wed 13/08/2025

New Music Reviews

'Time Out of Mind' Revisited - a deep focus take on classic Dylan

Tim Cumming

The 1997 release of Time Out of Mind was the resurrection of an artist who appeared to have wandered off the reservation some years before, lost in transit on his Never Ending Tour, trailed by an army of "Bobcats" who followed him for show after grinding show. “How can you stand it?” he once asked of a woman who told him she’d seen dozens of NET gigs.

Read more...

Callum Au and Claire Martin, Cadogan Hall review - 'Songs and Stories' live at last

peter Quinn

Recorded in 2019, released in 2020, and winner of Album of the Year at the 2021 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, it was a delight to finally witness the launch of Callum Au and Claire Martin’s spectacular album of jazz standards and American Songbook classics, Songs and Stories, albeit three years later than planned.

Read more...

DVD: Oscar Peterson - Black + White

Sebastian Scotney

I can’t help enjoying the continuing elevation of the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) to national monument status in Canada. A park or a square here (Montreal), a boulevard there (Mississauga), a school, a concert hall, a statue, a commemorative one-dollar coin. Now Barry Avrich’s 2021 documentary Oscar Peterson: Black + White, which is being released on DVD.

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: Bob Stanley / Pete Wiggs Present Winter of Discontent

Kieron Tyler

At some point in 1979 a duo called The Door and the Window are playing a London Musician’s Collective show in a large brick building along the road from Cecil Sharp House in Camden. One of them has a synthesiser, probably a WASP. The other has tape recorders and a guitar. The inscrutable noise made features clanks, grinding and drones.

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers

Kieron Tyler

A first encounter with Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers is unforgettable. Their summer 1970 recordings are so far out they at first seem unlistenable. Persistence pays though and the ear tunes in. It becomes clear this band swallowed the Captain Beefheart playbook and regurgitated it after applying a severe dose of the cut-up technique.

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: George Martin - A Painter In Sound

Kieron Tyler

A strange new single went on sale in Britain’s record shops in April 1962. Credited to Ray Cathode, “Time Beat” combined a metronomic rhythm with peculiar, otherworldly sounds. It was not a standard pop record. The flipside, “Waltz In Orbit”, was also about its tempo and was just as weird. Not many copies were sold.

Read more...

Album: Juni Habel - Carvings

Kieron Tyler

Carvings is recorded so it sounds as if Juni Habel is adjacent to the listener’s ear. The Norwegian singer-songwriter may as well be inches away. Such intimacy can be disconcerting, especially as Carvings evokes a reflective melancholy. Its eight crepuscular songs evoke twilight and wintertime, when introspection is never far.

Read more...

Albums of the Year 2022: Beyoncé - Renaissance

Katie Colombus

When asked what I wanted for Christmas this year, my response was mostly that I just want to drink Baileys out of Lindt bunnies and dance in my socks in the kitchen. Y'know?

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: Guerrilla Girlsǃ - She-Punks & Beyond 1975-2016

Kieron Tyler

In December 1977, the music weekly Sounds included an article about the County Durham punk band Penetration. By Jon Savage, it was headlined The Future Is Female. The same four words would be used by the band for their promotional badges.

Read more...

Albums of the Year 2022: Maggie Rogers - Surrender

Tom Carr

Flick through my 2022 Spotify Wrapped playlist and those who know me best won’t be surprised by what they find. Architects, the UK’s preeminent metal group who grapple with progressing their sound further on the classic symptoms of a broken spirit – check. Foals, the indie delights who continue to sweep all before them, and adorned new, summery vibes with latest album Life Is Yours. Check.

Read more...

Pages

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
BBC Proms: Anoushka Shankar 'Chapters' review - so...

You can't explain stage presence like Anoushka Shankar’s. It just "is". When she steps out in front of a completely packed Royal Albert Hall, and...

Elschenbroich, Grynyuk / Fibonacci Quartet, Edinburgh Intern...

Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk crafted a fine programme for their EIF recital, centring around Brahms’ relationship with the Schumanns....

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Fit Prince / Undersigned

The Fit Prince (who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holiday here)), Pleasance...

Materialists review - a misfiring romcom or an undercooked s...

The Canadian-Korean director Celine Song burst onto the scene with her debut feature, Past Lives, two years ago, a bittersweet...

Album: Marissa Nadler - New Radiations

“I will fly around the world just to forget you” are the opening words of “It Hits Harder,” the first track on New Radiations. The song...

BBC Proms: Akhmetshina, LPO, Gardner review - liquid luxurie...

Water surged through this Prom from first spray to last drop....

Freakier Friday review - body-swapping gone ballistic

Before Freakier Friday there were the two film versions of Freaky Friday based on Mary Rodgers’s lively, perceptive 1972 Young...

theartsdesk in Kovachevitsa - top Bulgarians and friends mak...

Performers and public alike always treasure a beautiful and, in this case, remote setting for a music festival. But people matter as much as sense...