New Music Reviews

theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 18 - Star Wars, Plaid, Air, Fog, 18+ and more

Thomas H Green Monday, 20 June 2016

For new, independent artists, access to putting music on vinyl can seem daunting, especially to those who’ve grown up in the era of virtual music. There are schemes out there to counter this, notably the VF Selects programme, wherein the self-explanatory Vinyl Factory, together with FACT online magazine and the crowd-funding site Born.com, offer an opportunity. Between these organizations, the weight of funding, production and promotion is carried.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Lust for Life

Kieron Tyler Sunday, 19 June 2016

Punk rock, or what’s touted as punk rock, is practically inescapable right now. In London, a series of events tagged as Punk.London: 40 Years of Subversive Culture includes concerts by reanimated bands, exhibitions and film seasons. Backers include the British Fashion Council, the British Film Institute and the Design Museum. The Mayor of London is an official supporter. Sponsorship has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Found Festival 2016, Brockwell Park

Caspar Gomez Monday, 13 June 2016

Found Festival 2016 got a couple of things right. The choice of music-makers was solid and the broad cross-section of friendly people who attended was admirable. But, unfortunately, everything else went wrong. Worst of all was the behaviour of the security team who, by the end of the day, had become hi-viz-jacketed herds of power-dizzy bullies, marauding around the site.

Laura Mvula, Festival of Voice, Cardiff

Dylan Moore Sunday, 12 June 2016

Laura Mvula talks almost as much as she sings. Between songs she confesses to rambling, but her musings – on heartbreak, on “toilet analogies” for the recording process, on meeting the Duke of Edinburgh and then falling over – are never less than disarmingly engaging. At times it verges on stand-up comedy. Mostly, she simply reveals aspects of herself: charismatic, sassy, down-to-earth, a girl from Birmingham with an incredible gift.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Folque, Undertakers Circus

Kieron Tyler Sunday, 12 June 2016

The names may be unfamiliar, but Folque and Undertakers Circus are as good as better-known bands. Despite being musical bedfellows neither Norwegian band is as esteemed as, say, Trader Horne and Trees or Colloseum and Lighthouse. Folque issued their eponymous debut album in 1974. Despite line-up changes, the band was active until 1984. Undertakers Circus issued two albums, the first of which was 1973’s Ragnarock. The original band ran out of steam around 1976.

AC/DC, Olympic Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Park

Russ Coffey Monday, 06 June 2016

The accepted wisdom from last month's relaunched Rock or Bust tour was that the substitution of Axl Rose for incapacitated singer Brian Johnson was as masterful as it was surprising. Whatever the Guns N' Roses man lacked in mischief, the story went, he made up for with malevolent energy. Now, though, it's been over a month of the new band. So is Axl still brimming with curdled anger?

Malcolm Middleton, The Lexington

Thomas H Green Sunday, 05 June 2016

The Scottish singer-songwriter Malcolm Middleton has always had a restless creativity, right back to his days in the Bukowskian indie duo Arab Strap. He announced a few years ago that he was sick of playing solo gigs, expected to strum an acoustic guitar and delve into his mordant back catalogue.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Adam and the Ants

Kieron Tyler Sunday, 05 June 2016

Adam Ant was one of the few who saw Sex Pistols’ first live show. On 6 November 1975, his band Bazooka Joe was playing Charing Cross Road’s St Martin’s School of Art. They found an uninvited support band had gatecrashed the evening. The impact of the interlopers on the then Stuart Goddard wasn’t instant, but he would go on to form The B-Sides and, then, Adam and the Ants, whose manager became Jordan, who worked at Malcolm McLaren’s King’s Road shop SEX.

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John Cale, Festival of Voice, Cardiff

Dylan Moore Saturday, 04 June 2016

“Are you enjoying Wales, John?” shouts a fan, eventually. Our returning hero has remained taciturn and all but static at his keyboard throughout an epic show that spans one of popular music’s most interesting and influential careers. Cale affects to have misheard. “Am I rejoining Wales?” he ponders. “I certainly hope so. I feel like I’m rejoining every time I’m here.”

Common People Festival 2016, Southampton

Thomas H Green Tuesday, 31 May 2016

Rob da Bank’s Faustian pact with the weather gods continues apace with the second year of Common People, which takes place simultaneously in Southampton and Oxford. The forecast for days beforehand had predicted a cold front bearing relentless drizzle but, in the event, wellies were left packed away as the elements chose instead to offer blazing summer sunshine for the 30,000 revellers who attended the festival's second day at Southampton.

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