New music
Sebastian Scotney
Whereas the more venerable European jazz festivals, founded from the 1960s onwards, are typically faced with challenges of mid- or later life, Montrachet Jazz is a newcomer and is different. 2026 was just its second edition, but its early steps are bold and impressive. Not only is a very clever artistic vision already in place, but it is also one which authentically complements and enhances the unique magic of its setting.Location is everything, and truly there is no place like Puligny-Montrachet. For lovers of dry white wine, this is, literally, hallowed ground. The village is within Read more ...
Tom Carr
A new album from Evanescence doesn’t come around all that often. But when they do, they are always worth at least a pause and cursory listen: their reputation precedes them ever since their seminal hit “Bring Me To Life” first took over the airwaves in the early noughties.In the years since and across their five previous albums, their dramatic blend of modern Nu Metal stylings with symphonic melodies is an often-captivating premise that is hard to come by elsewhere. Best embodied by Amy Lee’s signature vocals and lyrics, they have an uncanny knack at tying up varied textures and influences Read more ...
Guy Oddy
“Pruning, pruning, pruning, pruning, pruning” declaims a suited and booted Robin Dallaway into his microphone on stage at Birmingham’s Castle and Falcon on Sunday night, and it’s as if time falls away back to the mid-1980s. Suddenly, it’s a Friday evening. The Tube is on Channel 4 and an exceedingly strange black and white film that has been especially commissioned by the show is introduced by Max Headroom. “The Bushes Scream While My Daddy Prunes” bursts forth as bells chime and a brain-scrambling groove takes hold, while suburbia is transformed into a very odd place indeed.The Very Things Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Caution is evidently needed when moving around at a Pins gig. A woman who wandered off to the bar or the toilet returned and appeared slightly startled to realise the group's singer Faith Vern was now among the crowd, complete with microphone stand and considerable swagger. It wasn't even the first time the band had wandered among the faithful, as guitarist Lois MacDonald had gone for a stroll early on, taking care to not bump any punters with her guitar in the process.Such interaction is one of the advantages of being in a sweatbox like Nice N' Sleazy, a location that was fairly busy but is Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, star of The Gloaming supergroup, says of Ryan Young: “He is an up-and-coming musician who is gaining more and more well-deserved recognition. I feel that he has the potential to make a very significant contribution to the Scottish tradition.” And beyond his carefully measured words, Hayes has gone on to produce Young’s third album, as well as play on a couple of tune sets, which means you can strike out “up and coming” and replace it with “fully arrived”. And what an album it is – the playing, the discipline, invention and feel is exemplary. Young’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Promise me delight” is a tantalising entreaty. One which – in its particular way – this captivating 17-track compliation delivers on. Promise Me Delight - Italo Disco and European Pop from the Golden Age digs into what its title articulates, with the golden age in question spanning 1982 to 1988, with an emphasis on 1983 to 1986.A specific form of Continental European pop is celebrated. One which was dancefloor oriented, with electropop leanings and an emphasis on tunes as much as on atmosphere and rhythms designed to move body and feet. Not much of this pulse-quickening, often-fervid, almost Read more ...
Mark Kidel
To celebrate Miles Davis’s 100th anniversary this week, Fontana have released a “ Deluxe Re-issue” of one of the jazz giant’s best-known recordings, the soundtrack for Louis Malle’s first film Lift to the Scaffold (Ascenseur pour l’échafaud) 1958. This ranks as some of the most emblematic specially recorded film music: a classic that in its own way characterises Miles’s unique capacity for constant re-invention throughout a long and adventurous career.
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The new release is a neatly packaged two-CD combo, the original tracks supplemented Read more ...
Tim Cumming
There’s been quite a breadcrumb trail leading up to the release of Paul McCartney’s 20th solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane – a The Rest is History podcast recorded at Abbey Road, interviews galore, and the expectation of an octogenarian McCartney delving into the deeper end of his past (almost a decade after he released Memory Almost Full).Thus the Dungeon Lane of the title – a local boyhood hangout for McCartney, a kind of second-tier Penny Lane. Recorded between tours over a period of five years, the 14-song album is packed with tunes and melodies brought together in a busy rush of songs Read more ...
Ibi Keita
Admittedly, my journey into the strange world of IDM, electronica and ambient music has not been a complex one. Whilst finding Aphex Twin, Burial, Squarepusher and the other entry level artists that pioneered these genres, I more than once tried to venture further out, and stumbled across the now classic Music Has the Right to Children by Scottish duo Boards of Canada. Deep fulfilling synths, trudging rhythms and precise vocal chops and samples, the album defines what they do best, and now, 13 years since Tomorrow’s Harvest, Boards of Canada are back with the dark and twisted Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Nottingham is broiling. With sun heat. And with humanity. The pubs overspill beyond the pavement, into the road, as hordes of Nottingham Forest fans prepare for the final game of the season, sinking gallons of carbonated amber liquid. Unrelated, in Old Market Square a sizeable gaggle of the ill-informed and ham-faced, waving England flags, face off against a counter-demonstration, divided by ranks of fluorescent police. And every available venue is hosting Dot To Dot, a festival showcasing fresh musical talent.Begun in 2005, Dot To Dot is a multi-venue affair, like Camden Crawl or The Great Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Talking about the demographic of audiences can put one on tricky ground. I once, for example, got into trouble for pointing out that Autechre’s crowd was 80-plus per cent middle aged white men. But really, the audience makes a show in so many ways, and that is especially the case when it comes to Mitsuki Laycock aka Mitski. Going into the Albert Hall, it was impossible to ignore the fact that it was packed overwhelmingly with girls and young women of various distinctly outsider-ish demeanours. From deliberately low-key baggy and tousled get-up through to extreme cosplay in East Asian styles ( Read more ...
Ellie Roberts
For the majority of Turnover fans, listening to Down On Earth for the first time will be a rollercoaster. The highs are moments that resemble their 2015 touchstone dream pop emo phenomenon Peripheral Vision in any way at all, and the lows are every time it veers from that in a strange, confusing, incohesive way. That’s not to say that bands shouldn’t explore, it’s to say that Peripheral Vision is so widely regarded as a perfect album, that one will never be enough. Although 2017’s Good Nature was a great follow up, the hope and excitement around Turnover Read more ...