New music
Album: SBTRKT - THE RAT ROADThursday, 04 May 2023
Aaron Jerome has always cut his own path through British music. After a few jazzy, groovy experiments under his own name in the 00s, he came dramatically to prominence at the end of that decade as SBTRKT. He was always associated with the post-... Read more... |
Album: The Lemon Twigs - Everything HarmonyWednesday, 03 May 2023
Those kooky ex-child-actors from Long Island are back again, all flares and mullets. And they’ve got something to tempt us. What kind of musical cake might you expect to savour if you mixed a little bit Simon and Garfunkel, a soupçon of Fleet Foxes... Read more... |
Album: Rickie Lee Jones - Pieces of TreasureMonday, 01 May 2023
Reuniting with Russ Titelman, the producer of her eponymous 1979 debut and its follow-up 1981’s Pirates, Rickie Lee Jones approaches the great American songbook as if she was reuniting with an old flame, the thrill of it smouldering and... Read more... |
Yard Act, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow review - a transcendent victory lapSunday, 30 April 2023
Before even a note was struck, Yard Act’s singer James Smith was setting the bar high. “Over the past two days everyone we’ve met in Glasgow has been telling us this is the best gig we’ll ever play”, he declared, as soon as the Leeds band arrived... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Loma Northern SoulSunday, 30 April 2023
One of the essays in the booklet accompanying Loma Northern Soul describes the titular label as an “outlet aimed at secondary or tertiary record markets, issuing product that it was hoped would prove strong in R&B radio, yet had the potential to... Read more... |
Album: Laila Biali - Your RequestsSaturday, 29 April 2023
The seed for this wonderful third album on ACT from the Vancouver-born vocalist, pianist and songwriter Laila Biali was first sown in 2013 when, in advance of a gig in the Canadian port city of Hamilton, she opened up the floor and asked fans what... Read more... |
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Komedia, Brighton review - a delightfully woozy head-tripFriday, 28 April 2023
My associate for the evening has recently returned from Breaking Convention, a conference on psychedelics, celebrating their renaissance in recent years. He’s been microdosing regularly. Around us the crowd sways, many with eyes closed, bobbing,... Read more... |
Album: Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!Friday, 28 April 2023
“If you’re going to do it, do it well” goes a chanted refrain in the opening title track here. And it’s words Jessie Ware clearly lives by – she is not someone who has time to do anything rubbish. From featuring on the cream of post-dubstep... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: musician Susanne Sundfør - ‘Blómi is a message of hope for whoever might need it’Thursday, 27 April 2023
With the release this week of Blómi, her sixth studio album, Norway’s Susanne Sundfør discloses more about herself than she previously has through her music – but nothing is made obvious. As she says during this interview, the driving concept... Read more... |
Album: The Damned - DarkadelicThursday, 27 April 2023
The Damned could have been bigger contenders. As anyone who’s seen Wes Orshoski’s feature film biog, Don’t You Wish We Were Dead, will know, their career has been blighted by chaos, line-up changes, catastrophic business decisions and just plain bad... Read more... |
New Regency Orchestra, Colour Factory review - sizzling Afro-Cuban big bandWednesday, 26 April 2023
Four trombones, four trumpets and five saxophones, six percussionists – this Afro-Cuban inspired band packs an irresistible punch and it’s loud! This is a big band sound that revives the glory days of Tito Puente and Dizzy Gillespie, a 1940s... Read more... |
Album: Lonnie Liston Smith - JID017Wednesday, 26 April 2023
It’s 25 years since Lonnie Liston Smith last released an album. But this a man who earned his musical stripes with Miles Davis and Pharaoh Sanders, pretty much invented Jazz Funk with the Cosmic Echoes in the 1970s and then helped to reboot hip-hop... Read more... |
