New music
CD: British Electric Foundation - Music of Quality and Distinction Vol 3: DarkTuesday, 21 May 2013
It took nine years between the first and second instalments of this series, and another 22 years to make the third. And that's one of the least strange things about this record. The production team of B.E.F. (aka Human League / Heaven 17 members... Read more... |
CD: Stooshe - London with the Lights OnTuesday, 21 May 2013
Stooshe are a manufactured London girl band. They were put together a couple of years ago by shrewd ex-girl-bander Jo Perry, a self-made London studio engineer and a songwriter for, among others, Peter Andre. Despite this prosaic, business-savvy... Read more... |
Lubomyr Melnyk, Village UndergroundTuesday, 21 May 2013
Imagine the rising and falling piano cadences of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Then plug the gaps between each note with any of those which may have been encountered on the path to the next. Once that’s done, ensure that the playing is constant with... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Scott WalkerSunday, 19 May 2013
Scott Walker: The Collection 1967-1970Few pop records possess a beauty taking them into the otherworldly, inexplicable realm where it’s impossible to understand the magic which coalesced in their creation. The Four Tops’ “Seven Rooms of Gloom... Read more... |
CD: Jamie Cullum - MomentumSunday, 19 May 2013
Jamie Cullum's sixth studio album is about as good a pop record as you'll hear all year. Newly signed to Island Records, the singer-songwriter has seemingly raided ideas from the entire history of pop music, such that low-fi vintage synth lines and... Read more... |
Rock ‘n’ Roll Britannia, BBC FourSaturday, 18 May 2013
From being “a strange facsimile of the original” to generating the “first British record made by people who are 100 per cent convinced that they are doing the right thing”, Rock ‘n’ Roll Britannia breezily mapped the protracted birth of a British... Read more... |
CD: Daft Punk - Random Access MemoriesThursday, 16 May 2013
A wise man once said: DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE. It's a simple concept, but it seems so very hard to grasp, even – or especially – in a supposedly media-savvy world. The oddest thing of all is that it seems to be the people who consider themselves the... Read more... |
Tomorrow's World, ICAThursday, 16 May 2013
The ICA was the perfect location for the UK debut of hotly tipped new duo Tomorrow’s World, consisting of Air’s Jean-Benoit Dunckel and English synth-rockers New Young Pony Club’s ivory tickler Lou Hayter. The venue added a prestigious edge to what... Read more... |
CD: The National - Trouble Will Find MeThursday, 16 May 2013
It is no hyperbole to say that The National have made some of my favourite albums of all time. In every case, it has never been a decision I have reached lightly, or quickly. Those first few listens, you’re merely aware that your heart beats a... Read more... |
CD: Club 8 - Above The CityWednesday, 15 May 2013
Pop that summons the word “cute” has a tendency to nauseate. If executed with the correct ratio of candy to content, however, it may persuade. The Scandinavians have proved effective in this area and Jonas Angergård and Karolina Komstedt, from the... Read more... |
Beware of Mr BakerTuesday, 14 May 2013
For those familiar with Ginger Baker’s virtuosic musicianship, but not with his life, the biggest revelation of the warts-and-all documentary Beware of Mr Baker may be that next to drumming, playing polo was the great time-keeper’s obsession. One... Read more... |
The Jim Jones Revue, The Sebright ArmsMonday, 13 May 2013
The final concert of The Jim Jones Revue’s four-night stand at Bethnal Green boozer The Sebright Arms found the box-like basement venue packed with men – and a few women – who would recall a time when watching short-haired rock bands in this type of... Read more... |
