New music
CD: AMMAR 808 - Maghreb UnitedMonday, 11 June 2018
Hot in the burning footsteps of Bargou 08, last year’s subtle but daring mix of traditional Tunisian sounds and electronic beats and textures, Sofyann Ben Youssef launches a new project under the name of AMMAR 808, Maghreb United. There is a great... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Gene ClarkSunday, 10 June 2018
“Past My Door” weaves together a series of leitmotifs. Beginning as a downbeat, mid-tempo shuffle, it then shifts into a staccato passage after which the tempo picks up before a more pacey section. Next, the character established at the song’s... Read more... |
Taylor Swift, Etihad Stadium, Manchester review - pop perfection on epic scaleSaturday, 09 June 2018
The line that best summed up the European opening night of Taylor Swift’s latest tour had nothing to do with snakes, or tattered reputations, or tabloid melodrama. It came, in fact, from opening act Charli XCX, who chose the intro to cotton-candy... Read more... |
CD: Lykke Li - So Sad So SexySaturday, 09 June 2018
For a decade now, Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson – Lykke Li – has been a poster girl for the Scandinavian, and particularly Swedish, ability to find the highest common factors between high gloss pop and introspective indie/alternative music, and to... Read more... |
CD: Black Sedan - Adventure Lit Their StarFriday, 08 June 2018
Mark Hodkinson is a Rochdale writer, journalist, songwriter and musician who’s also behind underground label/publishing house Pomona. Black Sedan is the latest product of his febrile mind, a band collective that’s been slowly coming together over... Read more... |
Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh - transforming spacesThursday, 07 June 2018
In just five years, what the team behind Hidden Door Festival has achieved is quite remarkable. Having sprung up in 2014, taking over a group of disused vaults behind Waverley train station, the festival’s mission to transform redundant spaces in... Read more... |
CD: Lily Allen - No ShameThursday, 07 June 2018
Lily Allen has long been an unlikely inhabitant of the tabloid sphere. She was born into it and her pop career sealed the deal, rendering her a recalcitrant victim of paparazzi fishbowl idiocy, ugly magazines and online sidebars. She is, however,... Read more... |
Courtney Barnett, Albert Hall, Manchester review - mesmerising indie-rock setWednesday, 06 June 2018
Although once famous for her Australian drawl and hazy jams, on her most recent album Tell Me How You Really Feel, Courtney Barnett has transformed herself into an all-singing indie star, resulting in something more assured, vulnerable, and intense... Read more... |
CD: Gruff Rhys - BabelsbergWednesday, 06 June 2018
For his fifth solo album (not counting last year’s delayed soundtrack to Set Fire to the Stars) Welsh singer-songwriter and sometime Super Furry frontman Gruff Rhys inhabits an imaginary landscape in order to deal with issues that are all too real.... Read more... |
CD: Wooden Shjips - VTuesday, 05 June 2018
Wooden Shjips’ new album was apparently written as a “summer record” and, if that was Ripley Johnson and his psychedelic confederates’ intent, it has been fully achieved. While this may not be immediately apparent to fans of Calvin Harris, David... Read more... |
CD: Snail Mail - LushMonday, 04 June 2018
Lindsey Jordan was 16 when she released her first EP as Snail Mail on her local punk label Sister Polygon Records. Two years later, she has graduated from high school and signed to Matador Records, home of Stephen Malkmus, Kurt Vile and Helium. Lush... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: John FoxxSunday, 03 June 2018
Although a minimalist approach informed John Foxx’s first solo album, the new “Deluxe Edition” reissue of Metamatic expands what was two sides of vinyl to a three-CD, 49-track box set. After leaving Ultravox following their early 1979 American tour... Read more... |
