New music
Orbital, Brighton Centre review - a solid hands-in-the-air night outMonday, 10 April 2023
Just before the encore, the crowd is finally warmed up and dancing. It took a while, but hands are now in the air, middle-aged bodies are shifting about, muscle memory of MDMA nights in the last century.The Hartnoll brothers are also jigging onstage... Read more... |
Album: GoGo Penguin - Everything is Going to be OKMonday, 10 April 2023
GoGo Penguin’s new album, Everything is Going to be OK, is so named, not because the band are in possession of an hopeful crystal ball which predicts an imminent end to the UK’s present social and economic problems or of Vladimir Putin’s genocidal... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Too Much Sun Will Burn - The British Psychedelic Sounds Of 1967 Volume 2Sunday, 09 April 2023
Together or separately, British psychedelia and 1967’s related music have been ceaselessly looked at. There cannot be an awful lot more to say. Nonetheless, the law of diminishing returns is there for ignoring so herewith the follow-up to the 2016... Read more... |
Album: Feist - MultitudesSaturday, 08 April 2023
This is technically Leslie Feist’s first release since 2018’s Pleasure. But that doesn't mean the Canadian songwriter has been resting on her laurels.In the five-year period, she’s stepped into the role of solo parenthood by adopting her daughter... Read more... |
Album: Ellie Goulding - Higher Than HeavenFriday, 07 April 2023
I admit I’ve never really seen the point of Ellie Goulding as a pop star. What is it that identifies her? What aspect defines her music? What sets her apart from the pack? Since I believe femme-led pop music is the defining pop of this century so... Read more... |
Mimi Webb, O2 Academy, Glasgow review - TikTok queen fails to fire with sparse setThursday, 06 April 2023
Blake Rose clearly wasn’t leaving anything to chance. The support act bounded onstage draped in a Saltire, and soon brought up his days growing up in Aberdeen before moving to Australia. That Scottish upbringing helped inspire one of his songs, “... Read more... |
Vossa Jazz 2023 review: Norwegian festival’s 50th-anniversary edition keeps traditional music closeThursday, 06 April 2023
Two drummers are drumming. One held the beat on ABBA’s “Super Trouper”. He is Sweden’s Per Lindvall, more usually associated with jazz. The other is Norway’s Rune Arnesen, whose recording credits are also stylistically varied. Locked-in tight... Read more... |
Album: Thomas Bangalter - MythologiesThursday, 06 April 2023
Popular musicians “going classical” can work well. Look at Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, at Richard Reed Parry and Colin Stetson from Arcade Fire, or at the late Jóhann Jóhannsson who had a successful career as indie and electronic musician in... Read more... |
Album: Reg Meuross - Stolen from GodWednesday, 05 April 2023
Anyone who’s heard even a smidgin of Reg Meuross’s music will know what a wonderful writer he is, homing in on often painful aspects of our shared history and retelling it in powerful and poignant songs that make any half-sentient listener want to... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Dance CrazeTuesday, 04 April 2023
"We’re not just a dance band, we’ve got things to say.” Pauline Black, lead singer with The Selecter, succinctly pins down what made the era of 2-Tone Records so important to the British music scene at the end of the 1970s.A consortium of bands... Read more... |
Album: Josephine Foster - Domestic SphereMonday, 03 April 2023
On Domestic Sphere, Josephine Foster’s guitar and voice are joined by clacking crickets, a flock of sheep and wailing cats recorded in La Janda in southern Spain. There are also Colorado and Tennessee's birds and frogs. Foster’s great-... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: McNeal and Niles - Thrust, Wilbur Niles and Thrust - Thrust TooSunday, 02 April 2023
An original pressing of 1979’s Thrust fetches at least £1000. Its 1980 follow-up Thrust Too can be a relative bargain at around £400. The prices are partly explained by J Dilla having sampled Thrust Too’s “Survival of the Funkiest” and Thrust’s “... Read more... |
