New Music Reviews
Music Reissues Weekly: When the Alarm Clock Rings - A Compendium of British Psychedelia 1966-1969Sunday, 05 November 2023
“How psychedelic is your pop? This is the demanding question posed to many groups today, struggling for acceptance. It's no longer any good to say: ‘Well, mate, we can play Wilson Pickett, James Brown and all that gear,’ to anybody contemplating booking a band. One has to explain whether one is likely to set fire to the auditorium, or batter the audience’s senses with flame, light and fiendish noises.” Read more... |
Young Fathers, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - powerful set from a band who keep pushing boundariesFriday, 03 November 2023
Fresh from winning this year’s Scottish Album of the Year Award – for the third time no less! – Young Fathers gave a spectacular performance on Tuesday night on their home turf, at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall. Sure, it seems odd that a competition that’s only been running ten years has been won three times by a band who’ve released four albums. Read more... |
10 Questions for the avant-pop icons StereolabThursday, 02 November 2023
Just over 30 years ago, avant-pop icons Stereolab released their debut album Peng! establishing the early hallmarks of the English-French band’s sound; 1960s pop harmonies, chorus-laden guitar riffs and a borderless world of analog electrics. Read more... |
Brian Eno, Baltic Sea Philharmonic, Kristjan Järvi, RFH review - electronica brilliantly re-visioned for orchestraWednesday, 01 November 2023
There is a great deal of sense in transposing electronic music to a symphony orchestra. However beautifully crafted, imaginatively constructed, and creatively programmed, the sounds that come out of synthesisers and other digital tools lack the knife-edge fallibility of music that is produced with the hand or the human breath. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Osmo Lindeman - Electronic WorksSunday, 29 October 2023
For Finnish composer Osmo Lindeman, the decision to pursue electronic music was made in 1968 during a visit to Poland. He had recently started using graphical notation for the scores of his compositions and was having problems getting conductors and orchestras to follow what he wanted. Read more... |
Album: Mayssa Jallad - Marjaa: The Battle of the HotelsSaturday, 28 October 2023
Atmospherically and musically, the debut album from Lebanon’s Mayssa Jallad swiftly makes its case. It opens with a drifting, elegiac voice singing a wandering melody over a sound-bed including what sounds like a koto and a droning cello. The language employed is Arabic. On the next track, the meditative spell is punctured by the crack of distant gunfire. Read more... |
theartsdesk at Salzburg Jazz & the City Festival - perfection in free venuesTuesday, 24 October 2023
As a cultural destination, Salzburg really is hard to beat. Each year, a million and a half tourists descend on this compact city with its baroque architectural delights, and a population of just 150,000. The city of Mozart and of the Salzburger Festspiele was also once home to Paracelsus, Heinrich Biber, Stefan Zweig, Georg Trakl, and more recently – of course – The Sound of Music and Red Bull. Read more... |
Rodrigo y Gabriela, Town Hall, Birmingham review - Mexican superstar guitarists bring a set of new soundsMonday, 23 October 2023
Despite playing together for almost 25 years, Rodrigo y Gabriela are still taking chances in the live arena and refusing to take the easy path. They certainly didn’t put on a heritage act set in Birmingham this weekend. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Serge Gainsbourg - L'Homme à tête de chouSunday, 22 October 2023
Marilou lies on the ground. She’s been bludgeoned to death by a fire extinguisher. Its foam covers her body. Her murderer is a forty-something man who has become obsessed with her. She shampoos hair in a barbers, where he first comes across her. Their affair turns sour after he finds her in bed with two other men. After the murder, her killer ends up in a mental hospital. Read more... |
Snayx/Shelf Lives/Monakis, Patterns, Brighton review - storming, punking triple-headerFriday, 20 October 2023
Patterns is a small, low-ceilinged, underground, seafront venue. Tonight it would be a feast for any passing ancient succubae who happens to feed on raw human energy. From 7.00 PM until 10.00 PM, the room plays host to a package tour of three rising bands. Their short, vim-filled sets are hard-wired to a thrilling, relentless punk intensity. Read more... |
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