fri 22/08/2025

New Music Reviews

Just in From Scandinavia: Nordic Music Round-Up 6

Kieron Tyler

Santa has returned home, but he wasn’t the season’s only visitor from the Nordic lands. The crop of recent music in from the region embraces genre-crossing jazz, vintage-style rock, the expected electropop, cross-border collaborations and a seven-year-old Finn. Exploring all corners of Scandinavia’s music, theartsdesk journeys where no one else does, landing in Norway first for some finely formed jazz.

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David Bowie, 66, releases first new single in a decade

theartsdesk

Well, he was always ahead of the game. In a few years’ time 66 will become the new official pension age in his native United Kingdom, but David Bowie has chosen to celebrate his 66th birthday by coming out of what many perceived to be retirement. “Where Are We Now?” was launched without any previous fanfare earlier this morning, and you can listen to it and watch the video (directed by Tony Oursler) here.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Broadcast, João Gilberto, James, Here Comes the Hurt

Kieron Tyler

 

Broadcast: Berberian Sound Studio Original Soundtrack

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Reissue CDs: The Best of 2012

Kieron Tyler

Can’s The Lost Tapes towers over any of the other reissues theartsdesk has covered this year. Although not strictly a reissue – it collected unheard recordings from tapes which had lain in the band’s archive – it rewrote the story of the seminal German band, offering a new perspective on their creative process and what they had issued.

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CD of the Year: Christine Tobin – Sailing to Byzantium

peter Quinn

On Sailing to Byzantium Christine Tobin's utterly singular music fuses with the amaranthine force of WB Yeats's poetry to create one of the most transporting jazz releases in aeons.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Gil Scott-Heron, K.T. Oslin, Motorpsycho, Feeling High

Kieron Tyler


Gil Scott-Heron The Revolution Begins The Flying Dutchman MastersGil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Begins – The Flying Dutchman Masters

Kieron Tyler

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Lives in Music #2: How Music Works by David Byrne

howard Male

Reading How Music Works feels a bit like breaking into David Byrne’s house and randomly nosing around the Word files on his computer. First there’s some stuff about whether specific types of music were subconsciously written with certain acoustic spaces in mind, then there’s a biographical bit about Byrne’s experiences as a performer.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Prodigy, Man Chest Hair, Jackie Ross, Del Shannon

theartsdesk


The Prodigy The Fat of the Land 15th Anniversary Expanded EditionThe Prodigy: The Fat of the Land 15th Anniversary Expanded Edition

Thomas H Green

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Beth Orton, Oran Mor, Glasgow

Lisa-Marie Ferla

With a hollered “hello Glasgow” and immediate launch into “Magpie”, the emotionally ragged song that opens this year’s Sugaring Season, it was as if Beth Orton had never been away. On this last date of her UK tour, the night before her 42nd birthday, Orton’s notoriously husky singing voice was unsurprisingly even throatier, more tremulous than usual.

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Viva Forever!, Piccadilly Theatre

Kieron Tyler

Viva Forever! isn’t the clunker it’s been labelled. It’s also not the thin gruel of the standard West End jukebox musical. The real problem is that it can never be Mamma Mia!, the globe-conquering, ABBA-derived franchise previously devised by its producer Judy Craymer.

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