New music
Music Reissues Weekly: The Yardbirds - The Ultimate Live at the BBCSunday, 10 November 2024
“The last we had was a bit of a flop. I own up about it, it was quite bad.” Speaking to the BBC’s Brian Matthew on 4 April 1967, Yardbirds’ frontman Keith Relf is candid about the chart fate of his band’s last single, October 1966’s “Happenings Ten... Read more... |
Le Vent du Nord, Cecil Sharp House review - five extraordinary musiciansSaturday, 09 November 2024
Among the many things that make the folk community such a warm and welcoming “family” is that you know which side you’re all on, to paraphrase the title of the song written by Florence Reece, wife of a United Mineworkers official during the bitter... Read more... |
Album: Garfunkel & Garfunkel: Father and SonFriday, 08 November 2024
A father and son union – the first joint collaboration by Garfunkel père et fils. Art Junior it seems has already released two solo albums, Wie Du and Evergreen, Simon & Garfunkel covers, both of which charted in Germany, from where the... Read more... |
Tucker Zimmerman, The Lexington, London review - undersung old-timer airs songwriting excellenceThursday, 07 November 2024
Tucker Zimmerman is singing a number called “Don’t Go Crazy (Go in Peace)”. At 83, he performs sitting down. Surrounded by support band Iji, who act as his pick-up, he approaches the song in a whispery, affable voice. At the start of his set he was... Read more... |
Album: Primal Scream - Come AheadThursday, 07 November 2024
In many ways, Primal Scream have had a strikingly similar career path to the Rolling Stones – despite them forming some 20 years after Mick and Keith’s odyssey began and it not throwing up quite the same level of financial rewards. That said, while... Read more... |
Album: Alley Cat - The Widow ProjectWednesday, 06 November 2024
If the names Pinch, Vex’d, Burial, Digital Mystikz, The Bug mean anything to you, stop reading now and buy or stream this album. Seriously, go. Go get it. That honestly is all you need to know: if you like the imperial phase when British dubstep was... Read more... |
Bob Vylan, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - self-proclaimed most important band in the UK blow the roof offTuesday, 05 November 2024
More than once during their barnstorming performance this weekend, Bobby Vylan, vocalist with Bob Vylan proclaimed from the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Institute that “We are the cutest band in punk rock. The friendliest band in rock’n’roll. The most... Read more... |
Album: Møster! - SpringsMonday, 04 November 2024
Springs begins cooking with “Spaced Out Invaders - Part I Quirks,” its fourth track. A spindly, rotating guitar figure interweaves with clattering percussion and pulsating electric bass. Around three minutes in, a sax – which, until this point, has... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered SinglesSunday, 03 November 2024
After the chart success of his second album, June 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul, it was inevitable that any single had to represent Isaac Hayes in a different way to the LP. The album’s 12-minute version of “Walk on by” would not work as a seven-incher.... Read more... |
Album: Chuck Prophet - Wake the DeadSaturday, 02 November 2024
Chuck Prophet speaks the old language of rock’n’roll as if it’s bright and new. His long gone band Green On Red were R.E.M.’s Eighties peers, and as rock’s cultural tide has receded, his loyalty to its spirit of liberty, askance at authority and... Read more... |
Album: Willie Nelson - Last Leaf on the TreeFriday, 01 November 2024
Well, seems like only yesterday when I reviewed Willie Nelson’s last album, Borderline, an excellent set from the man’s ninth decade, and now here comes Last Leaf on the Tree, a consummate set that’s at a higher level.It opens with Tom Waits’ title... Read more... |
Album: The Cure - Songs of a Lost WorldThursday, 31 October 2024
Could melancholia be an elixir of creative youth? Or is it that sad people were never really that youthful, so age suits them? Certainly it seems that there was something in the water for so many of the foundational 80s indie bands who dealt in... Read more... |
