fri 25/07/2025

New Music Reviews

Nadine Shah, Winterstoke Sun Shelter, Ramsgate review - a thrilling return in a stunning venue

Kathryn Reilly

Hilarious, potty-mouthed and mesmerisingly beautiful, Nadine Shah is on superb form at the Ramsgate Festival of Sound’s closing evening show. And aside from the banter there is, of course, that remarkable voice – hugely powerful and somehow perfectly suited to this enchanting outdoor venue.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Laura Nyro - American Dreamer

Kieron Tyler

“She is a 20-year-old white New Yorker who sings like a 55-year-old black lady from Mississippi.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Leslie Winer - When I Hit You, You’ll Feel It

Kieron Tyler

When I Hit You - You’ll Feel It opens with “When I Was Walt Whitman”. A French-language answer-phone message is abruptly cut off by a massive-sounding percussive pulse over which a borderline menacing voice enigmatically murmurs words which are hard to make out.

Read more...

Edinburgh International Festival 2021: Anna Meredith

Miranda Heggie

She’s an artist who’s impossible to define. Producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Anna Meredith has a musical mind that cannot keep still. Her latest studio album, Fibs, which was released in 2019, is a genre-defying blend of electronic and acoustic music, conceived with raw zeal, true artistic integrity, and a huge sense of fun.

Read more...

The Beach Boys: Feel Flows - the Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971

Adam Sweeting

“Add some music to your day,” the Beach Boys urged in their song of the same name, from their 1970 album Sunflower. There’s far more than a day’s worth of music included on this immense five-CD package, which scrutinises the turn-of-the Seventies Beach Boys in miniscule detail as they made the awkward transition from their California surf-and-sand past to a more diffuse, more democratic and in many ways more interesting group.

Read more...

Reissue CD Weekly: Iggy and the Stooges - Born In A Trailer

Kieron Tyler

Despite their implosion three years earlier, 1977 was a good year for The Stooges. The CBS budget label Embassy reissued their 1973 Raw Power album in the wake of their songs cropping up in the repertoires of The Damned and Sex Pistols.

Read more...

Edinburgh International Festival 2021: traditional music round-up review

Miranda Heggie

Following on from last year’s online-only My Light Shines On programme, traditional music features heavily in the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival, with a series of live performances taking place outdoors, in the quad of Edinburgh University's Old College (pictured below).

Read more...

Bloodstock Festival 2021 review - UK metalheads descend on Derbyshire and bring the noise

Guy Oddy

Here we are, deep in the second summer of Covid-19 and the UK music festival industry is still giving the impression of being on life support. Yet again, there’s been no Glastonbury, no Womad and not even the return of the Supersonic Festival.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: The Merseybeats, The Sorrows

Kieron Tyler

After a band’s back catalogue has been reissued countless times, any new release needs a fresh approach to attract attention. Archives and collections can be scoured to find previously unissued tracks. There might be otherwise unknown recordings released under aliases, or maybe something which escaped via an obscure continental soundtrack album. But on their own, such discoveries aren’t enough. They need to be married-up with the familiar.

Read more...

Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson, Apple TV+ review - riveting survey of the technology that transformed music

Adam Sweeting

Producer to the stars and creator of the monstrously successful “Uptown Funk”, Mark Ronson knows a thing or two about making noises. He has combined this know-how with a laid-back knack for presenting to make this six-parter for Apple TV+, delving into the history of how developing technology has driven innovation in the music business.

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

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Eddie Pepitone, Special review - return of the curmudgeon

There aren’t many comics like Eddie Pepitone any more – the veteran comic’s shtick harks to back an earlier age, pre-suitable for TV...

Dying review - they fuck you up, your mum and dad

Despite the title of Matthias Glasner’s award-winning drama, and the death that swirls around its characters, dying isn’t really its subject, but...

Album: Mádé Kuti - Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From...

There can be few musicians on the planet from a more storied musical dynasty than Mádé Kuti. He is the son of Femi, the grandson of Fela. He grew...

theartsdesk Q&A: director Athina Rachel Tsangari on her...

Over a decade ago, a handful of Greek filmmakers set out to reinvent the national cinema amid the country's social and economic decline...

The Human League/Marc Almond/Toyah, Brighton Beach review -...

Today gradually blossoms from unpromising beginnings. LouderUK’s On The Beach event series takes place throughout the summer and runs the gamut...

A Moon for the Misbegotten, Almeida Theatre review - Michael...

Michael Shannon's long legs reach to the stars – or perhaps one should say the moon – in the Almeida's...

Album: Alice Cooper - The Revenge of Alice Cooper

Great (and not so great) bands reforming, either in the studio or in the live arena, is something of a trend at the moment. However, who would...

Burlesque, Savoy Theatre review - exhaustingly vapid

"It all starts with a snap," or so we're told early in the decidedly un-snappy Burlesque, which spends three hours borrowing shamelessly...

Tosca, Clonter Opera review - beauty and integrity in miniat...

At first sight, it seemed that Clonter Opera’s decision to tackle Tosca this year might be a leap too far. Its once-a-year complete...