New music
Matthew Wright
Polar Bear have been re-shaping the musical landscape (the experimental jazz end of it, at least), since 2004, and after a few years’ hibernation after 2010, the creature is back in rude health, this year’s album hot on the heels of last year’s Mercury-nominated In Each And Every One. Identifying the group’s generic mix feels increasingly daunting, as new elements are constantly layered onto the existing work. Leafcutter John’s electronica have always been an important part of the mix; here, their role is a more subdued, but crucial ambient underpinning, as rattly dub beats do more of the Read more ...
Mark Kidel
The music of melancholia takes on varied forms on different continents: the religious spirit and anger of the blues contrasts with the edgy rebelliousness of Greek rembetika, and the spiritual longing and melismatic vocal whirling of the Turkish aman with the sweet sadness of Portuguese fado. In Vietnam, the black dog barks softly and blue moods are tinged with resignation and regret, an acceptance of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that owes a great deal to Confucian teachings on surrendering to one’s fate.In this collection of recent field recordings, we hear from a variety of Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Not unreasonably, anyone might imagine that a band might lose a bit of their usual vigour if they found themselves four albums into their career playing in a room not much bigger than a church hall, miles from home on a cold Monday evening. Not so the Subways. The Hertfordshire three-piece bounced onto the stage in the Temple room in Birmingham’s Institute and tore straight into the anthemic “We Don’t Need Money to Have a Good Time” and didn’t let up until they finally left the stage more than an hour later with sweat dripping down the walls in torrents.More impressively, they also had the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The two-and-a-quarter years between the release of Motorama’s last album Calendar and Poverty hitting the shops have done nothing to dim the Russian band’s aural resemblance to the roster of early-Eighties Factory Records. At this remove, it’s hard to ascertain whether records by Section 25, Stockholm Monsters or The Wake were shipped to the southern port city of Rostov-on-Don. It’s more likely Motorama evolved their Northern British leanings picking up on what they liked via the internet and then doing what came naturally.Reviewing Calendar, theartsdesk noted “their sound has been Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Things do not start well. Ian McCulloch, in trademark shades, apparently not aged a jot since Echo & the Bunnymen’s 1980s glory days, hits the stage in an offensive strop. He is performing a solo acoustic set from a chair. Beside him on a table sit a glass of water, a glass of milk and another glass with – at a guess – vodka and cranberry juice. He has the demeanour of a diva who’s been having a “party” in their changing room. Milk is good for settling an acid stomach.During his opening numbers, “Rescue” and “Villiers Terrace” from the Bunnymen’s debut album Crocodiles, he repeatedly Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: The Odyssey - A Northern Soul Time CapsuleIt begins with “Open the Door to Your Heart” by Darrell Banks. Over a mid-tempo rhythm, Banks sings in an affecting voice obviously schooled in gospel. Choppy Motown-style guitar is punctuated by brass, lifting both singer and the song through the choruses. A US hit for the independent Revilot Records label in 1966, it reached number two on Billboard’s R&B charts. The UK issue on London Records barely sold. A copy went for £14,500 last year. The song was early floor-filler on the Britain’s then emergent Northern Soul scene, Read more ...
Guy Oddy
As thoughts begin to turn to this summer’s music festivals, it only seems appropriate that along comes Sonic Soul Surfer, the latest album from festie-perennial Seasick Steve. In fact, it’s hard to believe, given what seems to be his ubiquity among the fields of England, that it’s less than 10 years since Steve Wold became the self-proclaimed “cat’s meow” with his appearance on Jools Holland’s 2006 annual Hootenanny TV show.Seasick Steve’s sixth album, is prime-time, rough and ready hobo music that puts a spring in your step and a smile on your face. To be honest, this doesn’t really mark it Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Sam Lee launched his second album this week, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut, A Ground of it Own. The Fade In Time has been garnering five-star reviews like poesies in May, and for good reason – Lee is a distinctly 21st-century artist, collecting new versions of old songs on his iPhone and laptop, while his repertoire is steeped in the reek and smoke of folk history and lore, its tales of love, parting, exile and murder bound by a sympathetic magic still resonant today, parting the veil on vivid scenes from our islands’ deep history.There had been concerts Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The best singer-songwriters, you might say, survey life's experiences with a forensic eye. That’s certainly true of Laura Marling. Her new album Short Movie chronicles the singer's recent stint in LA where she'd relocated for a couple of years. Marling's adventures are catalogued with a satisfying mix of introspection and free-form vibes. That, of course, was also partly true of her last offering, Once I Was an Eagle. The difference here is that her hopes and disappointments are expressed with a Seventies rawness that also hints at an inner rock-chick.Artists rarely Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Cheikh Lô , the much loved Senegalese singer, is back with new recordings for the first time in five years with a three track EP trailing a new album in June, and theartsdesk has an early look at his new video for the lead track “Degg Gui” (see below).The EP is a typically adventurous mix of styles – “Degg Gui” includes a vocal contribution from much touted Brazilian singer Flavia Coelho (her own reggae-soaked debut Mundo Meu is out in May, when she is performing in London) and also features the Parisian based accordionist Fixi, who has been known to record squeezebox hip-hop tracks.The Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
You couldn’t make this guy up. A pianist from age 11, he grew up in a strict Ghanaian Christian household in deepest north London, had his teenage world turned upside down when he saw New York indie-alternative torch act Antony & the Johnsons in a rare peek at TV, ran away to become homeless in Paris, busking for a living, then slowly made a name for himself. This biography is dealt with in the serialist piano stomp of “Adios”, before the song blooms into an Ennio Morricone-meets-Philip Glass escapade.Now 26 and striking looking, with a notably chiselled jaw and a giant pompadour haircut Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Even for a dancer of Akram Khan’s sublime gifts, “Now” is an evasive concept to convey. During last night’s Sadler’s Wells extravaganza of Azerbaijani jazz and contemporary dance, “The Pursuit of Now”, Khan and his co-performer, the German-Korean dancer Honji Wang, mesmerised in a series of vignettes, gorgeously choreographed and lit. Azeri pianist Shahin Novrasli, whose ensembles’ charismatic folk-jazz comprised far more of the programme than the dance, offered a compelling snapshot of the Azeri music scene, beautifully positioned between Eastern and Western traditions. In the end, though, Read more ...