wed 07/05/2025

New Music Reviews

Album: slowthai - UGLY

Harry Thorfinn-

The years since slowthai’s Mercury Prize nominated debut have been patchy. There was the public reckoning after his oafish behaviour at the NME awards, but then he scored his first number one album a year later. He’s become a father but also struggled with his mental health

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We Are Scientists, Oran Mor, Glasgow review - fan service with a smile proves lacking

Jonathan Geddes

Although We Are Scientists onstage chat is always delivered with a light touch, there is truth running through it as well. Early on at this set their singer and guitarist Keith Murray quipped that he wouldn’t be needing his lucky charm for the evening, and in a way he was right.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Stranger In Town - A Del Shannon Compendium

Kieron Tyler

After Del Shannon took his own life in February 1990 at age 55, some obituaries were careful to point out that he stood apart from other pop stars who were big in pre-Beatles America. “The most tragic thing would be for Del Shannon to be lumped with, as he sometimes was in the past, all the Bobbys and Frankies and the other teen idols,” said the L.A. Weekly.

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Dry Cleaning, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow review - post-punk outfit say all the right words

Jonathan Geddes

There is an endearing awkwardness with Dry Cleaning, despite steady success over the past three years. “Does anyone else want a wave?” asked their frontwoman Florence Shaw at one point, almost shyly, before proceeding to do just that in various directions.

It was an intriguing contrast, between a group who seemed slightly taken aback by the size of venue they were playing, and the manner in which they emphatically delivered their material in that setting during this gig.

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 75: The Beach Boys, The Residents, Danny Goffey, Jean-Michel Jarre, black metal and Sixties psych

Thomas H Green

Welcome to the first theartsdesk on Vinyl of 2023 and it’s another whopper, over 8000 words and a range of musical styles that defies genre or categorization, from the most cutting edge sounds to boxsets of golden vintage pop. Dive in!

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Jimmy Edgar Liquids Heaven (Innovative Leisure)

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Music Reissues Weekly: Dave Brubeck Quartet - Debut In The Netherlands 1958

Kieron Tyler

For Dave Brubeck, his Quartet’s first concert in the Netherlands was memorable. Getting to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw for the 26 February 1958 booking was difficult, possibly unfeasible. The band were travelling from Berlin, and arrived at the show a half-hour after they were meant to be on stage.

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Jockstrap, Heaven review - ecstasy in underground bass

India Lewis

Jockstrap’s crowd, in the vaults of Heaven, was always going to be beautiful and effortlessly cool. Ushered in by a ticket-check clerk sporting love bites, the dreamy sounds of the warm-up act, Pablo, filled the underground space.

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Marina Allen, Cafe Oto Review - east London substitutes for 1970s Los Angeles

Kieron Tyler

When Marina Allen’s second album Centrifics came out last autumn, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter said her voice was the only instrument on the record. She writes on guitar and piano but beyond what she sang, everything else was played by collaborators. Seeing her live might reveal how she saw the songs away from their studio setting – maybe getting close to how they were originally conceived.

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Carly Rae Jepsen, Brighton Dome review - iridescent disco hooks to get you dancing

Katie Colombus

If I’m honest, venturing out into a misty Brighton night with my Tweens for their first proper gig (we won’t count Olly Murs – they were children then) felt somewhat trepidatious.

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Transatlantic Sessions, Southbank Centre - an evening of stellar music-making

Liz Thomson

It all ended in great style, the 20th edition of The Transatlantic Sessions which closed out its tour at London’s Southbank Centre on Saturday. The line-up of musicians is, of course, an embarras de richesse: a house band led by Aly Bain, master fiddler and Scottish icon, and Jerry Douglas, dobro and steel guitar maestro, a Nashville legend whose mantelpiece bears the weight of 14 Grammys.

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