New music
Jazz FM Awards 2018 - a banner year for Ezra CollectiveWednesday, 02 May 2018
Hosted by Jazz FM presenters Chris Philips and Jez Nelson on UNESCO’s International Jazz Day, rising stars and international icons were honoured at the fifth Jazz FM Awards on Monday night.A Grammy winner earlier this year for her... Read more... |
CD: Gaz Coombes - World's Strongest ManWednesday, 02 May 2018
It’s been nearly 30 years since Gaz Coombes’s former band Supergrass released their first brash single “Caught by the Fuzz”, and he hasn’t stopped making great indie music since. His second solo album Matador received a Mercury Prize nomination in... Read more... |
Anna Meredith, Southbank Sinfonia, QEH review - triumphant genre-busting treatMonday, 30 April 2018
I’m not sure what exactly this event was – orchestral concert, electronic dance music gig or multimedia extravaganza – but however you define it, I loved every mad minute. Anna Meredith (b 1978) is one of the most successful contemporary classical... Read more... |
CD: Plan B - Heaven Before All Hell Breaks LooseMonday, 30 April 2018
The opening couplet on Plan B’s new album runs thus: “What the hell have I got to be grateful for?/Can’t be the money as I wasn’t trying to make no more.” One appealing aspect of singer-actor-MC Ben Drew is that he’s spiky, emanating a certain rage... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Julian CopeSunday, 29 April 2018
In terms of chart statistics, Julian Cope’s period with Island Records looks pretty good. He issued four albums with the label and all of them charted. Saint Julian (issued in March 1987) peaked at 11, My Nation Underground (October 1988) stalled at... Read more... |
CD: Confusion Master - AwakenSunday, 29 April 2018
Awaken is the debut album by German heavy rockers Confusion Master, a combo of relative unknowns from Rostow who are straight out of the blocks with an unashamed tribute to early Black Sabbath. Loaded with slow and low grooves that come on like a... Read more... |
CD: Janelle Monae - Dirty ComputerSaturday, 28 April 2018
In an impressive pop royalty hat-trick, the title track features Brian Wilson, Pharrell pops up on “I Got the Juice”, and Prince helped source sounds for “Make Me Feel”. So does Kansas City gal Janelle Monae’s third album live up to expectations set... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Ramallah - the music biz turns its sights on PalestineFriday, 27 April 2018
Maen, a member of the rap collective Sa’aleek, was working one night in their small makeshift studio in the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah. He dozed off, only to find the studio door had been concreted over and he was trapped. It took fellow... Read more... |
CD: Van Morrison and Joey DeFrancesco - You're Driving Me CrazyThursday, 26 April 2018
Van Morrison has always been drawn as much to jazz as anything else. There is a natural swing to his voice, and his phrasing, melisma and familiar vocal mannerisms have always suited the medium well, from early excursions on Astral Weeks, through... Read more... |
CD: Blossoms - Cool Like YouWednesday, 25 April 2018
Blossoms are the latest inheritors of the massive-in-Manchester mantle that has, so often in the past, translated into massive-almost-everywhere ubiquity. That their eponymous 2016 debut album was a chart-topper shows they’re on the way, although... Read more... |
CD: Oliver Way - From The ShadowsMonday, 23 April 2018
There’s a regular problem with techno albums. The DJ-producers who make them are usually so deeply embedded in club techno that when it comes to making a long-form collection, leaving the dancefloor and showcasing variety, they’re incapable. What,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: New York DollsSunday, 22 April 2018
Playing Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom on 8 September 1974, the New York Dolls opened their first set of the evening with three cover versions. Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” was followed by The Shangri-Las’ “(Give Him a) Great Big Kiss” and... Read more... |
