New music
The Great Estate, Redruth review - Cornwall's finest festival extravaganzaSaturday, 11 June 2022
For those wishing to avoid the bloated plutocracy of #PlattyJoobs, the Great Estate Festival was the perfect antidote. Set in the beautiful estate of Scorrier House in Redruth, Cornwall it is described as “the most rambunctious garden fete”.There... Read more... |
Album: Hercules & Love Affair - In AmberSaturday, 11 June 2022
A gothic aesthetic is very common in the left field of electronic/club music these days – but it tends to go with fairly extreme sounds: either industrial pummelling, or glitched-out “deconstructed club” as in artists like Ziúr.But Andy Butler... Read more... |
Album: Nick Mulvey - New MythologyFriday, 10 June 2022
In these meta times when everything – EVERYTHING! – is ironic, a smirk to be replayed forever on a screen, the last thing we expect is a hippy, a proper real-life hippy, preaching oneness and love. Even yoga sorts these days mostly go on about... Read more... |
Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Brighton Dome review - screams, not whispersThursday, 09 June 2022
The usherette’s hands are clamped over her ears, and Elvis Costello is playing like it’s 1996, when the briefly reunited Attractions played a pummelling last stand, burying fatal internal rifts with punk thunder.The Imposters – the Attractions with... Read more... |
Album: Shearwater - The Great AwakeningThursday, 09 June 2022
The title The Great Awakening is a metaphor for America’s switch from its previous presidential administration to the current: the arrival of a new era and, with it, a fresh phase of life. Emblematic of this is the xenarthran, a type of armadillo,... Read more... |
Album: The Utopia Strong - International TreasureTuesday, 07 June 2022
Who’d have thought that Steve “Interesting” Davis OBE (as he was mercilessly dubbed by the original Spitting Image in the 80s – at a time when he was wiping the floor with the best of the international snooker world on a regular basis) would turn... Read more... |
Bloc Party, Barrowland, Glasgow review - falling back on past glories brings a jubilant responseMonday, 06 June 2022
As Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke noted at one point in this gig, his band have now been visiting Glasgow for nearly two decades. Yet few of the shows played in that 18 year span, which have touched upon nearly all of the city’s main music venues,... Read more... |
Album: Nick Cave - Seven PsalmsMonday, 06 June 2022
Nick Cave has always been a spoken-word man, and these seven short poems set to music with regular collaborator Warren Ellis are the latest in a genre he explores with exceptional talent. He is an artist driven by a need to create, constantly and in... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: In A Rocking Mood - Beverley’s Rock Steady 1966-1968Sunday, 05 June 2022
Beverley’s was an ice-cream shop and restaurant on Orange Street in Kingston, Jamaica. Records were on sale too. In 1961, an aspiring singer-songwriter named James Chambers turned up there with a song he’d written called “Dearest Beverley.” If it... Read more... |
Album: Neneh Cherry - The VersionsSaturday, 04 June 2022
Initially, the weird thing about this is it’s being released as a Neneh Cherry album rather than a compilation of artists doing Neneh Cherry covers, which is what it is. That said, awareness slowly grows of a kindred sensibility to recent Neneh... Read more... |
Album: Golden Feelings - Golden FeelingsFriday, 03 June 2022
It’s hard to know exactly when new age music passed from being a retro curio to being part of the language of alternative music. Certainly it can be traced back to the early-mid Noughties, with acts like Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never and James... Read more... |
Album: Wren Hinds - A Child's Chant for a New MillenniumThursday, 02 June 2022
Side Two of A Child’s Chant for a New Millennium opens with “Wrenbird,” a consideration of whether it’s possible to have a bird’s freedom of mobility. “Anywhere but here,” sings Wren Hinds. He may not be happy where he is, but the accompanying... Read more... |
