New music
CD: Counting Crows - Somewhere Under WonderlandSunday, 14 September 2014
Kicking off with an epic eight-and-a-half-minute-long tribute to New Jersey’s Palisades amusement Park and a lament to forgotten friendships, the Counting Crows seventh studio album intentionally invokes the spirit and sound of Seventies rock. The... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Game TheorySunday, 14 September 2014
Game Theory: Blaze of GloryThe news of the death on 15 April last year of Scott Miller was a shock. Although hardly a household name, he was one of pop’s great auteurs. The California-born songwriter may no longer be with us, but the music he... Read more... |
Blondie, O2 Academy, BirminghamSunday, 14 September 2014
Blondie may have been around the block a few times since they got together in New York in 1974, but they seemingly have no intention of settling into a comfortable existence of just playing the hits to ever-diminishing artistic returns. Their... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Helsinki: Niubi FestivalSunday, 14 September 2014
Tulegur Gangzi describes his music as “Mongolian grunge” and “nomad rock.” Thrashing at an acoustic guitar, the Inner-Mongolian troubadour is singing in the khomei style, the throat-singing which sounds part-gargle, drone and chant – or all... Read more... |
10 Questions for Singer Sarah-Jane MorrisSaturday, 13 September 2014
Sarah-Jane Morris is in every sense an original voice. One of Britain’s most distinctive and versatile singers, she has enjoyed commercial success, spending five weeks at number 1 with the Communards’ version of "Don’t Leave Me This Way" in 1986,... Read more... |
Elbow, RoundhouseSaturday, 13 September 2014
Punctually, following a tension-building countdown, Elbow entered the blue-lit stage at London’s legendary Roundhouse, beers in hand, and gestured the 1500-strong audience into a mass toast. With his slight stoop, soft Manchester accent and wayward... Read more... |
Sam Sweeney, Royal College of MusicSaturday, 13 September 2014
Sam Sweeney’s Fiddle: Made In The Great War is the first solo project from one of the vibrant British folk scene’s most exciting players. Sam Sweeney made his name in Bellowhead, as a duo with Hannah James, in The Full English, in Jon Boden’s... Read more... |
CD: Barbra Streisand - PartnersSaturday, 13 September 2014
When a person approaches a Barbra Streisand album, they would be a fool to go in carrying the same expectations as with, say, the forthcoming collaboration between experimental frontiersmen Scott Walker & Sunn O))). Or even, in all honesty, the... Read more... |
Prom 74: Wainwright, Voigt, Britten Sinfonia, DebusFriday, 12 September 2014
Swathes of this year’s final Late Night Prom were so invertebrate, amateurish even, that I was tempted to go home and throw out my Want One and Want Two CDs. I won’t, of course: Canadian American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has written some... Read more... |
Art Garfunkel, Royal Festival HallFriday, 12 September 2014
The voice no longer soars with easeful power, nor does it possess that tingling, honey-coated purity that gave hits such as “Bridge Over Troubled Water” such emotional force. This should hardly come as a surprise, since Art Garfunkel is now 72. Away... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Bestival 2014: Full Biochemist's ReportThursday, 11 September 2014
Sometimes you don’t escape. Even for those of us with a sturdy frame and a good track record, every now and then, enjoying the ride means taking the pummelling. Thus, 36 hours after Bestival I sweat saline syrup over the keys, my back muscles spasm... Read more... |
CD: Vessel - Punish, HoneyThursday, 11 September 2014
Aside from the title track, there are pieces here called “Febrile,” “Red Sex,” “Drowned in Water and Light,” “Kin to Coal.” You might not be surprised to learn, then, that this is not a set of jaunty singalongs. But neither is it the techno the... Read more... |
