New music
Music Reissues Weekly: The Mystic Tide - FrustrationSunday, 17 March 2024Crashing chords are followed by a spindly, untrammelled solo guitar. After this subsides, the singer lays out the issue: “I try, I cry, I just can't see why. It's clear, she's near, the sights and sounds I hear.” He’s distressed, his anguish... Read more... |
Album: Julia Holter - Something in the Room She MovesSaturday, 16 March 2024Julia Holter has created a long line of albums that trade on sophisticated poetry, both lyrical and musical, and her latest, perhaps the most adventurous of all, inhabits a world where nothing is certain, narratives are disjointed, and the... Read more... |
Album: Kim Gordon - The CollectiveThursday, 14 March 2024Some icons sit back and bask. Kim Gordon does not. She has occasionally intimated that her New York cool and relentless work rate may be down to a smidgeon of imposter syndrome, even after all her years on the frontline. Whatever the truth of it,... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Karl WallingerWednesday, 13 March 2024In February 2001 a brain aneurysm nearly killed Karl Wallinger. It didn’t do World Party many favours either. The aftermath of devastating illness resulted in a five year hiatus for his band, followed by a gradual, tentative return. Since 2006 there... Read more... |
Album: The Dandy Warhols - RockmakerWednesday, 13 March 2024Just as it’s not the best idea to judge a book by its cover, it’s also not advisable to judge an album by its insipid title. Led Zeppelin IV and Leonard Cohen’s Ten New Songs being obvious cases in point.To the list of uninspired album titles which... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Groove Machine - The Earl Young Drum SessionsSunday, 10 March 2024A few records changed music. One such was “The Love I Lost (Part 1)” by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes. Issued as a single by the Philadelphia International label in August 1973, its release introduced what would become a major characteristic of... Read more... |
Album: Sarah Jane Morris - The SisterhoodSaturday, 09 March 2024Released yesterday to coincide with International Women’s Day, The Sisterhood will surely prove to be one of the brightest jewels in Sarah Jane Morris’s varicoloured discography.A labour of love which Morris has been contemplating for two decades,... Read more... |
Say She She, Koko review - flawless, pizazz-filled show from rising starsFriday, 08 March 2024Back in 1979, Koko operated as The Music Machine. As such, the Camden Town venue lent its name to the film Music Machine, marketed as the British equivalent of Saturday Night Fever. Buying into this vision of the North London setting as a hot-bed of... Read more... |
Album: Ariana Grande - Eternal SunshineFriday, 08 March 2024Ariana Grande is the seventh most-followed Instagram account in the world (nearly 400 million). She has worked in promotion and/or “brand ambassador” positions with Reebok, Givenchy, Apple and many others. She is a successful film/TV star (about to... Read more... |
Album: Bolis Pupul - Letter to YuThursday, 07 March 2024This album starts on an extremely literal note. The whole record is themed around Belgian born-and-raised Bolis Pupul’s explorations of the Chinese side of his heritage after his mother’s death in 2008, and his regrets at not having done so when she... Read more... |
Album: Norah Jones - VisionsWednesday, 06 March 2024Here’s a question: do singer-songwriters produce their strongest songs in times of upheaval, as they seek to express a feeling of “this stuff is hard”? Or do more powerful creations emerge once the anguish has been overcome?Norah Jones’s Pick Me Up... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 82: Human League, Hawkwind, Roberta Flack, Kid Acne, Photek, Rudimentary Peni and moreMonday, 04 March 2024VINYL OF THE MONTHMito y Comadre Guajirando (ZZK)Mito y Comadre are Guillermo Lares and Shana Comadre, a Bogota-based pair of Venezuelans whose debut album is produced by Christian Castagno (a man who’s more likely to be found helming outings by... Read more... |