New Music Reviews
Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, The Lexington review - forceful Mexicans generate an irresistible sonic whirlpoolThursday, 21 September 2023![]()
Can there be too much repetition? Is there a limit to the level of rhythmic insistence which can be tolerated? Judging by the enthused reaction to this sold-out show from Mexico’s Lorelle Meets The Obsolete where a heads down, no-nonsense pulse propelled their set, the answer to these questions is no. Read more... |
Album: Teenage Fanclub - Nothing Lasts ForeverWednesday, 20 September 2023![]()
Nothing Lasts Forever opens with a drone, a weightless prologue of guitar feedback evoking the initial moments of the Buffalo Springfield’s “Everydays,” written by Stephen Stills and heard on his band’s 1967 second album Again. Teenage Fanclub’s 11th album ends with “I Will Love you,” a similarly gossamer reflection fusing the atmosphere of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe” and the cyclic rhythms of motorik. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: In the Light of Time - UK Post-Rock and Leftfield Pop 1992-1998Sunday, 17 September 2023![]()
“In the Light of Time” was the second track on Side One of April 1995’s Further, the third album by Bristol’s Flying Saucer Attack. At the time, Further felt like a hyper-vaporous take on shoegazing infused with touches of British folk. Attitudinally and temporally, Slowdive’s February 1995 third album Pygmalion wasn’t too far. Read more... |
Tirzah, The Colour Factory review - dry ice and bedroom beatsSaturday, 16 September 2023![]()
Less than ten days after (surprise) releasing her new album, trip9love…???, Tirzah took to a small stage in Hackney Wick to play it through (in order), wreathed enigmatically in dry ice.
Read more...
|
Music Reissues Weekly: David Westlake - D87Sunday, 10 September 2023![]()
Becoming reacquainted with what was originally titled Westlake in 1987 is a pleasure. Yes, at his own measured pace, David Westlake has issued great albums since then and his Eighties and Nineties band The Servants have been the subject of various archive releases. It is not as though he has vanished. But any reminder of his flair as a songwriter is welcome. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 79: Primal Scream, Girl Ray, Mort Garson, Barbie, Nina Simone, Dengue Fever and moreThursday, 07 September 2023![]()
VINYL OF THE MONTH African Head Charge A Trip to Bolgatanga (On-U Sound) Read more... |
Hardanger Musikkfest 2023 review - fertility, folk music and the supernatural unite along Norway’s fjordsThursday, 07 September 2023![]()
The cows are scattered across the mountains. Without scrambling up the slopes, the only way to summon them is to call. Unni Løvlid is beckoning them. Instead of standing outdoors she is in the medieval Ullensvang Church, in the Norwegian village of Lofthus. She uses the interior of a grand piano to get the necessary resonance, the echo which distant animals would hear. Read more... |
Supersonic Festival 2023, Birmingham review - musical eccentrics battle the odds and come out on topWednesday, 06 September 2023![]()
You’ve got to feel for Lisa Meyer and the team behind Birmingham’s magnificent Supersonic Festival. Just as the live music scene gets to a point where the Covid pandemic is no longer a malign influence on dancing and having fun in a room full of like-minded people, the UK is hit by a two-day rail strike that coincides with this annual shindig of the musically wild and wonderful. On top of that, our loathsome Home Secretary refused to grant a visa for Day One’s headline act, MC Yalla. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: March of the Flower Children - The American Sounds of 1967Sunday, 03 September 2023![]()
“March of the Flower Children” was a June 1967 B-side by Los Angeles psych-punks The Seeds. The track was extracted from their third album Future, a peculiar dive into psychedelia which was as tense as it was turned on. While the song’s lyrics referenced a “field of flowers,” a “painted castle” and a sky “painted golden yellow” the mood was jittery, unstable. Read more... |
Medicine Festival review - the new New Age gathers in leafy BerkshireWednesday, 30 August 2023![]()
Fia is a Swedish singer with a crystalline voice and a ear for a great melody - her singalong choruses are not typical for a festival Friday night headliner, like getting the audience to join in with “Sit with your pain/ cradle it close/ and when you’re ready/ Let it go.” This had a hypnotic effect on the audience, more mass therapy than a having a good time. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today

The work of the double Pulitzer-winning ...
“If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.”
“What is best in music is not to be...

Motion Sickness (1991) is the second novel published by the writer, art collector...

Britten’s biggest cornucopia of invention seems unsinkable, and no-one seeing his breakthrough 1945 opera for the first time in this revival will...

Thanks to numerous arguments and disagreements over script, casting etc, nine years have elapsed since Expendables 3 hit the multiplexes...

For someone who said when he first took the helm at the Hallé that he “didn’t do much Mahler”, Sir Mark Elder has a pretty good track record. He’s...

Two years after the release of her rather flaccid Disco album and five since her somewhat inadvisable foray into country-ish music, 2023...

An impressive performance by Samuel West as one of two warring hams stuck on-set in a trailer over a not-so-dormant volcano in Iceland...

I have always had a fascination with concert programmes. I did my Doctorate thesis on this subject. I remember vividly as a youngster attending...

If you think we’ve got culture wars, then welcome to Transylvania. This rugged...