New music
Album: The Jayhawks - XOXOSaturday, 04 July 2020
If one song best captures the overall mood of XOXO, it's the Beatles-meets-country strains of "Living in a Bubble". The punchy lyrics offer a timely warning about the effect of 24-hour news. The real impact, however, comes from the gentle, acoustic... Read more... |
Album: Polly Scattergood - In This MomentFriday, 03 July 2020
A decade ago, Polly Scattergood was Mute Records’ newest, most-likely-to signing and, while she never crossed over like similar unconventional female artists of the period (Bat For Lashes, St Vincent, Anna Calvi, etc), she has a developed a cult... Read more... |
Glastonbury Festival 2020: Beyoncé, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., marijuana and time travelWednesday, 01 July 2020
Coronavirus blah blah blah. Glastonbury cancelled. What to do? Didn’t go to the 2010 festival for reasons too tedious to go into. Suffered the worst FOMO of my life. This is different. There is no Glastonbury. But sitting around at home… we’ve all... Read more... |
Album: Willie Nelson - First Rose of SpringWednesday, 01 July 2020
Listening to Willie Nelson’s latest album is like pulling on a pair of beloved beat-up cowboy boots. The declarative vocal over simple guitar, a touch of Hammond, a plaintive harmonica and then one of those characteristic country music key changes…... Read more... |
Romeo and Michele Stodart Present… The Thank-You Green Note Fundraiser, YouTube review - saving Camden's go-to music venueMonday, 29 June 2020
It’s 15 years since two schoolfriends with a passion for acoustic music opened Green Note in London’s Camden Town, their goal to create “somewhere friendly, comfortable, intimate, and with the best music on offer every night of the week”. It quickly... Read more... |
Album: Paul Weller - On SunsetMonday, 29 June 2020
One of the songs on Paul Weller’s excellent new album – only similar to his previous one True Meanings (2018) in that once again he's gently treading new ground – is called “Equanimity”. The title sums up the quietly joyful and relaxed tone of the... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Razorcuts - Storyteller, The World Keeps TurningSunday, 28 June 2020
Razorcuts formed after Tim Vass discovered Alan McGee’s Living Room club. In the booklet accompanying the reissue of his band’s first album Storyteller, Vass says of the weekly London promotion that “The headline act would often be someone like The... Read more... |
Album: Sparks - A Steady Drip, Drip, DripSaturday, 27 June 2020
Apparently a freaky, brilliant novelty in 1974, Sparks have proved eternally invincible: the synthpop duo template, glam and disco avatars, chasing the pop grail across the globe as their latest mode hit the local chart mark. Lightly worn resilience... Read more... |
Album: HAIM - Women in Music Pt. IIIFriday, 26 June 2020
If the title of their third album alludes to the lazy assumption of female-fronted as a musical genre, HAIM’s revenge is to try a little bit of everything, while never sounding anything less than themselves. Women in Music Pt. III elevates the... Read more... |
Album: Nadine Shah – Kitchen SinkThursday, 25 June 2020
Why don’t you have children? Why aren’t you married? Why don’t you own your own home? Why are you a failure? These are the societally enforced questions that, as a 34-year-old woman, Nadine Shah finds inescapable. Much like the rest of us. When... Read more... |
New Music Lockdown 12: Glastonbury Festival SpecialWednesday, 24 June 2020
This morning at 9.00 AM would be when Worthy Farm opened its gates to the hedonistic hordes. The weather is scorchio and Glastonbury 50 would have been such a party. Instead, that will all be Glastonbury 2021. So right now, those who love their... Read more... |
Album: Khruangbin - MordechaiWednesday, 24 June 2020
There’s a moment halfway through Khruangbin’s latest album that succinctly sums up the melting-pot model this band have made their own. It’s “Pelota”, a Spanish-influenced song, based on a Japanese film, played by a Texan three-piece with a Thai... Read more... |
