, a newer arts centre. But one of the early discoveries about this Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The one-time drummer of the Beatles is all about peace and love. Even when he takes to YouTube to tell his fans to stop writing to him, he does so with peace and love. All you need, it would appear, is love. And peace. But mainly love – and more of it, if at all possible. For his 19th studio album, Ringo Starr's original intention had been to make a country album in Nashville. Judging by “So Wrong For So Long” and “Don’t Pass Me By” – the only country numbers here – everyone dodged a bullet when he decided to invite a few mates round for a knees-up instead. Of course, being a former Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Once heard, 1969’s Spirit of the Golden Juice is not forgotten. F. J. McMahon’s sole album is imbued with the heavy air of desolation. Its nine country tinged songs are also melodic and as good as those by Tim Hardin and Fred Neil, with whom McMahon is most often compared. Unlike them, McMahon had not steered a path through the folk circuit to achieve recognition. Instead, Spirit of the Golden Juice was pressed in the low hundreds by the small California label Accent and had no distribution. McMahon’s label mates were guitar instrumentalist Buddy Merrill, a past his sell-by-date Dick Dale and Read more ...
Russ Coffey
When, in 2006, Yusuf announced his return to music, speculation was rife as to how he might now sound. At first, the music felt gentle and touchy-feely. Then came 2014's Tell 'Em I'm Gone – a strutting, blues record full of attitude. More exciting than either of these new musical directions, though, were those odd moments where Yusuf offered a glimpse of his old, wistful self. It gave hope that one day he might record another full-on Cat Stevens album. And here it is.The Laughing Apple consists of three new songs and eight re-interpretations of forgotten tracks from the Read more ...