sat 06/09/2025

New Music Reviews

Reissue CDs Weekly: Radio Birdman

Kieron Tyler

 

Radio Birdman box setRadio Birdman: Radio Birdman

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First Aid Kit, Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Guy Oddy

All-seater, up-market concert halls can be a bit intimidating to bands when they are used to more intimate venues. Silences can feel awkward and stage talk can dry up or be reduced to perfunctory “thank you”s. So it almost proved this evening when First Aid Kit strode onto the stage of Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.

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Paolo Nutini, O2 Arena

Matthew Wright

With his new soul-inflected rasp, there aren’t many singers better equipped to perform through a bout of tonsillitis than Paolo Nutini. (Tom Waits won’t, alas, be selling out the O2.) Last night’s gig was re-scheduled from November when the infection struck. It was postponed even longer than expected for the members of the audience arriving on the broken-down Jubilee line.  

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Magma

Kieron Tyler

 

Magma KöhntarköszMagma: Köhntarkösz, Köhntarkösz Anteria, Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Powder

Kieron Tyler

 

Powder Ka-Pow! An Explosive Collection 1967–68Powder: Ka-Pow! An Explosive Collection 1967–68

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Best of 2014: Gigs

theartsdesk

From the clubs of Berlin to the pubs of Birmingham, via Somerset and New York, our new music writers select their most memorable gigs of 2014.

 

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Sly Stone

Kieron Tyler

 

I'm Just Like You Sly's Stone Flower 1969–70Various Artists: I'm Just Like You – Sly's Stone Flower 1969–70

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Madness, O2 Arena

Matthew Wright

There were silly hats, and venerable, bouncy songs for all the family at the O2 last night. The traditional Madness December tour was Christmas come early for most of the audience, who sang about home, love, and the Middle East as they might do in church next week with rather less enthusiasm. The band’s original hits still hit the spot, though there was also a sense that, as with Christmas carols, the new ones mean well, but just aren’t as good.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Millions Like Us

Kieron Tyler

 

Millions Like UsVarious Artists: Millions Like Us - The Story of the Mod Revival 1977–1989

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theartsdesk on Vinyl

Thomas H Green

Have you been to a record shop lately? Now that our honeymoon with virtual music is revealed as completely lacking romance, record shops are thriving again. And it’s not CDs these shoppers are after. Those have been squeezed off into a far corner stocking only immediately sellable fare such as The Beatles, The Smiths, Led Zep, and early Oasis. No, the rest of the shop has been taken over by hoards, layers, tranches of alphabetized 12” vinyl, ordered by genre.

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