New music
Reissue CDs Weekly: Zuider ZeeSunday, 01 July 2018
The most intriguing aspect of the mid-Seventies, Memphis-based band Zuider Zee isn’t that they took their name from a geographic feature of the Netherlands or that they dealt in against-the-grain Anglo-centric pop rock or even that the new... Read more... |
CD: DevilDriver - Outlaws 'Til the End Vol 1Sunday, 01 July 2018
The heartland of America burns a special candle for two genres in particular: country music and heavy metal. What’s curious, then, is that there’s not been more cross-breeding between the styles. On a cartoon level, this can be attributed to one... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Orkney: St Magnus Festival 2018 - choral music to the foreSaturday, 30 June 2018
With – unusually – no visiting orchestra at this year’s St Magnus International Festival in far-flung Orkney (the fall-out from delayed funding confirmations, we’re assured), there was a danger that the annual midsummer event might have felt a... Read more... |
10 Questions for Trumpeter Keyon HarroldFriday, 29 June 2018
Trumpeter Keyon Harrold grew up in Ferguson, Missouri and studied alongside Robert Glasper at the School of Jazz at The New School, in Greenwich Village, NYC. He has been a sideman with many of the biggest performers in music including Eminem,... Read more... |
CD: Florence + the Machine - High As HopeFriday, 29 June 2018
If Florence + the Machine’s last album, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful marked a break from the exuberant, anthemic pop of her first two albums, her latest disc takes things even further with a more mature and stripped-down sound that often feels... Read more... |
CD: Roo Panes - Quiet ManThursday, 28 June 2018
There aren’t too many folk singers that make it into the pages of Vogue and Interview magazines, but that’s what comes of being a face of Burberry – attire that’s not necessarily a good folk fit. He’s also been snapped in the Augustus Hare catalogue... Read more... |
Supersonic Festival 2018 review – Birmingham waves the flag for New Weird BritainWednesday, 27 June 2018
A mere fortnight after the Download Festival, the Midlands was at it again over the weekend, celebrating noisy musical mavericks who have no truck with the mainstream. Indeed, if anything, Birmingham’s annual Supersonic Festival was considerably... Read more... |
CD: Gorillaz - The Now NowWednesday, 27 June 2018
It’s hard to know who to write about when reviewing a new Gorillaz release. According to the official line, the band have shorn their usual guests to focus on the core creative team: vocalist 2D, drummer Russell, guitarist Noodle, and new bassist... Read more... |
The Cure, RFH review - sterling close-up show from alt-pop stalwartsTuesday, 26 June 2018
The Robert Smith-curated Meltdown festival in London came to a close on Sunday night with a spectacular, concept-driven headline set by The Cure, or CUREATION 25, as the band was actually billed, presumably because of a previously contracted show at... Read more... |
CD: Beth Rowley - Gota FríaMonday, 25 June 2018
Gota Fría, or “cold drop”, is a Spanish weather phenomenon associated with violent rainstorms, when high pressure has caused a pocket of cold air to dissociate itself from the warmer clouds. Meteorologists, please excuse my basic and probably... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Contract in Blood / Winds of TimeSunday, 24 June 2018
Although the cover of the 19 May 1979 issue of the music weekly Sounds was dominated by a photo of American rocker Ted Nugent, attention was also grabbed by a trail for a feature on “Heavy Metal…The New British Bands”. The two-page article it... Read more... |
CD: Ray Davies - Our Country: Americana Act IISunday, 24 June 2018
When Ray Davies released his Americana LP last year, much was made of how the the ex-Kink's lyrical focus had shifted from English villages to the mid-western plains of the big old USA. Really, though, Davies was just looking back over his life... Read more... |
