New music
Reissue CDs Weekly: Cocteau TwinsSunday, 18 March 2018
This column last encountered Cocteau Twins in 2015 when the compilation The Pink Opaque and the Tiny Dynamine/Echoes in a Shallow Bay album, which collected two EPs, were reissued on vinyl only. Now, it’s the turn of two albums-as-such: 1983's Head... Read more... |
CD: Bon Voyage Organization - Jungle? Quelle Jungle?Sunday, 18 March 2018
Although its opening minute suggests one of Can’s Ethnological Forgery Series tracks, Jungle? Quelle Jungle? quickly sets its stall with gentle whacka-whacka guitar, a Cerrone-type or South African-styled female chorale, fusion-jazz woodwind,... Read more... |
CD: Don McLean - Botanical GardensSaturday, 17 March 2018
Oh dear. After a bumpy couple of years which included an all-too-public arrest for domestic violence to which he pleaded guilty, Don McLean is releasing his first new studio album in eight years. Metaphorically (and sometimes literally) it hits a... Read more... |
CD: Alexandra Burke - The Truth IsThursday, 15 March 2018
Full disclosure: I have never quite gotten over Alexandra Burke's rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. I'm not sure I ever will.And now I'm unsure as how to cope with the fresh outrage of realisation that it is now 10 years since that flagrant... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Malcolm MiddletonWednesday, 14 March 2018
Malcolm Middleton (b.1973) is a Scottish singer-songwriter whose music has a devoted fanbase. Instead of the faux-vulnerable, non-specific, sub-Jeff Buckley flannel touted by many of his contemporaries and younger peers, Middleton’s work is grounded... Read more... |
Diana Jones, The Lexington review - at the crossroads of folk and countryWednesday, 14 March 2018
The delicious flame-grilled burgers and the vast array of bourbons on offer at the Lexington, hard by yet another “King's Cross Quarter”, added atmosphere to the opening night of Diana Jones’s European tour. Finger licking is (quite rightly) not... Read more... |
CD: Kim Wilde - Here Come the AliensWednesday, 14 March 2018
It’s difficult to dislike Kim Wilde, whatever you think of her music. Even more so after her pissed Christmas sing-along on a tube train a few years back became a massive YouTube hit. Or how about her appearance at Download Festival in 2016 with... Read more... |
Brit Floyd, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - the old ones are the bestMonday, 12 March 2018
It’s now 24 years since Pink Floyd pretty much stopped being a going concern and 33 since the departure of artistic powerhouse Roger Waters. So, apart from a brief band reunion at 2005’s Live8 concert, Floyd-heads have had little to keep them happy... Read more... |
CD: The Gloaming - Live at The NHCMonday, 12 March 2018
Since forming in 2013, The Gloaming have set about transforming how Irish traditional music is heard, received and performed. There is no other group like them, and none with the sheer heft of brilliance that fiddler Martin Hayes, viola/hardanger... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Robert KirbySunday, 11 March 2018
The similarity is intentional. The cover design of When the Day is Done – The Orchestrations of Robert Kirby nods explicitly to that of Nick Drake’s debut album Five Leaves Left. That wasn’t just the first record by the singer-songwriter, it was... Read more... |
CD: in analysis - mothersSunday, 11 March 2018
Looking to the 'net to help fund a project is nothing new. Getting strangers to help with the actual creative process, though, is still pretty novel. It's what David Schweitzer's In Analysis project does. Schweitzer is best known for children's TV... Read more... |
CD: Seun Kuti - Black TimesFriday, 09 March 2018
Is it fair to say that Seun Kuti’s fourth album is just more of the same? I believe it is, because more of the same is more or less the point with protest music, particularly if what you’re protesting hasn’t gone away. You have no choice but to keep... Read more... |
