fri 25/07/2025

New Music Reviews

Reissue CDs Weekly: The Action

Kieron Tyler

From 7.30pm on Thursday 19 January 1967, George Martin and The Beatles spent the next seven hours at the Abbey Road’s Studio 2 working through takes one to four of “In the Life of…”, a new song which, when completed, would be retitled “A Day in the Life”. In late May, fans would hear it as the final track of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

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MØ - Forever Neverland

Russ Coffey

Think of Karen "MØ" Andersen and you may well picture one of her smash hit videos. "Lean On", for instance, where the singer gyrates to a Bollywood/ house mashup. Or "Kamikaze" set in post-apocalyptic Ukraine. Yet, for all the Zeitgeist-y imagery what really made those songs so popular was really just simple...

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Smashing Pumpkins, Wembley Arena review - Corgan and company deliver the goods

Ralph Moore

A three-hour show? There’s no doubt that The Smashing Pumpkins give good bang for the buck but it’s rare to see a band of this size and stature play for more than two hours in London.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Rockin' in the USA - Hot 100 Hits of the 80s

Kieron Tyler

One marker arrived on 1 August 1981, when MTV began broadcasting. With its format based around screening pop videos, American radio had a competitor and would lose the edge it once had.

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CD: Jess Glynne - Always In Between

Katie Colombus

The first release from Jess Glynne’s new album, “I’ll Be There” confirmed the North London singer as the first ever British female artist to have seven no.1 singles in the UK Chart.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Kubrick's Music

Kieron Tyler

Stanley Kubrick’s use of music in his films has been inspirational. In 1999, The Caretaker – a nom-de-musique of Jim Kirby – issued Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom. While his alter-ego openly acknowledged the director’s film The Shining, the album’s music reconfigured vintage recordings of bands in tribute to the film’s haunted ballroom scenes.

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 43: Pixies, Nazareth, Yumi and the Weather, Beta Band, Northern Soul and more

Thomas H Green

There’s been a lot of conjecture over the last couple of years about HD Vinyl. It is, we’re told, a more precise and rounded analogue experience, taking record-listening to the next level. The company’s Austrian MD Guenter Loibl has explained that the process uses “a laser-cut ceramic instead of electroplated metal stampers” to achieve results that add 30% more audio information to a record. Sounds great.

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They Might Be Giants, Barbican review - genuine, authentic humour

Sebastian Scotney

The songs of They Might Be Giants have an irresistible way of combining the playful, the childlike and the absurd. The band’s major label debut album, Flood from 1990, which was most people’s entry point into their music, is full of quick-witted humour.

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Soft Cell, O2 review - a memorable finale to their career

Caspar Gomez

Soft Cell have been teasing us for almost three hours. “I think we might have forgotten to do one, Dave,” says Marc Almond, pacing the stage, a wry smirk on his face. His protégé, Dave Ball, is next to him, ensconced behind a corral of old analogue synthesizers. The song lyrics descending down two gigantic screens behind them illustrate the burlesque of it all.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Michael Gibbs Big Band, The Gary Burton Quartet

Kieron Tyler

Gary Burton fans with an eye for detail will know that “Fly Time Fly (Sigh)” from his second album, 1962’s Who Is Gary Burton?, had a writer credit of “Gibbs”. The American vibes-ace’s next album, 1963’s 3 in Jazz, a collaboration with Sonny Rollins and Clark Terry included another song by Gibbs.

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