New Music Reviews
BBC Proms live online: Anoushka Shankar/Laura Marling - scintillating sitar and fortified folkMonday, 07 September 2020
In what would have been the year her father, the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar turned 100, sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar pays tribute to him and builds on his legacy in this online Prom. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Stooges - Live At Goose LakeSunday, 06 September 2020
So far this year, Live at Goose Lake August 8th, 1970 is 2020’s most exciting archive release. The album is a previously unknown soundboard recording of The Stooges playing at Jackson, Michigan’s Goose Lake Festival. The event was formally billed as Goose Lake Park – International Music Festival. Read more... |
South West Four Live, Electric Brixton online review - the dance goes on?Tuesday, 01 September 2020
If two dozen DJs spin tunes and no one’s there, did a rave really happen? There is plenty of time for such questions during the 25 hours of livestreams substituting for SW4’s annual bank holiday party on Clapham Common. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: This Is Our Music - Jazz Out Of NorwaySunday, 30 August 2020
The Turnamat is a type of washing machine made by AEG. In the composition titled “Turnamat”, Seventies-type synths, wobbly keyboard lines and hard-grooving drums give way to a brass-led interlude suggesting an acquaintance with the compositions of Lalo Schifrin. It’s as if a jazz-inflected soundtrack from 45 years ago has been shoved into a blender rather than a washing machine, then reconstituted and given a major buff-up. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Ready Or Not - Thom Bell's Philly Soul Arrangements & ProductionsSunday, 23 August 2020
A skim though the track listing confirms that this is no typical soul compilation. Actress and some-time pop singer Connie Stevens crops up. So does Johnny Mathis. Such seeming quirks are fitting as Thom Bell was never a typical arranger, producer or songwriter. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 59: Johnny Cash, Bananagun, Fleetwood Mac, Romare, PJ Harvey, Kamaal Williams and moreWednesday, 19 August 2020
The usual summer vinyl release slump doesn’t seem to apply this year. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Be-Bop Deluxe - Axe VictimSunday, 16 August 2020
Bill Nelson’s views on his band Be-Bop Deluxe’s debut album are measured. In the essay accompanying its reissue, he writes “Axe Victim is one brief snapshot of a band in the process of becoming something else…a modest beginning, flawed but not without charm. And not the end of the story. Read more... |
Cara Dillon Live at Cooper Hall, YouTube review - a warm Irish welcomeFriday, 14 August 2020
Cara Dillon and Sam Lakeman were bringing it all back home when they performed their first live stream concert from Cooper Hall, in Frome, Somerset, close to were they live and where they recorded Dillon’s 2017 album, Wanderer. Read more... |
AIM Awards 2020, SBTV review - a game attempt to rewire awards ceremoniesThursday, 13 August 2020
Music awards shows are a strange beast: part window display, part industry conference and part party. Especially if you don’t have Brit Awards or Mercury Prize budget to create a whizz-bang spectacle, the ceremonies can be an interminable pileup of attempts to earnestly celebrate both musicians and behind-the-scenes figures, in front of a room full of increasingly drunk and impatient people. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Dudu Phukwana and the "Spears"Sunday, 09 August 2020
Whether explicitly or indirectly, what’s written on a master tape box can tantalise. Revealing part of a picture creates a desire to want to know more. Take the example seen above. It’s for an album by South African alto saxist Dudu Pukwana. Read more... |
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