New Music Reviews
Crazy About One Direction, Channel 4Friday, 16 August 2013
Sandra, 14, has worked out what it will be like if she marries One Direction’s Harry Styles. “His morning voice would be amazing,” she says, thinking forward to when the first thing she hears each day is the croak with which he greets the morning and her. Pop groups with fans are nothing new, and with them come ranks of the obsessive. Read more...
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Prom 40: 6 Music Prom, The Stranglers, Laura Marling, London SinfoniettaTuesday, 13 August 2013
“That was a bit of a dog’s breakfast,” said the guy in the row behind. Yes, but then the said canine repast can also no doubt be nutritious and delicious, for dogs anyway. The most dogs-breakfasty (in the bad sense) moment was right at the end, when the Stranglers played their greatest song “Golden Brown”, their immortal chanson to a girl and heroin. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Eddie Noack, The Dictators, The Allman Brothers, Clifton ChenierSunday, 11 August 2013
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Camp Bestival 2013, Lulworth Castle, DorsetThursday, 08 August 2013
Camp Bestival is overrun with children, even the night is alive with them. Where WOMAD is full of old hippies, Camp Bestival is full of raver-parents who refuse to stop shaking a party limb, even if they must haul little Finlay around on an exotic, duvet-filled gurney to do so. It creates a unique atmosphere, a bit bourgeois but just the right amount of wild, inner children meeting actual children to wobble about to Benga basslines. Read more... |
CD: Mike Gibbs + TWELVE play Gil EvansMonday, 05 August 2013
Think of the ingredients you look for in a great jazz record – inspired, exploratory improv, the complete reinvention of standards, ear-catching arrangements, sonorities you've never heard before – and this new big band recording from Mike Gibbs delivers them all. By the bucketload. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Harry NilssonSunday, 04 August 2013
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Just in From Scandinavia: Nordic Music Round-Up 8Thursday, 01 August 2013
Characterising a country’s music by its most successful exports or what seem to be typical local styles is inevitable. With Iceland, the home of Björk and Sigur Rós, it’s easy to assume that ethereality, otherworldliness and plain oddness rule the roost. Of course, that’s not the case. The artists awarded the Kraumur prize for the best albums released in 2012 testify to Iceland’s broad musical palette. Read more... |
WOMAD 2013 Finale: Gilberto GilWednesday, 31 July 2013
The rain had vanished and there were whispers that the Afro-Brazilian gods were keeping it at bay as time got closer to the appearance of the headliner. The international superstar, singer, songwriter, environmentalist and former Minister of Culture ambled on stage like a cat, in a loping, slo-mo dance move, carrying his red electric guitar over his shoulder. Read more... |
Luke Haines, BorderlineWednesday, 31 July 2013
This one-off appearance in a dingy, basement venue seems to be the entirety of Luke Haines’s promotional effort for his new album, Rock and Roll Animals. A few years have passed since he approached mainstream success as front man of The Auteurs and later as part of Black Box Recorder. In the intervening years he has taken the healthy notion that quality does not equal popularity to a possibly illogical conclusion that popularity had better be avoided entirely, just in case. Read more... |
WOMAD 2013, Charlton Park - Days Three and FourTuesday, 30 July 2013
Arriving early on Saturday, the first music I was exposed to in the tranquil arboretum area of the Radio 3 Stage was the mesmeric and gorgeous sounds of Leicester sitarist Roopa Panesar floating from the stage, with dreamy oboe-like shenhai adding to the musical mix. Read more... |
Eddie Noack: Psycho – The K-Ark and Allstar Recordings 1962–69
Nilsson: The RCA Albums CollectionPages
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