New music
Album: Melt Yourself Down - Pray For Me I Don't Fit InFriday, 18 February 2022
Melt Yourself Down’s last one, 100% Yes, was the most ballistically exciting album of 2020. The band are unique, a six-piece mutation who, as their album title indicates, don’t fit in anywhere. The good news is that they’ve not tempered what they’re... Read more... |
Album: Basia Bulat - The GardenThursday, 17 February 2022
On her sixth album, Basia Bulat re-records 16 of her own songs with specially created string arrangements. The Garden isn’t a best-of, more a recalibration of how the Canadian singer-songwriter sees herself through her music and how the meanings of... Read more... |
Album: Metronomy - Small WorldWednesday, 16 February 2022
Metronomy have gone all out to knock off their quirky corners here, and goodness, it’s worked. It’s quite a move from a band whose eccentricity has always been part and parcel of their image – and they really haven’t done it by halves, in fact they’... Read more... |
Album: Kit Downes, Petter Eldh, James Maddren – VermillionMonday, 14 February 2022
The ECM label has been welcoming British and UK-based musicians to its roster for more than half a century. The very first were a group consisting of Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and Hugh Davies. Then came a bassist who, back in 1971, was called “David... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Dick Raaijmakers aka Kid Baltan, and Tom DisseveltSunday, 13 February 2022
In 1957, popular music was given a jolt when the first electronic pop record was recorded. “Song of the Second Moon” was created and composed by the Dutch musician Dick Raaijmakers who was working at NatLab, the research laboratory of the... Read more... |
Album: Rokia Koné & Jacknife Lee - BamananSaturday, 12 February 2022
Combining ancestral music with electronic sounds has become so widespread that it’s almost a cliché. Dance floors now pulsate with sounds from around the globe, adding a welcome warmth and heart to the tropes of techno, house and trance. Malian... Read more... |
Album: Mary J Blige - Good Morning GorgeousFriday, 11 February 2022
Mary J Blige is a monumental musical power. 30+ years, 14 albums, various labels and untold collaborations into her career, she still has the ability to deliver records that push everything else aside, existing entirely on their own terms and... Read more... |
Album: Sea Power - Everything Was ForeverThursday, 10 February 2022
The former British Sea Power’s seventh album draws on deep reserves of melancholy and ecstasy. Several songs sound like elegies for Yan and Neil Wilkinson’s recently deceased parents. The band’s emotional heart – sometimes missed beneath the... Read more... |
Album: Alt-J - The DreamWednesday, 09 February 2022
A decade since they picked up the Mercury prize for An Awesome Wave, Alt-J’s latest creation is highly likely to do the double. This is phenomenal work (but one hell of a challenge to describe). Those familiar with the band’s evocative,... Read more... |
Album: Napalm Death – Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw Of ThroesMonday, 07 February 2022
Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw Of Throes is not so much a brand new album from Napalm Death, but a collection of tunes that were recorded during, but left over from, the sessions for their last disc, Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Sammi Smith - Looks Like Stormy WeatherSunday, 06 February 2022
For America’s oldies radio stations Sammi Smith will forever be about “Help me Make it Through the Night”. In 1970, she was the first singer to pick up on the Kris Kristofferson song. Her version took it into the US Top Ten.Although “Help me Make it... Read more... |
Album: Bastille - Give Me the FutureSaturday, 05 February 2022
Since exploding to fame a decade ago with the single “Pompeii” and its parent album Bad Blood, Bastille have maintained impressive success on both sides of the Atlantic. To this writer’s ears, the bombast of their early music was off-putting, and... Read more... |
