New music
CD: Jeff Buckley - You and IFriday, 04 March 2016
Jeff Buckley, who died much too young, only made one studio album, Grace. Part-channelling his sweet-voiced father Tim, and part-exploring a strand of rock that was both dangerously wild and exquisitely sophisticated, it was a revelation and a... Read more... |
CD: Soulwax – Belgica (Original Soundtrack)Thursday, 03 March 2016
Read the track listing of Belgica and you might assume that this soundtrack is a compilation featuring 15 different artists from a wide variety of musical genres. In fact, it has been written and produced in its entirety by Belgian experimentalists... Read more... |
CD: Kano - Made In The ManorWednesday, 02 March 2016
Ten years after his debut album, the former N.A.S.T.Y Crew MC from East Ham has produced a distinctly British album. It’s probably his best yet. Kano has skirted the fringes of mega success and previous albums have been criticised for chasing hits... Read more... |
CD: The Coral – Distance InbetweenMonday, 29 February 2016
So the Coral have hit their eighth studio album, Distance Inbetween. This is, I’m ashamed to say, news to me. It’s like realizing that a show you used to really like transferred to Sky Atlantic and you’ve failed to keep up and extend your... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The PrisonersSunday, 28 February 2016
When the Sixties-inspired The Prisoners released their second album Thewisermiserdemelza in 1983, the decade they looked to for their musical and sartorial style was closer to the album itself than it is to today. Now, the half-century remove from... Read more... |
CD: Loretta Lynn - Full CircleSunday, 28 February 2016
Loretta Lynn’s first album in over a decade begins not with a song, but a spoken word introduction: the Queen of Country Music, still hands-on in the studio at the age of 83, telling her collaborators about the first song she ever wrote. “I had to... Read more... |
The Gloaming, Union ChapelSaturday, 27 February 2016
The Gloaming’s return to the Union Chapel in north London is a packed-out affair – and with good reason. Their British debut here, before the first album was released back in 2013, was a revelation. Few knew what to expect as Clare fiddler Martin... Read more... |
CD: The 1975 - I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of ItSaturday, 27 February 2016
It’s sometimes forgotten, as retro-mania runs rampant, that the 1980s gave us some of the most horrible records ever made. Especially loathsome was a style of music made by proficient session musicians, often ex-prog-rockers, trying their hand at... Read more... |
Empirical’s Pop-Up Jazz Lounge, Old Street UndergroundFriday, 26 February 2016
“I can’t believe it. Free jazz in Old Street tube, how cool is that?” It’s a relief to hear this kind of thing from passersby, because Empirical’s attempt to bring jazz to the people, to reach new audiences and develop their music through an... Read more... |
CD: Bombus - Repeat Until DeathThursday, 25 February 2016
Bombus kick ass. Not “arse” – my preferred anglicised spelling – but “ass”, because this, their third album, is Rainbow Bar & Grill-friendly, hair-flayling, leather-clad riffology. They come from Sweden, not LA, but, legs planted apart, they... Read more... |
CD: Willie Nelson - Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings GershwinWednesday, 24 February 2016
While his old friend and sometime touring companion Bob Dylan has just re-entered Capitol Studios to record a new set of standards to follow the Sinatra-inspired Shadows in the Night, Willie Nelson’s latest release for Sony Legacy focuses solely on... Read more... |
Claire Martin and Joe Stilgoe, St James TheatreMonday, 22 February 2016
With Peter Andre butchering Frank Sinatra on the one hand ("Reality TV swing", as Ray Gelato aptly put it) and Annie Lennox massacring Billie Holiday on the other, it was heart-warming to hear two artists performing standards and originals with such... Read more... |
