fri 29/03/2024

New Music Reviews

Judy Collins, Cambridge Folk Festival review - celebrating a seminal Sixties' album

Liz Thomson

It’s 15 years since Judy Collins last stepped out at the Cambridge Folk Festival. She was a mere 68 then and, in the time since, little has changed except her hair, the famous rock-star mane lopped so that she now resembles the cover of those classic early Sixties’ albums.

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Album: Maria Wilman - Dark Horse

Kieron Tyler

Although Dark Horse is Maria Wilman’s first album, it feels as though it’s the latest entry in a string of releases. The songs are fully formed. The delivery is assured. The overall character of what’s heard is cohesive, suggesting the person who recorded these 12 tracks draws from previous experiences with framing what they want to express, and how it should be expressed. But there it is, Dark Horse is a debut.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Glenda Collins, Heinz, David John & The Mood - the latest treasures from Joe Meek's Tea Chest Tapes

Kieron Tyler

Restraint wasn’t the watchword. Around March 1965, Heinz was in Joe Meek’s North London recording studio taping “Big Fat Spider,” which became the B-side of his April single version of “Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright.” A run-through which didn’t end up on the record found guitarist Richie Blackmore tossing off blistering lead runs so frenzied, so spikey, so wayward they might – had the track been issued – have caused radio producers to check whether the single had a pressing fault.

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Julie Byrne, Juni Habel, Kings Place review - finely tuned evening balancing dark with light

Kieron Tyler

It’s probably an unconscious action. Sat on a stage-centre chair, Julie Byrne sings. The two acoustic guitars she plays for about half the set are beside her, on their racks. One hand is above the other, palms down. Each moves side-to-side in a chopping motion. It’s not simultaneous with the song’s rhythm and independent of the meter of the lines. It’s not obvious what's being complemented or ticked off, but it must draw from something concealed by the exterior.

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Bluedot Festival 2023 review - monsoon weather can't defeat the music'n'science extravaganza

Caspar Gomez

“This wasn’t the day to wear white suede boots,” says Django Django’s singer Vincent Neff, midway through the band’s Friday evening set.

He’s not kidding.

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Album: Susanna - Baudelaire & Orchestra

Kieron Tyler

After his death in 1867, it didn’t take long for Charles Baudelaire’s poems to be set to music. Composer Henri Duparc did so in 1870, but Claude Debussy’s late 1880s framing of five of the Symbolist pioneer’s verses confirmed this as more than a one-off fascination for the musical world.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Autonomy - The Productions of Martin Rushent

Kieron Tyler

Two producers named Martin worked with Buzzcocks and Joy Division. Martin Hannett was in the studio for Buzzcocks’ debut release, the Spiral Scratch EP, issued in January 1977, and also for the bulk of the tracks spread across their last three United Artists singles in 1980. He also shaped every studio recording Joy Division made for Factory Records.

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Tinariwen, O2 Institute 2, Birmingham review - desert superstars raise the roof

Guy Oddy

Mali’s Tinariwen have been a serious powerhouse in non-Western music since the 2001 release of their first major label album, The Radio Tisdas Sessions. Their sound certainly hasn’t stood still in the last twenty years though.

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 78: Crass, Rhiannon Giddens, Rudimental, Ralfe Band, Ray Barretto, Ultravox and more

Thomas H Green

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Pere Ubu Trouble on Big Beat Street (Cherry Red)

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Album: Rain Parade - Last Rays of a Dying Sun

Kieron Tyler

The atmosphere is foggy. What can be discerned through the murk is either out of focus or translucent. Words drift in from somewhere which can’t be pinpointed. “I’m tuning you in,” “I’ve picked up the loaded dice,” “Everything you know is everything that you let go.” Control is just out of reach. The songs are mid paced, with nods to Crazy Horse and Television. There are odd snatches of backwards guitar.

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