New music
Joe Muggs
theartsdesk’s Thomas H Green has lately been noting a “mellow production flatness” in modern pop and he’s really nailed a ubiquitous tendency there. The pendulum has definitely swung a long way back from the “loudness wars” of the era that trap and EDM crashed in and everything was amped up and ramped up as if to fight for attention in a crowded mall. One might trace the global counter tendency back to the chillwave of the Noughties, and its mainstreaming to the breakthrough of Tame Impala a decade ago, ushering in era where (brat being the exception that proves the rule) everyone from SZA to Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHBorokov Borokov World War Too (Rotkat)
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Belgian duo Borokov Borokov are described by one source as “weirdcore”. Their gumbo of lo-fi funk, indie-electronica, and games soundtrack synth burbling does, indeed, frolic into purposeful silliness, as on the entertaining “Slippery”, a dry disco-flavoured ode to improper lust (including repeated outraged shrieks of “It was an accident!”). There are moments when they remind of a much more cantankerous and crudely formed Chromeo but their latest, limited to 300 on vinyl, also Read more ...
Ellie Roberts
Johnny Franck’s energy is palpable with the latest Bilmuri instalment, his signature comedic country metalcore style is as honed as ever and Kinda Hard really just sounds like it was a lot of fun to make. Even with the genre blending, this album falls very much under the pop punk umbrella, with humour through emotion being at the forefront of its style. It’s not hard to see why fans of this trope enjoy Bilmuri, even if the moment has slightly passed. Maybe it’s because the world felt lighter, because the genre was newer, or because we were younger, but the notion of comedy through Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The opening track is Hoyt Axton’s “Evangelina.” After first appearing on the 1976 album Fearless it was re-recorded and issued as a flop UK single in July 1980. The new version had also been an OK-selling US single in 1980. The reason this deeply atmospheric, velvety, yearning country marvel had UK sales potential after it came out on minor-league British imprint Young Blood was due to radio play: radio play on the BBC’s Radio 2.“Evangelina” illustrates exactly what Wednesday Morning 6AM - Radio Hits From The Small Hours 1970-1983 is about: the musical continuum defined by a maverick aspect Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Mountain Call from ECM – it consists of recordings made in Prague in very different contexts and settings between 2003 and 2010 – is a timely reminder of what a fearsomely irrepressible and unique musician Miroslav Vitouš is, both as instrumentalist and as composer. There is purpose, attitude and an almost daemonic challenge in everything he plays or writes.His backstory is all about heft and serious chops. When Vitouš (b.1947) won first prize at the 1966 International Jazz Competition in Vienna, an event set up by Friedrich Gulda, the prize included a course of study at Berklee in Boston. So Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
There was something incongruous about seeing Basement Jaxx in a venue best known for regularly playing host to the likes of Scotland’s national orchestra and the roots and trad music of the Celtic Connections festival. Admittedly a chunk of seating had been removed to create a dancefloor down the front, but a sweaty club it is not, and waiting for the arrival of one of the UK’s preeminent dance acts while gazing around at rows of seats still felt strange. Perhaps it was simply an acknowledgment of the passing of time, given Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have been doing this for over Read more ...
Guy Oddy
About a dacade ago and then again last year, Seattle’s proto-grungers, Melvins and Birmingham’s grindcore originators, Napalm Death hit the road with their double-header Savage Imperial Death March tours – scorching the earth and damaging hearing wherever they went. Now, they have emerged together from the studio, having turned their relationship into something more solid and lasting.The disc that has emerged, Savage Imperial Death March, is a true collaboration and not a split album with sperate songs from each band. The resulting material is new, covers-free and as extreme in its sonic Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Poetry and song are related, but they’re not kissin’ cousins, more first cousins at one remove. Composers of art song in the 19th and 20th centuries turned to poets for their song cycles, and rock-era lyrics have often been hailed as poetry, but what happens when a poet – a page poet, albeit adept at performance – combines with musicians and lyricists and adds his own voice to the mix; his reading voice, not a singing one. In the case of Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate, former probation officer and resident poet with LYR, he’s fortunate in his collaborators, singer-songwriter Richard Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Stagefront are two silhouetted figures, heads at a strange angle. Like hanged men. Beside each is a robed demon sentinel with a burning torch. Overseeing all is a gigantic, trompe l’oeil devil, gnarly-fanged, eyes a glazed pink blaze. The demons touch their torches to the doomed mannikins who go up in flames. Kreator, amid the enkindled carnage, plough into the utter pummelling of “Endless Pain”, the title track of their 1985 debut album. The moshpit explodes again.The German thrash perennials, over 40 years into their career, are bigger than you might think. They’re filling 3000- Read more ...
Mark Kidel
The Kurdish singer Aynur opened her current European tour in Bristol, presenting music that's rooted in ancient tradition but explores contempoary sonorities and styles while keeping the music of her people vibrant and alive.On arriving at the venue, it felt as if the place had been magically transplanted to the Middle East. The audience was predominantly Kurdish, and many of the excited crowd, posing for selfies and photographs in the entrance area, were wearing festive traditional gear – brightly coloured and sequined dresses, extravagant headscarves and some turbans for the women, the men Read more ...
Tom Carr
José González is one of those musicians who is well known without many recognising it. Until that is, someone plays his most known track “Heartbeats”, which was unavoidable after it released in the early Noughties. Since then, the Swedish solo artist hasn’t pierced through the zeitgeist in quite the same way, but he has been more than successful enough.Born in Gothenburg to Argentine parents who had fled their native country following the coup in the late seventies, González grew up learning the guitar on a steady stream of Latin and folk influences which form the bedrock foundation of his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Blackpool Cool is the third and last album by Glasgow’s Head. Issued in 1977 on the band’s own Head Records label, it was preceded by 1973’s GTF and 1975’s Red Dwarf. Blackpool Cool is rare – and sought after. A first pressing in OK shape will cost at least £70. One in close-to mint condition – if one can be found, that is – can fetch £220. Head issued no singles. The reissue of this Scottish jazz band’s final release is welcome.This particular Head are not to be confused other bands of the same name, from the proto-trip-hoppers formed by former Pop Group member Gareth Sager to the Read more ...