New music
CD: My Baby - MOUNAIKI: By The Bright of the NightSunday, 02 December 2018
My Baby are one of the most exciting live acts currently in existence. They’re a three-piece consisting of Dutch frontwoman guitarist/bassist Cato van Dijk, her brother, drummer Joost, and New Zealand blues rock guitar virtuoso Daniel Johnston.... Read more... |
CD: Majken - Young BelieverSaturday, 01 December 2018
Although both are Swedish, this particular Majken has nothing to do with the pop-reggae-ska band Majken Tajken which has issued a couple of albums. The singular Majken – Anna Majken to her family – is from Malmö and Young Believer is her debut album... Read more... |
CD: Bill Ryder-Jones - YawnWednesday, 28 November 2018
Take a deep breath and surround yourself with some comfortable furnishings before hitting play on this one. Yawn, recorded by Bill at his West Kirby studio of the same name, is just beautiful: a word that’s overused, but feels totally apt in this... Read more... |
CD: Kim Myhr - Pressing Clouds Passing CrowdsMonday, 26 November 2018
If a new soundtrack for L'Année dernière à Marienbad was needed, Pressing Clouds Passing Crowds is it. Thematically, the collaboration between Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhr, French-Norwegian poet Caroline Bergvall, the Québécois string quartet... Read more... |
EFG London Jazz Festival 2018, round-up review - winners young and oldMonday, 26 November 2018
Jazz musicians of just about all ages and persuasions have been on show in this year’s 10-day EFG London Jazz Festival. Some were making their first mark, some taking stock of who and where they are, some trying new things or changing where they’re... Read more... |
Māris Briežkalns Quintet, EFG London Jazz Festival 2018 review - a Rothko symphonyMonday, 26 November 2018
One part of the brain, they tell us, responds to visual art and another, quite different, to music; we can't cope adequately with both at once. Which is why I'm often wary of those musical organisations which think that what we hear needs to be... Read more... |
DVD: The Man from Mo'WaxSunday, 25 November 2018
Recent years have seen a boom in music documentaries. They are, after all, relatively cheap to make and have a readymade audience. Their narratives are usually similar, and so it is with The Man From Mo’Wax: fame and glory, followed by a fall from... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Kreaturen Der NachtSunday, 25 November 2018
The famous names on Kreaturen Der Nacht: Deutsche Post-Punk Subkultur 1980–1984 are Christiane F., Die Haut, Malaria! and Mania D. Committed collectors of German post-punk and those who there at the time might be familiar with Ausserhalb, ExKurs or... Read more... |
10 Questions for DJ / producer Rob Smith of Smith & MightySaturday, 24 November 2018
Rob Smith & Ray Mighty are truly the unsung heroes of British bass music. Coming out of the same cultural melting pot in Bristol that gave us Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and mega-producer Nellee Hooper, they looked to be among the city's... Read more... |
Jazzmeia Horn, EFG London Jazz Festival 2018 review - searching for the unexpectedFriday, 23 November 2018
Aside from her incredible time feel, exceptional range and consistently beautiful timbre, what was most impressive about Jazzmeia Horn’s bravura performance at a sold-out Ronnie Scott’s was the sense of joyousness and vitality that coursed through... Read more... |
Brent Cowles, Thousand Island review – cornering the market in heartbreak and harmonyFriday, 23 November 2018
It’s a freezing cold, wet night in north London and Denver-based musician Brent Cowles is braving the grimness to play his first ever UK gig, at Highbury’s tiny, mirrorball-stuffed Thousand Island (the latest incarnation of The Garage’s upstairs... Read more... |
CD: Dead Can Dance - DionysusFriday, 23 November 2018
Dead Can Dance were one of the signature sounds of the ethereal, alternative Eighties, 4AD stablemates with Cocteau Twins and art-Goth contemporaries like Daniella Dax, reaching their commercial peak in the Nineties before disbanding in 1998. In... Read more... |
