New Music Reviews
Steve Winwood, Eventim Apollo review - multi-talented performer redesigns his back catalogueThursday, 06 July 2017
The precocious Steve Winwood joined the Spencer Davis Group when he was 14, when the Sixties themselves were still young, and hasn’t really stopped ever since. Read more...
|
Reissue CDs Weekly: Beach HouseSunday, 02 July 2017
From beginning to end, B-Sides and Rarities plays through like a regular album; as though it collects a series of tracks recorded where a cohesive release with a flow was the goal. Yet this 14-cut collection is a compilation with its earliest selection from 2005, the year Beach House formed. Read more... |
theartsdesk at Glastonbury Festival 2017Thursday, 29 June 2017
It’s a Tweet-age Glastonbury aftermath. It’s monsooning grey outside. The real world’s back, consensus reality fast encroaching. Everything’s moved on, spun to the next thing as we A.D.D. onto Wimbledon, Hard Brexit or whatever. Even my 14-year-old daughter knows the “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” chant (to the riff from White Stripes “Seven Nation Army”) that rolled across this year’s Glastonbury crowds like... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Shelleyan OrphanSunday, 25 June 2017
Considering Shelleyan Orphan, Melody Maker said “someone’s been smearing themselves in art…were they artists or did they just wallow in shit?” While the late Eighties’ British music press often made assertions to seek attention, slagging off a band because they sought to follow their own path is, with hindsight, rich given that roughly contemporary cover stars such as Chakk and Set The Tone dealt in music so precisely fixed in the moment they now sound as dated as Sheena Easton’s... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 29: The Beatles, Kraftwerk, Sikth, ESG, Alice Coltrane and moreThursday, 22 June 2017
Reviewed this month with the windows open, in weather hot enough to warp records, this month theartsdesk on Vinyl casts two ears over 34 releases, starting with a striking foray into elegant songwriting and ending with Now That’s What I Call Classic Rock. Read more... |
Supersonic Festival 2017, BirminghamTuesday, 20 June 2017
The Supersonic Festival is Birmingham’s annual gathering of the sonically weird and wonderful pitched at “curious audiences” happy to lend their ears to sounds that would ordinarily be difficult to discover without a lot of effort. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Lynn CastleSunday, 18 June 2017
In a 1967 headline, The Washington Post pegged Lynn Castle as a “Shapely Blonde in Blue Jeans, Popular Barber in Hollywood”. She had attracted attention as the hairdresser of choice for The Byrds, The Monkees, Del Shannon, Sonny & Cher and Stephen Stills. Known as “The Lady Barber”, she also cut the hair of music business movers and shakers Lee Hazlewood and Monkees’ songwriters Boyce and Hart. Read more... |
Guns N' Roses, London Stadium review - venue almost ruins night of glorySunday, 18 June 2017
It had been a perfect summer's day and around the stadium denim-clad punters sipped ice-cool beer and discussed how this reunion would sound. Everyone knew how Axl had aced it, right here, a year ago, filling in as AC/DC's lead singer. Many hoped it would be just like when the classic line-up last played London in 1992. Except this time the sound quality would be better. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Pop MakossaSunday, 11 June 2017
In Summer 1973, Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” peaked at 35 on the American charts. Originally the A-side of a France-only single issued in 1972, the song had been discovered by New York DJ David Mancusso. After Mancusso repeatedly played it, “Soul Makossa” was licensed by Atlantic, charted and became integral to what was bracketed as disco music. Read more... |
Vindauga (Wind Eye) featuring Sam Lee, Kings PlaceMonday, 05 June 2017
It’s the seventh Songlines Encounters festival, with musical meetings ranging from Portugal (Thursday’s Ricardo Ribeiro) to India (Friday’s Bollywood Brass Band with South Indian violinist Jyotsna Srikanth). 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
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 201...
MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has...
Alan Sparhawk, EartH Theatre review - an absorbing game of t...
For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan...
10 Questions for musician Michael Gira
Michael Gira (born 19/2/54) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, author and artist. He founded Swans, a band in which he sings and plays...
Album: Miley Cyrus - Something Beautiful
A couple of months ago, I wrote here that Lady Gaga was the godmother of the new generation of ostentatiously “theatre kid” pop stars – but...
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust...
As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it...
Album: Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The Light
Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end...
The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature
“I can’t move my arms or legs but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by his...
The Flying Dutchman, Opera Holland Park review - into the st...
Thankfully, Julia Burbach’s version of The Flying Dutchman for Opera Holland Park doesn’t try to be one of those concept-laden...
The Frogs, Southwark Playhouse review - great songs save upd...
As a regular theatregoer, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no story too bizarre to work as a...