New music
Thomas H. Green
Grime is having an ongoing moment. The current profiles of Skepta, Wretch 32, Stormzy, Novelist and others make this very clear. There at the beginning, along with Wiley and Dizzee Rascal, was Kano, as his new album Made in the Manor reminds us, harking back with bittersweet nostalgia to the scene’s earliest days as if they were decades ago. Brighton’s tight-knit urban hip hip hop community loves him for it and they’re out in force at the Concorde 2 tonight, representing as loudly and energetically as possible. The bullish ardour with which they greet him is something to behold. Whoops, “ Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Despite her best efforts, Jasmine Lucilla van den Bogaerde aka Birdy is, probably, still best known for covering Bon Iver's "Skinny Love", aged 14. Like a John Lewis ad that never was, the song possessed a winsome sophistication that won her a diversity of admirers.It also prompted the question, "what next?" Would Birdy go on to tread a gentle folk-rock path like Laura Marling – another well-heeled ex prodigy from Hampshire? Or would her sound develop into something altogether more idiosyncratic? Birdy's first self-penned album Fire Within failed to settle the issue. Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Adele is resting her eyelids as the audience spills in, packing the 02, a huge video projection showing off those luscious eyelashes and dark eyeliner that have become synonymous with Adele style. Her eyes open as we hear the echoes of "Hello" before she appears on a small square stage in the middle of the auditorium, resplendent in a long, black, glittery gown. It's a spine-tingling, faultless rendition of the first hit from her most recent album.This live show combines the three albums, 19, 21 and 25 - Adele's greatest songs, sung to great effect in her hometown of London. Walking to the Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Errollyn Wallen is celebrated both as a singer-songwriter and for her rigorous and communicative contemporary new music. Her works include 13 operas and a plethora of orchestral, choral, chamber works, solo and ensemble piano music and concertos, as well as award-winning music for film and TV; her Principia and Spirit in Motion were featured in the London Paralympics opening ceremony in 2012.Born in Belize, she moved to the UK with her family at the age of two. She studied at Goldsmith’s College, King’s College London and King’s College, Cambridge. Her Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra Read more ...
Barney Harsent
After the release of 2006’s Barking, it was difficult to know what to make of Underworld. A couple of decent songs aside, collaboration seemed to have stripped away identity, leaving us with sketches on which a host of different producers had scribbled with their own, vivid, Crayola colours. For a band whose strength had been found in the album format, this was an unwelcome volte-face. Six years on, Rick Smith and Karl Hyde are back, but is Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future a return we should welcome with open arms?Early indications are certainly promising. “I Exhale” slaps us Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It says a lot that by the time Little Mix reach the final song of their encore, the recent mega-hit “Black Magic”, clad in silver sci-fi space bikinis and Barbarella-esque space-boots, it’s almost anti-climactic.Blonde Geordie member Perrie Edwards suggests to the capacity crowd – mostly girls aged between seven and 14 accompanied by their mums – that this is the song they’ve been waiting for all night. Perhaps it had been at the start of the evening but by the time the band reach it, an hour-and-a-half later, their mind-boggling show has rendered its ace-in-the-hole status redundant. For Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Damien Jurado’s last album, 2014’s Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, was, as theartsdesk noted, about “a man setting off in search of himself but never returning”. Its follow-up tracks the same unnamed character and his companion Silver Katherine on a road trip which may or may not be in his mind. Following a concept album with another integrally linked to its predecessor – and the album before that too, 2012’s Maraqopa – suggests Durado has faith in his listeners. They are, implicitly, going to follow the singer-songwriter on this journey.Ambition, creativity and an overarching vision Read more ...
Guy Oddy
During the ‘80s there was no US rock band that hoisted its freak flag higher than the Butthole Surfers, and certainly none that put out albums of the stature of Locust Abortion Technician and Hairway to Steven in such quick succession. Evolving from sloppy, lo-fi southern friend punk into experimental drug orgy art event and finally into fire-spitting hardcore psychedelic rockers – before, somewhat inevitably, being killed off by signing to a major record label – they were a visceral reaction to Ronald Reagan’s USA.Even in a genre with a propensity to offend the squares, the Butthole Surfers Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The variables which help records attain cult status are usually permutations of obscurity, patronage, rarity and perceived or received notions of greatness. This fluid formula can make an album the acme of grooviness, even if barely anyone cared or had even heard of it when it was originally issued. Witness the Lewis album, L’Amour.This sanctioning process will never cease. There will always be something ripe for resurrection. The price of original pressings is a fair guide to interest and therefore a possible indicator of new audiences for records which had fallen between the cracks. Of Read more ...
Guy Oddy
No one could ever accuse Bob Mould of coming across like Mr Happy. Coupling lively melodies with punk heft and angsty lyrics has been his shtick for most of his 40-year career, first with hardcore punk rock titans Hüsker Dü, then ‘90s power trio Sugar and finally in his own right. Nevertheless it would be fair to say that things have been a bit grim for Bob since 2014’s excellent Beauty and Ruin album and it shows. The death of his mother, relationships ending and reflections on life getting shorter all leave their mark on the lyrics of Patch the Sky.As with Beauty and Ruin though, there is Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Youth, AKA Martin Glover (b 1960), is a renowned music producer and bassist in the post-punk band Killing Joke. He achieved his first success with the latter in the late Seventies and has often been at the forefront of innovation and development in British music since. Having played a key role in developing their uniquely dubby, dark sound, Youth parted ways with Killing Joke in 1982 and formed Brilliant, a band that espoused an ahead-of-its-time dance musical ethos and included the involvement of both future members of the KLF.When the musical revolution of acid house hit the UK in 1988, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
From the late Eighties to the early 2000s, Iggy Pop turned out a succession of sassy rock albums that ranged in quality but usually contained a greasy, dirt-ingrained gem or three. These albums appeared with a garage-punk lack of self-consciousness, doing the rock’n’roll job like a lifer born to it. More recently, however, when not in Stooges mode, the Ig has gone adventuring. He made a couple of albums themed around jazz and French chanson and his latest is also a statement album. It’s a timely one too for Post Pop Depression takes its cue from the two fantastic albums Pop made with David Read more ...