New music
Guy Oddy
The last time that Paolo Nutini was on the public stage, he was knocking out fine blue-eyed soul and having substantial hits like “Scream (Funk my Life Up)”. That was eight years ago though.His new disc, Last Night in the Bittersweet sees Nutini undergo something of a change of direction from the Caustic Love album, by dropping the brass and taking a considerably more rockist approach, while noticeably turning up the Scottish accent in his singing voice. This double album also brings with it a host of unexpected influences, from early Eighties Celtic rock to mid-Seventies kosmiche, new wave, Read more ...
Tim Cumming
A few spots of rain greeted the arrival of the Rolling Stones on BST Hyde Park’s stage on Saturday night, and after “Street Fighting Man”, as Mick Jagger dedicated the show to the much-loved and lamented drummer Charlie Watts, a rainbow appeared over the stage. Then the band powered into the daylight half of their set, heavy on the Sixties pop end of their catalogue – a singalong revival of “Out of Time”, an angular, muscular, heart-racing “19th Nervous Breakdown”, and a delicate “She’s a Rainbow” giving way to a warm, oozy “Tumbling Dice” and the mournful guitars and horns of the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
American singer-songwriter Damien Jurado is both prolific and enigmatic. His latest album follows too many to count (OK, not really, I think this is his 20th). On his own label, it's as opaque as anything he’s done, and that’s saying something.There are 12 songs, at least half of them around the two-minute mark, all opaque and mysterious, but also often fascinating. “What is he singing about?” the listener asks themselves, a sense of what’s going on elusive but also, tantalisingly, almost within reach.A concept album, then? Kind of. There’s a very loose thematic of films sets. Possibly. Or Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 1965, Bob Crewe was living alongside Central Park in New York’s Dakota building. At various times, the block’s other residents included Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. For work, Crewe’s 6th-floor offices on West 60th Street were in a complex overlooking Columbia Circle and South Central Park. Atlantic Records was also based there, as was Roulette Records. He was flying high.At this time, Crewe’s highest-profile bread-and-butter association was with The Four Seasons, whose popularity was never undercut by the arrival in America of The Beatles and what came in their Read more ...
peter.quinn
An artist with a myriad of strings to his bow – gifted wordsmith, multi-instrumentalist, captivating storyteller – what enables James Vincent McMorrow’s singularly personal songs to take flight is the fact that he’s also a supreme melodist.The Less I Knew is chock full of killer chorus hooks, with album opener “Hurricane”, in which McMorrow’s gloriously harmonised vocal line is supported by the additional ear candy of Alex Borwick's horn parts, being a case in point. Borwick also supplies some driving mandolin work on “Heads Look Like Drums”, as well as engineering and mixing the Read more ...
Katie Colombus
When did life become so theoretical? In the penultimate track of her new album, Home, before and after, Regina Spektor plays the role of classroom teacher to list all of the -ologies, from porcupineology through pleaseology to sorryology and loveology.Set to endearingly intimate piano, it’s a sardonic poke at the current epidemic of self-branding and the categorised polarisation of thought this has created. Perhaps this is why – in a world where everything now published extraneously from our internalised thought process has become a concept to be marketed – this album is such a breath of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Figuratively, “Tselane” is Blk Jks’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Both songs begin quietly and move through passages of turbulence suggesting an impending tempest. Each has a command of dynamics which pulls the listener in, generating anticipation for what comes next. On stage, “Tselane” is introduced as a “lullaby.”Musically – beyond them being a form of rock – little obviously connects “Tselane” and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” but the association is there: it’s about the contrasts, the subtle union of drama and tranquillity.“Tselane” was first heard as the closing track of Blk Jks – said Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
In a world seemingly devoid of joy, Hollie Cook's fourth album is a very welcome salve indeed. It’s not just the deliciously mellow groove of the genre and her mellifluous tones, but the feeling of stepping away from the everyday – a holiday from the horrible – which makes this a musta-have for all summer gatherings. At first listen, Happy Hour can seem a bit "samey" but that’s an illusion. Stick with it. In fact, this, her first self-produced effort is something of a triumph. Dreamy and serene, this is Lovers' Rock for the Covid generation. Deceptively simple, the first three songs – Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Porcupine Tree’s members have said they don’t know if their 11th album and this autumn’s North American–European tour will conclude their 35-year career. If it does, it would be typical of the progressive rock trio – as averse to standing still as King Crimson – if they bowed out with a record that doesn't suggest a grand finale. As its title hints, Closure/Continuation sounds like a work in progress.Less dependent on singer-guitarist (and here bassist) Steven Wilson’s compositions than its predecessors, the project was jammed into life by him and drummer Gavin Harrison, and composed with Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Odesa (Sunnyside) is a deeply-felt and wonderfully played solo piano album with a massive emotional and stylistic compass. New York-based composer/pianist Vadim Neselovskyi has made a strong statement in homage to the city by the Black Sea where he was born, and to its unique cultural and musical heritage.Neselovskyi is one of those musicians whose astonishing potential – above all as composer – was spotted ridiculously early. He entered a newly-formed elite composition class in his home city at the age of just eight. By 14 his compositions were being presented abroad by Ukrainian cultural Read more ...
mark.kidel
I'm at the New Theatre in Oxford. Elvis Costello is playing through the final stages of his 2022 UK tour. The venue is full of memories: I saw The Kinks and Tom Jones here in the 1960s and then The Who in the early 70s. On my left, there’s Paul Conroy who first introduced me to Elvis in 1977 – when he was involved in launching his career at Stiff Records – and on my right, Tom Webber, a super-talented 22 year-old singer from Didcot, Paul’s latest passion, and according to many veterans who have heard him, a potential new star, for whom Paul has come out of retirement to manage, along with his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“The case is quite simple. We think that the policy which is being pursued by the western powers is one which is almost bound to end in the extermination of the human race. Some of us think that might be rather a pity.”This extract from a 1958 interview with Bertrand Russell opens Ban The Bomb - Music Of The Aldermaston Anti-Nuclear Marches, a two-CD set collecting music and interview snippets associated with the early days of CND and the related anti-nuclear protest. Next up in the tracklist is Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger’s “March With us Today” which exhorts listeners to come to Read more ...