New Music Reviews
theartsdesk on Vinyl 76: Elton John, Pharoah Sanders, Hellripper, Jah Wobble, T-Rex and moreWednesday, 19 April 2023![]()
There will be two theartsdesk on Vinyls this week. The first is here, an epic 11,000 words on a multitude of new releases in every genre, from reissues of classics to spanking new strangeness. There’s something for everyone. On Thursday we’ll have a special edition in honour of Record Store Day this coming Saturday, so watch out for that too. For now, though, dive in! VINYL OF THE MONTH Read more... |
Goat, The Mill, Birmingham review - Scandinavian pagans see the weekend out in styleTuesday, 18 April 2023![]()
It might be nigh on six months since Scandinavian shamen (and women) Goat released their latest opus, Oh Death, but it has taken until now for them to finally bring their energetic live show back to the UK. On Sunday’s evidence, it is a wait that now feels like a small price to pay though, as Brummies young and old blew their minds and danced their socks off to intoxicating sounds that provoked a seriously ecstatic response. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Pharoah Sanders Quartet - Live at Fabrik Hamburg 1980Sunday, 16 April 2023![]()
Promises attracted a lot of attention upon its 2020 release. The album brought together UK electronica artist Floating Points, The London Symphony Orchestra and storied US jazz individualist Pharoah Sanders, who died in September 2022. It became his last album. Promises – composed by Sam Sheperd in his Floating Points guise – cannot though have been conceived to be as high profile as it became. Read more... |
The Damned, Town Hall, Birmingham review - original punks bring some darkadelica to a full houseSaturday, 15 April 2023![]()
The last time I saw the Damned live in concert was in a big tent in Finsbury Park in 1986, to celebrate the band’s 10th anniversary. It remains, without any doubt, the most violent gig that I’ve found myself experiencing to this day. Read more... |
The Orielles, G2, Glasgow review - shoegaze trio keeping their eyes on the futureTuesday, 11 April 2023![]()
It is temping to wonder what path the Orielles would have gone down in a world where the coronavirus never occurred. The Halifax trio had just released their second album, Disco Volador when the pandemic struck, and wiped out any hope of touring the record. Instead they reworked material from the record for use scoring a film, and have now returned with last year’s Tableau album as a significantly different beast. Read more... |
Orbital, Brighton Centre review - a solid hands-in-the-air night outMonday, 10 April 2023![]()
Just before the encore, the crowd is finally warmed up and dancing. It took a while, but hands are now in the air, middle-aged bodies are shifting about, muscle memory of MDMA nights in the last century. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Too Much Sun Will Burn - The British Psychedelic Sounds Of 1967 Volume 2Sunday, 09 April 2023![]()
Together or separately, British psychedelia and 1967’s related music have been ceaselessly looked at. There cannot be an awful lot more to say. Nonetheless, the law of diminishing returns is there for ignoring so herewith the follow-up to the 2016 box set Let’s Go Down & Blow Our Minds. Read more... |
Mimi Webb, O2 Academy, Glasgow review - TikTok queen fails to fire with sparse setThursday, 06 April 2023![]()
Blake Rose clearly wasn’t leaving anything to chance. The support act bounded onstage draped in a Saltire, and soon brought up his days growing up in Aberdeen before moving to Australia. That Scottish upbringing helped inspire one of his songs, “Sweet Caledonia”, and going by the lively reaction he received from the youthful Glasgow crowd they were glad to take him as their own. Read more... |
Vossa Jazz 2023 review: Norwegian festival’s 50th-anniversary edition keeps traditional music closeThursday, 06 April 2023![]()
Two drummers are drumming. One held the beat on ABBA’s “Super Trouper”. He is Sweden’s Per Lindvall, more usually associated with jazz. The other is Norway’s Rune Arnesen, whose recording credits are also stylistically varied. Locked-in tight together, their groove provides the backbone for a band led by Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær, whose 1996 album Khmer was his first for the ECM label. This is a live revisitation of the album. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: McNeal and Niles - Thrust, Wilbur Niles and Thrust - Thrust TooSunday, 02 April 2023![]()
An original pressing of 1979’s Thrust fetches at least £1000. Its 1980 follow-up Thrust Too can be a relative bargain at around £400. The prices are partly explained by J Dilla having sampled Thrust Too’s “Survival of the Funkiest” and Thrust’s “Summer Fun” being sampled by Daphni. Both funk-soul albums – the first credited to McNeal and Niles, the second to Wilbur Niles and Thrust – were barely circulated and barely sold. Text-book collector’s items. 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
![The Upsetters in 1968, with Lee Perry (centre back)](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/People%20Funny%20Boy%20The%20Upsetter%20Singles%201968-1969_the%20upsetters_1000_header_0.jpg?itok=15BC7gt4)
After the March 1969 UK release of the “Return of Django” single, prospective performers of the song could buy it transcribed as sheet music. On...
![Geniality in a crisis: Simon Rattle and the magnificent violas of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Prom%2062%201.jpg?itok=pNh9IBqY)
Mahler’s Sixth is one of those apocalyptic megaliths that shouldn’t be approached too often by audiences or conductors. It’s been a constant in...
![Red peril: Royal Ballet principal Steven McRae wearing his other hat, in his self-choreographed solo tap dance, Fortitudine](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/STEVEN%20MCRAE%20in%20%27Fortitudine%27%20at%20BALLET%20NIGHTS%20CADOGAN%20HALL%20photo%20by%20Deborah%20Jaffe%20%2812%29.jpg?itok=fupIoPF1)
It’s exactly a year since Ballet Nights, the self-styled taster platform for ...
![Between three worlds: the main players of 'Kaos'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/kaos-the-new-show-on-netflix-v0-emp1zuygzuld1.jpeg?itok=Dt3ric15)
The ancient Greeks would probably have liked a lot about Charlie Covell‘s manipulation of mythic material. After all, Euripides was prepared to...
![DJs Moneyshot and Rackabeat](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Allergies.jpg?itok=Wp6QF9eA)
The Allergies kicked off their Freak the Speaker tour in Birmingham this week. However, the album that they were promoting was nowhere to...
![The cast of The Silver Cord - anyone for a game of Happy Families?](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Silver-Cord-September-03-2024-1-1.jpg?itok=Ya8G1iKM)
One of the Finborough Theatre’s Artistic Director, Neil McPherson’s, gifts is an uncanny ability to find long-forgotten...
!['As comebacks go, this takes some beating'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/204330-ll-cool-j-the-force.jpg?itok=GxKlX6Ff)
This album only has one serious flaw: LL COOL J didn’t open it with “OK you can call it a comeback”. Sorry, cheap joke (if you didn’t know, his...
![Mild, wild ride: Simon Rattle](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/br%20rat%202.jpg?itok=GbotI0SZ)
Hot on the glittering heels of the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, Sir Simon Rattle brought another stellar German outfit to the...
![Beth Ditto led from the front for the reformed Gossip](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Gossip.jpeg?itok=FJ4bFB1N)
Beth Ditto protests too much. 'Do you feel young" she hollered early on, before adding "I don't", one of several references during the gig...
![Divided loyalties: Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, Orson Welles as Harry Lime](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Cotton%20%20Welles%20on%20wheel%20MAIN.jpg?itok=VNjffKxk)
It was originally released in Britain 75 years ago this month, making its debut in a small cinema in Hastings on 1 September 1949, and quite a few...