New music
Reissue CDs Weekly: Brinsley SchwarzSunday, 23 April 2017
In the second week of September 1979, Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to be Kind” entered the Top 40. A month later, it peaked at number 12. The commercial success was belated validation for a song with a history. In May 1978, an earlier version was the B-side... Read more... |
CD: Gorillaz - HumanzSaturday, 22 April 2017
For some of us Blur were an irritant during the 1990s rather than one of the decade’s premier bands. However, once Gorillaz arrived it was impossible to ignore Damon Albarn’s outrageous talent any longer. His golden touch ensured his cartoon group... Read more... |
CD: Kasai Allstars & Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste - Around FélicitéFriday, 21 April 2017
This is a bit of a curiosity. Kasai Allstars were bought to our attention by producer Vincent Kenis almost a decade ago, after he’d had great success with those masters of the amplified thumb piano cacophony, Konono 1. Though the Allstars also have... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2017Thursday, 20 April 2017
This Saturday, April 22, is Record Store Day, the annual celebration of independent record shops. Thus, everyone from the biggest major to the weeniest micro-label is putting out unique, limited edition vinyl runs. When Record Store Day was first... Read more... |
CD: Trombone Shorty - Parking Lot SymphonyThursday, 20 April 2017
Known to his mum as Troy Andrews, singer and instrumental virtuoso Trombone Shorty has been steadily accumulating rave reviews for his live performances for years. His profile has now reached a point where his fourth studio album will be released on... Read more... |
CD: Ray Davies - AmericanaWednesday, 19 April 2017
From Muswell Hillbilly to Beverly Hillbilly, Ray Davies – Sir Ray – has long been infatuated with America and it must have been a great disappointment when the Kinks were banned from touring there in the mid-1960s. Then in the 1970s and Eighties... Read more... |
CD: Mark Lanegan Band - GargoyleMonday, 17 April 2017
The extent to which Gargoyle counts as a Mark Lanegan or Mark Lanegan Band album is debateable. The entire musical backings for six of its ten tracks were created in Tunbridge Wells by former Lanegan support band member Rob Marshall and made their... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The VibratorsSunday, 16 April 2017
When the Sex Pistols first played live on 6 November 1975 at St. Martin’s School of Art, they were the support act to a Fifties-influenced band called Bazooka Joe whose roadie was John “Eddie” Edwards. Of the first band on that night, he declared “... Read more... |
CD: Maximo Park - Risk to ExistSunday, 16 April 2017
It's easy to presume that the early ‘00s indie boom just fizzled away. Not so. Many of those bands have had successful albums reasonably recently. The Fratellis? Check. The Wombats? Check. The Kooks? Check. Maximo Park’s last album, 2014’s Too Much... Read more... |
Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, Green Door Store, BrightonSaturday, 15 April 2017
Perhaps most famous as the singer in seminal Nineties art-pop band Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier has worked hard in recent years to establish herself as a solo artist in her own right through a series of well-received avant-muzak albums, including this... Read more... |
CD: Be Myself - Sheryl CrowSaturday, 15 April 2017
My ears are doing the time warp. If I close my eyes, I'm in high-heeled jelly shoes, wearing silver lipstick, and with my hair in Bjork buns – back when a satin slip dress over a T-shirt was cool as opposed to vintage. The first track of Sheryl... Read more... |
Pink Martini, Brighton DomeFriday, 14 April 2017
"An Evening with Pink Martini" consists of two sets by the Portland, Oregon group/mini-orchestra. Of these, the first takes the prize, but only by a very short lead. During it the nine-piece, led by Thomas Lauderdale at the piano, seem to relax and... Read more... |
