New Music Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: Sly & The Viscaynes - Yellow Moon The Complete Recordings 1961-1962Sunday, 07 March 2021
The Viscaynes ought to have been a footnote. A minor footnote. From Vallejo in north California, they were one amongst many early Sixties vocal groups giving it a shot. Some were lucky and had hits. The Earls, The Impalas and Randy & The Rainbows did. Like The Marcels, who charted with “Blue Moon”, they were all rooted in the doo wop sound. Despite their three singles – including the Marcels referencing “Yellow Moon” – The Viscaynes did not break through to national success. Read more... |
Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, Apple TV+ review - sprawling account of the singer's rise to superstardomSunday, 28 February 2021
The Billie Eilish story is a paradigm of pop music and marketing, 2020s-style. Eilish’s instinctive talent became evident when she was barely into her teens, and she flourished with the support of a close-knit and musical family. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Misunderstood - Children Of The Sun The Complete Recordings (1965-1966)Sunday, 28 February 2021
On 31 December 1966, the Daily Mail's Virginia Ironside got to grips with a new trend in pop music. Under the heading “The bleeps take over”, Jimmy Hendrix (sic) The Move and The Pink Floyd were gathered together as purveyors of something The Who had started with “feedback, violence, ripping strings from their guitars.” “New groups,” it was said “are taking it farther and farther out. Read more... |
Album: Jane Weaver - FlockSaturday, 27 February 2021
Flock ends with “Solarised”, a glorious five-plus minutes excursion into retro-futurist pop with the artistic smarts of Saint Etienne and Stereolab. Snappy, toe-tapping drums and bubbly, funky bass guitar move it along. “Stages of Phases” is another winner. Built around a stomping glam-rock chassis, it's sense of otherness is shared by “Solarised”. Read more... |
Album: Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains - Banane BleueWednesday, 24 February 2021
Frànçois Marry’s sixth album as Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains evokes warm days spent lounging in fields of clover reflecting on friendship, places visited and journeys which could be undertaken. Banane Bleue’s 10 tracks are unhurried and delivered as if Marry had just woken up. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: For The Good Times - The Songs Of Kris KristoffersonSunday, 21 February 2021
The ninth track on this collection of interpretations of songs written by Kris Kristofferson is so surprising it’s bewildering. The commentary in the booklet of For The Good Times – The Songs Of Kris Kristofferson notes its “sneering Joe Strummer-like delivery” and that the “guitar-heavy riff is very Clash-like.” Baffling. Read more... |
Sauti za Busara Festival 2021, Zanzibar review - 2500 gather to celebrate music unlockedFriday, 19 February 2021
“Zanzibar, are you ready?” yells the singer from the stage. There’s a huge cheer. It seems the crowd – and it is a crowd – is certainly ready. In shades, a flat cap and dreadlocks down his back, singer Barnaba Classic (pictured below left) is on stage at Zanzibar’s Sauti za Busara festival. Over from Dar es Salaam, Barnaba is a big star in Tanzania and is headlining the festival’s first night after seven hours of music. Read more... |
Disc of the Day 10th Anniversary: Albums We Got WrongThursday, 18 February 2021
Continuing our week of pieces celebrating the 10th birthday of theartsdesk’s album reviews section, today it’s time to ‘fess up! Seven of our regular reviewers reflect on occasions when, in retrospect, their writing did not correctly sum up the music in question. Yes. It happens. Even to us! The Black Keys - El Camino – by Russ Coffey Read more... |
Albums of the Decade 2011-2021Tuesday, 16 February 2021
On Valentine’s Day 2011 Disc of the Day album reviews sprang into being, and has been solidly reviewing five albums a week ever since. Out of the many thousands, which ones did we rate the most? To mark 10 years since its inception, 12 of theartsdesk’s music writers mark the occasion by choosing an Album of the Decade. They appear in alphabetical order by writer. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Disco Zombies - South London StinksSunday, 14 February 2021
“Witless punk” was the weekly music paper Sounds assessment of Disco Zombies’s first single “Drums Over London”. NME’s Paul Morley was more measured, declaring it “ill-disciplined slackly structured new pop but the chorus alone makes up for it.” That was March 1979. Read more... |
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