New music
Album: Wilco - Cruel CountryTuesday, 31 May 2022
As the pandemic receded, Wilco huddled together in Jeff Tweedy’s Chicago studio and played country songs, an easefully naturally act as the world around them shook. Though famed for the experimental, eerily timely Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001) and the... Read more... |
Album: Lettuce - UnifyMonday, 30 May 2022
If you’re feeling that you might be missing a certain glide in your stride and a dip in your hip during these uncertain times, then perhaps you might benefit from some funk on your record player. Well, cometh the hour, cometh the men.Boston’s... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: John Barry - The More Things ChangeSunday, 29 May 2022
By 1970, John Barry had composed music for Born Free, The Lion in Winter, Midnight Cowboy, You Only Live Twice and about 38 other films. His work with cinema began in 1960 and averaged around five films a year. In 1965, eight films were released... Read more... |
Album: Yama Warashi - Crispy MoonSaturday, 28 May 2022
Crispy Moon is a musical kaleidoscope encompassing free-jazz skronk, Japanese folk melodies, Krautrock insistence, echoes of Recurring-era Spacemen 3, South African percussion styles and space rock. One is overlain onto another, or there are... Read more... |
Album: Def Leppard - Diamond Star HalosThursday, 26 May 2022
This album starts and ends so brilliantly. It kicks off with a salvo of three tracks that remind you exactly why Def Leppard became one of the biggest bands in the world in the mid Eighties. They distilled the things they most loved growing up – T... Read more... |
Album: Liam Gallagher - C'Mon You KnowWednesday, 25 May 2022
While Britpop was a retrogressive media construct, Oasis were a genuine socio-musical phenomenon (albeit also retrogressive!). And at their heart was, of course, Liam Gallagher, bullishly Manc, sneeringly rude and pugnaciously charismatic, a proper... Read more... |
Album: Heidi Talbot - Sing it for a LifetimeMonday, 23 May 2022
As break-up albums go, Heidi Talbot’s new set knocks that tightly wound ball of heartbreak, separation and release into the front rank, on an arc of often beautifully melodic self-penned songs, choice covers, and accompanists including guitarist... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Patty Waters - You Loved MeSunday, 22 May 2022
“Touched by Rodin in a Paris Museum” is a 14-minute consideration of exactly what its title says: the impact of encountering Auguste Rodin’s work in person. The composition features piano only. There are nods to Debussy and Ravel. The playing is... Read more... |
Album: Harry Styles - Harry's HouseSaturday, 21 May 2022
Harry Styles’ previous two albums sounded like someone rifling pleasantly through the history of pop and rock, but always genially and politely. More entertaining than his scalpels-ready critics wished when One Direction paused in 2016, those albums... Read more... |
MØ, Heaven, London review - snappy, sexy and energisedFriday, 20 May 2022
“I live to survive another heartache/I live to survive another mistake,” roars a sold-out Heaven. It’s a new song but everyone seems to know it. It’s not MØ’s most famous song but is the bluntest monster banger of the night, crunching four-to-the-... Read more... |
Album: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Dirt Does DylanFriday, 20 May 2022
I have to confess, it’s a long time since I’ve thought about the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band and a new album serves as a reminder of how good they were, and are. Formed in Long Beach, California in 1966 by a Bob Dylan-obsessed high school student named... Read more... |
Tallies, Old Blue Last review - Canadian quintet rejuvenates indie prototypesWednesday, 18 May 2022
Toronto’s Tallies have acknowledged their fondness for Aztec Camera, The Smiths and The Sundays. Add Cocteau Twins into the building blocks, too. Encountering a band so strongly immersed in the back catalogues of familiar names can obscure what’s... Read more... |
