New music
Music Reissues Weekly: The Best of 2022Sunday, 25 December 2022
The Beatles loomed over everything else. It wasn’t inevitable, but the arrival of the revealing Revolver box set and Peter Jackson’s compelling Get Back film confirmed that there is more to say about what’s known, and also that there are new things... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Lizz Wright - Holding SpaceSaturday, 24 December 2022
Bolivian marching powder, sexual violence, fraud. As the actions of the present kakistocracy edged ever closer to that of a lost Brian De Palma film script, it was to music that we turned once again for beauty and the best of humanity.With stunning... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Sault - Untitled (God), Today & Tomorrow, 11, Earth, AIIRFriday, 23 December 2022
It’s always hard to choose one album to spotlight come the annual Best Ofs, and 2022 has given us an extraordinary embarrassment of riches to choose from – the bountiful bastard…January brought with it a small but perfectly formed under-the-radar... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Rokia Koné and Jacknife Lee - BamananThursday, 22 December 2022
I am a sucker for Malian singers. I have been ever since I made a couple of films there at the end of the 1980s. According to ancient tradition, the jalis, and other singers have a mission: to open the hearts of those who hear them, and to fill them... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Goat - Oh DeathWednesday, 21 December 2022
2022 was, without any shadow of a doubt, the year when live music once again managed to provide an arena for music lovers to come together for shared magic and the occasional joyous evening after the main wave of Covid had passed us by. A place for... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 74: The Muppets, The Beatles, Decius, Black Lab, Black Sabbath, Tinariwen and moreMonday, 19 December 2022
Welcome to the final theartsdesk on Vinyl of 2022 which is topped off by two Vinyl of the Months, one there for seasonal jollies and the other for musical adventurousness. As ever, the rest runs the gamut from reissues of albums from decades ago to... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Cécile McLorin Salvant - Ghost SongMonday, 19 December 2022
I tend to run away from all known bandwagons, but I'm on this one. Peter Quinn called Cécile McLorin Salvant’s album Ghost Song “a moving, imaginative, at times laugh-out-loud collection of songs” back in February, and it is a wonderful piece of... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Mirage - The World Goes On Around YouSunday, 18 December 2022
Each new Beatles album offered a chance for other acts to record their own versions of songs which didn’t make it onto singles. What was on the long-player could pick up attention if it was covered. Revolver was no exception. Cliff Bennett & The... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Arctic Monkeys - The CarSaturday, 17 December 2022
I hate Alex Turner. Ever since he and his spotty crew upended my rather dull existence in 2005 (courtesy of not entirely legal streaming services) I have been in his thrall. But everyone loved Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not ... Read more... |
Album of the Year 2022: Hercules & Love Affair - In AmberFriday, 16 December 2022
It’s been a shit year. Global horrors from Kiev to Karachi and Tehran to Texas all somehow feeling too close for comfort, and even closer to home heatstroke, frostbite, floods, strikes, impoverishment, the grinding realisation that pestilence is a... Read more... |
Emma Smith, Pizza Express Jazz Club review - Christmas spiritedThursday, 15 December 2022
There’s much fun to be had with snow, and fun things go with it, too, such as album launches in Soho on a freezing Saturday night in December, when the rest of the country is watching England depart the World Cup in the quarter finals.Downstairs at... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Wet Leg - Wet LegThursday, 15 December 2022
Actually, Spotify tells me the album I’ve streamed most this year is Motordrome, the third album by Danish pop star MØ. When I reviewed it back in January I was underwhelmed by its doleful moodiness, but, showing how wrong a quick couple of listens... Read more... |
