mon 23/12/2024

New Music Reviews

Music Reissues Weekly: Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers

Kieron Tyler

A first encounter with Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers is unforgettable. Their summer 1970 recordings are so far out they at first seem unlistenable. Persistence pays though and the ear tunes in. It becomes clear this band swallowed the Captain Beefheart playbook and regurgitated it after applying a severe dose of the cut-up technique.

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Music Reissues Weekly: George Martin - A Painter In Sound

Kieron Tyler

A strange new single went on sale in Britain’s record shops in April 1962. Credited to Ray Cathode, “Time Beat” combined a metronomic rhythm with peculiar, otherworldly sounds. It was not a standard pop record. The flipside, “Waltz In Orbit”, was also about its tempo and was just as weird. Not many copies were sold.

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Album: Juni Habel - Carvings

Kieron Tyler

Carvings is recorded so it sounds as if Juni Habel is adjacent to the listener’s ear. The Norwegian singer-songwriter may as well be inches away. Such intimacy can be disconcerting, especially as Carvings evokes a reflective melancholy. Its eight crepuscular songs evoke twilight and wintertime, when introspection is never far.

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Albums of the Year 2022: Beyoncé - Renaissance

Katie Colombus

When asked what I wanted for Christmas this year, my response was mostly that I just want to drink Baileys out of Lindt bunnies and dance in my socks in the kitchen. Y'know?

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Music Reissues Weekly: Guerrilla Girlsǃ - She-Punks & Beyond 1975-2016

Kieron Tyler

In December 1977, the music weekly Sounds included an article about the County Durham punk band Penetration. By Jon Savage, it was headlined The Future Is Female. The same four words would be used by the band for their promotional badges.

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Albums of the Year 2022: Maggie Rogers - Surrender

Tom Carr

Flick through my 2022 Spotify Wrapped playlist and those who know me best won’t be surprised by what they find. Architects, the UK’s preeminent metal group who grapple with progressing their sound further on the classic symptoms of a broken spirit – check. Foals, the indie delights who continue to sweep all before them, and adorned new, summery vibes with latest album Life Is Yours. Check.

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Albums of the Year 2022: Dina Ögon - Dina Ögon

Kieron Tyler

Some of what’s nourishing the debut album by Sweden’s Dina Ögon is evident. A Bossa Nova jazz-pop essence evokes Brazil’s Quarteto em Cy. There’s a trip-hop undertow. Vocal lines bring to mind Free Design. Less easy to pinpoint is a melodic sensibility which seems to be derived from local traditions; echoing the sort of fusion pioneered by Jan Johansson’s Jazz på svenska and Merit Hemmingson when she reframed folk music on the Svensk folkmusik på beat albums.

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Music Reissues Weekly: The Best of 2022

Kieron Tyler

The Beatles loomed over everything else. It wasn’t inevitable, but the arrival of the revealing Revolver box set and Peter Jackson’s compelling Get Back film confirmed that there is more to say about what’s known, and also that there are new things to say about popular music’s most inspirational phenomenon of the 20th century.

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Albums of the Year 2022: Sault - Untitled (God), Today & Tomorrow, 11, Earth, AIIR

Barney Harsent

It’s always hard to choose one album to spotlight come the annual Best Ofs, and 2022 has given us an extraordinary embarrassment of riches to choose from – the bountiful bastard…

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 74: The Muppets, The Beatles, Decius, Black Lab, Black Sabbath, Tinariwen and more

Thomas H Green

Welcome to the final theartsdesk on Vinyl of 2022 which is topped off by two Vinyl of the Months, one there for seasonal jollies and the other for musical adventurousness. As ever, the rest runs the gamut from reissues of albums from decades ago to the most contemporary, cutting edge music around. Dive in!

CHRISTMAS VINYL OF THE MONTH

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