New music
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... |
Album: boygenius - The RecordFriday, 31 March 2023
Maybe you’ve heard the Native American parable about the two wolves. An old Cherokee’s grandson is grappling with internal tensions; self-hatred and self-aggrandising. For Phoebe Bridgers, one-third of indie supergroup boygenius (usually styled with... Read more... |
Album: The Zombies - Different GameThursday, 30 March 2023
There’s something charmingly unassuming and humble about The Zombies. Nowadays their 1968 second album Odyssey and Oracle regularly figures in all time greatest albums lists, but it was a flop at the time and its reputation grew through a gradually... Read more... |
Album: A Certain Ratio - 1982Wednesday, 29 March 2023
1982 is only A Certain Ratio’s third album this century but it’s one that’s brimming with funky vibes that are more than enough to get anyone on their feet and dancing with a big smile – not that it doesn’t have plenty to say about the state of... Read more... |
Inspiral Carpets, Concorde 2, Brighton review - a raucous catalogue of Madchester-era hitsTuesday, 28 March 2023
As Inspiral Carpets play “She Comes in the Fall”, a great song and one of their signature tunes, its martial drumming drags me into my own past. Seeing them play it at a 600-capacity venue makes me recall seeing them, over three decades ago,... Read more... |
Album: Sissoko Ségal Parisien Peirani - Les ÉgarésMonday, 27 March 2023
This is an enchanting album which brings together four outstanding musicians, brilliant in their own right, but also adept at the kind of collaboration in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.The distinguished cellist Vincent Ségal... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Barracudas - Drop Out with the BarracudasSunday, 26 March 2023
From around July 1977, Jeremy Gluck began contributing to the UK music weekly Sounds. Amongst his pieces were features on The Lurkers, The Rezillos, 999 and his home country Canada’s punk band The Viletones. He’d also written about Generation X for... Read more... |
Nick Mulvey, Chalk, Brighton review - cult star shines brightSaturday, 25 March 2023
Welcome to the church of Mulvey. The sold-out venue is packed with a svelte crowd, mostly ranging in age between about 30 and 45. Nick Mulvey is playing a new number which has an air of lockdown-inspiration about it, with its lines about “missing... Read more... |
Album: Leveret - FormsSaturday, 25 March 2023
Ten years ago, three leading young English folk musicians got together in a room and swapped some tunes – Rob Harbron, whose English concertina graced the likes of The Remnant Kings and Emily Portman’s albums; melodeon player Andy Cutting, a three-... Read more... |
Album: Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean BlvdFriday, 24 March 2023
Compared to her peers, Lana del Rey is mightily prolific. This is her eighth album since her breakthough 11 years ago (her ninth in total). Her last album appeared 15 months ago. There’s still much she wants us to hear. Did You Know That There’s a... Read more... |
Suede, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - a messianic performance from Britpop's originatorsThursday, 23 March 2023
“Why do we come to concerts?” asks Brett Anderson, Suede’s ringmaster and vocalist, before launching into an acoustic version of “The Wild Ones” from the stage of Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. “We come to concerts to feel something together, for a... Read more... |
