New Music Reviews
CD: Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community CenterMonday, 04 February 2019
In recent weeks, you may have noticed signs for the Better Oblivion Community Center, from billboards to park benches, all displaying a mysterious helpline telephone number. This was not some new community support project, but a surprise collaborative album from premier sad songwriters Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Rainbow FfollySunday, 03 February 2019
Learning that your band’s demos are being issued as an album must be infuriating. Add to that the discovery that the deal to release the LP was made without your knowledge. Then, there was the further surprise that the record was to be released by Parlophone, The Beatles’ label. Read more... |
Imagining Ireland, Barbican review - celebrating the Irish in EnglandFriday, 01 February 2019
Last spring, Imagining Ireland took a fresh, shamrock-free look at contemporary Ireland’s cultural scene, with spoken word and alt-folk mixing with indie rock and jazz, classical, gospel and rap, with the line-up led by Bell X1’s Paul Noonan and Lisa Hannigan. Read more... |
The Dandy Warhols, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - a silver jubilee jaunt with plenty of new tunesThursday, 31 January 2019
This week, the Dandy Warhols rocked up in Birmingham to begin the UK leg of their 25th anniversary tour with a gig in the Institute’s shabby but beautiful main hall, with its dusty neo-classical alabaster reliefs and almost comically antiquated balconies. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Third Noise PrincipleSunday, 27 January 2019
A compilation on which Philip Glass and Terry Riley rub shoulders with Controlled Bleeding and Smegma is going to be interesting. Throw in Data-Bank-A, Dog as Master, NON and Suicide, and it becomes clear what’s striven for is an all-encompassing overview of something particular rather than a miscellany of random names included as attention-grabbers. Read more... |
Patti Smith, Roundhouse review – the priestess of punk has lost none of her powerSaturday, 26 January 2019
“Don’t love me yet,” replies Patti Smith to the first of tonight’s many excitable shout-outs. “Who knows, after 20 minutes you might be gone!” An unlikely scenario, given that this show – part of the Roundhouse’s annual “In the Round” series, which also features Ronnie Spector and Shirley Collins – sold out in nanoseconds and is packed with rapt fans. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Charles MingusSunday, 20 January 2019
Releases dedicated to previously unisssued live recordings can be tricky. The variables at play don’t necessarily ensure that what’s in the shops is worth investigating. The audio sources may be of sub-standard quality or capture an off night. Some live performances are by rote: touring acts can do the same set night after night and things get stale. Who wants to hear yet another version of a familiar composition or song? It goes on. Read more... |
Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kings Place review - a kaleidoscope of vibrant sound and visionSaturday, 19 January 2019
Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir: three names on quite a list I reeled off earlier this week when someone asked me why the compositions of Rebecca Saunders, in the news for winning the €250,000 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, make me lose the will to live, and whom I’d choose instead. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the WorldSunday, 13 January 2019
The title comes from a slogan used in a 1920s newspaper ad for Weinberg’s, a gramophone, record and sheet music shop in Brick Lane. Readers saw the words in Yiddish though. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jon Savage's 1968Sunday, 06 January 2019
Without the necessary distance, characterising last year through its pop music is a mug’s game. A gulf of 50 years would bring some perspective. Nonetheless, in spite of that interval there are difficulties in creating a fitting soundtrack to 1968 – especially when using its singles as the emblematic markers. Read more... |
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