New music
Album: MØ - MotordromeSaturday, 29 January 2022
Danish pop star MØ is as well known for her collaborations as her own music. Shining brighter than all of them is the globe-slaying, 24 carat dance craze "Lean On” from 2015, created with Major Lazer and DJ Snake, and, for a few years, Spotify’s... Read more... |
Album: Janis Ian - The Light at the End of the LineFriday, 28 January 2022
A confession – one I have made down the years to many friends, who mostly disagree. I have never much liked Joni Mitchell. Yes, she has written some good and enduring songs, but the voice? To me it has no substance, no texture. Admirers say she led... Read more... |
Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal, Roundhouse review - kora and cello combinedThursday, 27 January 2022
Malian kora master Ballake Sissoko is a griot steeped in the musical and cultural traditions of West Africa, whose duets with his cousin Toumani Diabate on the world music classic, 1999’s New Ancient Strings, are rightly celebrated.His duets with... Read more... |
Album: Maverick Sabre - Don't Forget to Look UpThursday, 27 January 2022
Michael Stafford aka Maverick Sabre is the definition of a modern journeyman vocalist. Since 2008 he’s released three albums and appeared on a huge range of British and Irish rap, dubstep and drum’n’bass artists’ records. He’s had several top 40... Read more... |
Album: Big Big Train - Welcome to the PlanetWednesday, 26 January 2022
Six months after the release of Common Ground, neo-proggers Big Big Train return with another album of meticulously crafted songs urging human connection, closing communication gaps, and celebrating what it is to be alive; the opener and closer of... Read more... |
Album: Fiona Monbet – MaelströmMonday, 24 January 2022
Fiona Monbet is a phenomenal violinist with a huge expressive range. Her credentials, above all in jazz, are impeccable: the late Didier Lockwood once declared the Franco-Irish musician to be his “spiritual daughter”, but her influences range... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Stan Tracey Trio - The 1959 SessionsSunday, 23 January 2022
What’s now been titled The 1959 Sessions represents an unreleased studio album completed by the Stan Tracey Trio on 5 and 8 June 1959 at Decca’s London studio at Broadhurst Gardens. If issued then, it would have been the swift follow-up to the trio’... Read more... |
Long Promised Road review - another attempt to probe the fragile genius of Brian WilsonSaturday, 22 January 2022
There has been no shortage of documentaries about king Beach Boy Brian Wilson, not to mention the 2014 bio-drama Love & Mercy, so the purpose of this new effort by director Brent Wilson (no relation) isn’t altogether clear. Certainly Wilson (the... Read more... |
Album: Eels - Extreme WitchcraftSaturday, 22 January 2022
Mr. E’s music examines hellish depths, but always climbs back towards the light. Electro-Shock Blues (1998) was soon redeemed by “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues”, and a trilogy of sometimes feral, wracked albums ended with Tomorrow Morning (2010). As the... Read more... |
Album: Earl Sweatshirt - Sick!Friday, 21 January 2022
Around 2017, Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, known professionally as Earl Sweatshirt, said he wanted to push his music in a more experimental direction, to do “riskier shit” to be precise. This need to venture out after being released contractually from... Read more... |
Album: John Mellencamp - Strictly A One-Eyed JackThursday, 20 January 2022
“I didn’t even know what I was writing about. It was just sent to me”, John Mellencamp has said of Strictly A One-Eyed Jack, his first album in five years.Lauded by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Nora Guthrie, who sees in his work echoes of her father... Read more... |
Album: Lady London - Lady Like: The Boss TapeWednesday, 19 January 2022
Virtual “mixtapes” are not proper albums. Their purpose is often to whet the appetite. Nowhere is this more so than in US hip hop and right now Lady London’s new teaser is much-vaunted.Off the back of a couple of hot tunes that woke her peers to her... Read more... |
