New Music Reviews
Public Service Broadcasting, Barrowland, Glasgow review - history given euphoric lifeSaturday, 19 October 2024![]()
The years may go by and the albums might change, but there are always a few constants with Public Service Broadcasting. There is the recorded message that precedes their arrival for one, a disembodied voice booming out to inform the crowd to put their phones away and not talk loudly. Read more... |
Album: Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal - Catching FireThursday, 17 October 2024![]()
Just before the five-minute point, a Mellotron’s distinctive string sound is heard. Three minutes earlier, a guitar evokes Robert Fripp’s characteristic shimmer. Uniting these might result in King Crimson but, instead, these are just two elements of “I Cover the Mountain Top,” the wild, 22-minute opening track of Catching Fire, a studio-quality live album recorded on 20 January 2017 at Oslo’s Nasjonal Jazzscene. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 86: Molly Tuttle, Depeche Mode, Pharoah Sanders, Seefeel, Hinds, Sofi Tukker and moreTuesday, 15 October 2024![]()
VINYL OF THE MONTH Hannah Scott Absence of Doubt (Fancourt Music) Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Arvo Pärt - Tabula RasaSunday, 13 October 2024![]()
In 2022, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce described his musical goal as "trying to find somewhere between Arvo Pärt and The Stooges.” Amongst the most arresting and explicitly Pärt-styled results of this quest to link the minimalist composer with Iggy Pop‘s pre-punk confrontationists was the affecting "Broken Heart," from his band’s 1997 third album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Read more... |
Album: The Offspring - SuperchargedThursday, 10 October 2024![]()
With Warped Tour anniversary rumours in the air, Green Day and blink-182 touring the world, and 20 huge new tracks from Sum 41, The Offspring’s latest contribution to the thriving Pop Punk scene couldn’t have been timed better. Supercharged is landing in the open arms of an already excited fanbase, and the legends of the genre do not disappoint. Read more... |
Songs We Carry, Ana Silvera and Saied Silbak, Kings Place review - harmony between Arab and JewMonday, 07 October 2024![]()
As the Middle East continues to fragment in hate and horror, a tragic unfolding of events with roots reaching back to the middle of the last century, any sign of love and deeply felt collaboration provides a welcome beacon, and signals the possibility of understanding and reconciliation. Read more... |
Album: Permafrost - The Light Coming ThroughMonday, 07 October 2024![]()
While it does get very cold in the north of Norway, it’s likely that Permafrost’s chosen name reflects a fondness for Howard Devoto’s post-punk outfit Magazine as much as it does their home country’s environment. “Permafrost” was a track on Magazine’s second album, 1979’s Secondhand Daylight. And, with respect to the title The Light Coming Through, the penultimate track on Magazine’s 1978 debut album was “The Light Pours Out of me.” Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Devil Rides In - Spellbinding Satanic Magick & The RockultSunday, 06 October 2024![]()
Just over two weeks before Christmas 1967, The Rolling Stones issued Their Satanic Majesties Request. The album’s title appeared to serve time on the peace-and-love, flowers-for-everyone good vibes of the psychedelic era. A year later, the Stones’ next LP, Beggars Banquet, went further. It opened with "Sympathy for the Devil." “Just call me Lucifer…or I'll lay your soul to waste,” sang Mick Jagger. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Why Don’t You Smile Now - Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65Sunday, 29 September 2024![]()
The Velvet Underground first played before an audience on 11 December 1965. A year earlier, their two founder members Lou Reed and John Cale were beginning a period of schlepping around New York and New Jersey as supposed members of an equally dubious band called The Primitives. The job was to promote a single titled “The Ostrich,” just issued under that name. Read more... |
Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve, Bristol Beacon review - so much more than a retread of the master's hitsMonday, 23 September 2024![]()
Apart from being one of Britain’s greatest songsmiths of the past 50 years, Elvis Costello – from the early adoption of the rock’n’roll King’s first name – has produced a form of naked self-expression, blurred by intricately-tailored pretence. Though this is “art”, never artifice. 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

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the...

Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people. Their manic energy blew...

George Gershwin called one of his early classic songs, first created by Fred and Adele Astaire, “Fascinating Rhythm”. It was that mesmeric pull...

I always advocate in favour of more sci-fi plays, and over the past decade there have been a gratifying number of them. But one essential element...

Park Jiha is a super-talented and gloriously inspired Korean multi-instrumentalist. Her new album follows Philos (2018) and The Gleam...

In his first weeks in office, Harrison Ford’s US president survives an assassination attempt inside the White House, goes to war with Japan and...

Russia.
It’s impossible to be ambivalent towards that word, that country, indeed that idea, one so very similar to...

Does any living composer write better for choirs, or more demandingly when circumstances allow, than James MacMillan? Admirable as it is to have...

Ridley Scott’s 2001 film Black Hawk Down was a technically superb blockbuster bristling with thunderous action sequences and famous...