New Music Reviews
dÉbruit, Auntie Flo at The Boiler RoomThursday, 10 May 2012
Club culture has always had a tension between democratisation (“come one, come all!”) and exclusivity (the thrill of being in the know about the newest or most underground thing). The best clubs have always been the ones that find ways of short-circuiting this seeming opposition, and a great part of the success of The Boiler Room is the way they have harnessed technology to perform the same trick. Read more... |
Grimes, XOYOThursday, 10 May 2012
Grimes’ new album, Visions, her third, is an invigorating piece of work, a very 2012 meltdown of twitchy tuneful electronica and sweet indie-ethereal singing. It’s an album that cannot decide whether to put on its dancing shoes or sit back and smoke a joint, so decides to muddle heads with skewed sonics while also making the feet twitch. Read more... |
Alabama Shakes, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, GlasgowThursday, 10 May 2012
With last month's debut album, Boys and Girls, still riding high in the charts and a buzzworthy Jools Holland performance under their belts – to say nothing of the attention they've attracted on their own side of the Atlantic from the likes of Jack White – Southern roots four-piece Alabama Shakes have become the hottest ticket in town on this, their first headline UK tour. Read more... |
Dexys, Shepherds Bush EmpireWednesday, 09 May 2012
Kevin Rowland always did march to the beat of his own drum. Whether it was purloining his album’s master tapes from his record company or refusing to consort with the music press, he constantly straddled a wobbly fence between control freak and paranoid lunatic. This, as much as Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ sublime, heartfelt music, made him a riveting, charismatic presence in the early 1980s. The name is now just Dexys, but what else had changed three decades on? Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Small FacesSunday, 06 May 2012
Small Faces: The Decca Album (Deluxe Edition), From The Beginning (Deluxe Edition), The Immediate Album (Deluxe Edition), Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (Deluxe Edition) Kieron Tyler Read more... |
Quantic & Alice Russell with Combo Barbaro, KokoFriday, 04 May 2012
Ah, Koko, the old Camden Palace, another of London’s lovely venues, over 100 years old, all done up in red with gold gilt, and two layers of balcony boxes intact. It’s easy, as a regular gig-goer, to become oblivious to these heritage British venues but they are truly wonderful, full of personality that dozens of airport-like civic halls and sports arenas across the Americas can never muster. Read more... |
New Order, Brixton AcademyThursday, 03 May 2012
Someone came all the way from Saskatchewan to see New Order in Brixton last night, which is either a measure of the esteem in which the band is held or an indication that someone had a pile of Air Miles to get rid of. Judging by the positively rapturous cheers that went up as Bernard Sumner ambled onstage for the first London date of their first tour in six years, it must surely be the former. Read more... |
Bow Wow Wow, Islington AcademyTuesday, 01 May 2012
It’s hard to think of any other records as exuberantly hedonistic as the handful of singles this London band rattled off at the beginning of the 1980s. Yes, they were accompanied by the then necessary punk sneer which said, This is all strictly ironic. But the music couldn’t lie. The music really did want you to go wild in the country, even if naughty Annabella Lwin just wanted to sneak off for a fag. Or was naughty Annabella just an illusion too? Read more... |
Rizzle Kicks, The Dome, BrightonTuesday, 01 May 2012
So, Rizzle Kicks, teenybop pop-hop, right? So what we’re going to get is a bunch of over-excited tweens fobbed off with pre-recorded backing tracks, a bit of choreographed dancing and maybe some balloons? Certainly the support acts, Josh Osho and Mikill Pane, while passably entertaining, adhered to a minimal set-up and plenty of basic hype man call’n’response, but Rizzle Kicks didn’t. In fact, they firmly booted pre-conceptions into touch. Read more... |
Dan Mangan, Stereo, GlasgowMonday, 30 April 2012
Dan Mangan’s gravelly, expressive voice and the wisdom that infuses his lyrics do not speak to a songwriter still in his twenties. There’s this song on Nice, Nice, Very Nice, his first album for the Arts & Crafts indie powerhouse back in 2009, that has always given me chills for those reasons. It’s called “Basket” and, the singer explained, is “based on old people” he’s gotten to know over the years. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery review - sickeningly cute ki...
It’s been a long time since an exhibition made me feel physically sick. The Hayward Gallery is currently hosting a retrospective of the...
Hespèrion XXI, Savall, QEH review - an evening filled with l...
For the first encore of the evening, it was not just the audience but the whole ensemble of Hespèrion XXI that was mesmerised as its leader,...
Album: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - Talkin' to...
When Neil Young releases a new album, you can be reasonably sure that you’ll get either a disc of melancholy singer-songwriter fare or a set of...
Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review - the spark ages
The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", gives a...
Album: Mary Halvorson - About Ghosts
Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the fore. The first...
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridge Theatre review - Nick...
It’s a sign of the inroads that the term “immersive” has made in theatreland that it now gets jokily namedropped at the...
Saul, Glyndebourne review - playful, visually ravishing desc...
This thrilling production of Saul takes Handel’s dramatisation of the Bible’s first Book of Samuel and paints it in...
theartsdesk at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festiv...
If, like me, chamber music isn’t your most frequent home, there are bound to be revelations of what for many are known masterpieces. Mine in...
