New music
Thomas H. Green
People Just Do Nothing is a mockumentary BBC TV series, now ended, about fictional Brentford pirate radio crew Kurupt FM. It’s also a comedy based entirely on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, in that the humour derives from the worldview of all the key characters – tawdry, hopeless garage MC/DJ chancers – being confidently blinkered to the point of absurdity, while all else points to their utter uselessness. The twist is that Kurupt FM’s debut album is often musically sprightly and enjoyable.Since the series ended in 2018, Kurupt FM have made major festival appearances, and a feature film has Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Here we are, deep in the second summer of Covid-19 and the UK music festival industry is still giving the impression of being on life support. Yet again, there’s been no Glastonbury, no Womad and not even the return of the Supersonic Festival. Somehow though, the heavy metal community have managed to keep things going. In June, there was a reduced capacity Download Festival to keep 10,000 metalheads happy. Then last weekend, a full-flavour Bloodstock returned to Catton Hall in Derbyshire with all guns blazing.That said, the Bloodstock and Download Festivals are not as similar as the non- Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
For a man who didn’t know the alphabet until the age of 28 (apocryphally – it was probably 26), Ryder’s lyrical dexterity is remarkable. He only discovered that he had ADHD and dyslexia at the age of 40, having been addicted to heroin for 20 years (“I felt like I had me underpants on back to front. Drugs made me feel normal”). Now approaching 60 and clean for the last two decades, he has unearthed an old album, found "down the back of the sofa". Recorded in LA in 2010, just before he went into the celebrity jungle, it has now been revived on the suggestion of Alan McGee. Remixed by Sunny Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s almost 25 years since Alabama 3 unleashed their “sweet, pretty country acid house gospel music” on an unsuspecting world with Exile on Coldharbour Lane – one of the finest records of the late 20th Century. 12 albums later and with their first since 2016’s Blues, the band are still very much rooted in a world of urban weirdos and misfits, and this is all to the good.Step 13 is a largely up tempo, toe-tapping antidote to a Covid-damaged, post-Brexit Britain that doesn’t shy away from commenting on the political landscape, but nor does it hammer Alabama 3’s views down anyone’s throat either Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After a band’s back catalogue has been reissued countless times, any new release needs a fresh approach to attract attention. Archives and collections can be scoured to find previously unissued tracks. There might be otherwise unknown recordings released under aliases, or maybe something which escaped via an obscure continental soundtrack album. But on their own, such discoveries aren’t enough. They need to be married-up with the familiar. Hence what can be a last-resort release: a complete works collection.A few bands can have their original master tapes mucked about with to offer a new spin Read more ...
Liz Thomson
The release into a world in lockdown of Bob Dylan’s first original album in almost a decade caught everyone by surprise last year. Rough and Rowdy Ways drew widespread and universal praise. Its coming was heralded by a single, “Murder Most Foul”, a lengthy song, released without fanfare, addressing the Kennedy assassination which was, of course, the subject of great textual exegesis.When Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne sent it to Chrissie Hynde, she was immediately hooked. “Listening to that song completely changed everything for me. I was lifted out of this morose mood that I’d been in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Hinged ends with “Moment,” a vaporous mood piece where a reflective voice lightly floats over and weaves between two, three-note keyboard arpeggios, occasional Gamelan-style percussive interjections and odd bubbling sounds. “Moment of clarity” are the final words.Earlier, “A Feast” is rhythmically more unyielding but the directness is offset by a vocal where phrases phase in and out as if being subjected to Doppler effect. Again though, a sense of otherness suggests that what appears to be electronic music is rooted in the organic: an apartness placing what’s heard between two worlds. The Read more ...
joe.muggs
The UK is currently in the middle of a jazz, funk and soul renaissance. Homegrown, grassroots talent is producing an abundance of glorious music both retro and forward facing, in a way not seen since the combined influence of Soul II Soul and the acid jazz scene created a wave of groove in the early-mid Nineties. A lot of it has a powerful contemporary political edge too, taking cues from Black Lives Matter and incendiary Stateside releases by D’Angelo and Solange in the last decade – from SAULT to Shabaka Hutchings, Jorja Smith to Joel Culpepper, this is music with heart, brains and Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Do we undervalue artists who are just consistently good... who know what it is that they do exceptionally well? Singer/pianist Patricia Barber sings and plays songs her own thoughtful way. She and her regular band have a Monday night residency at the Green Mill in Uptown Chicago where they hone and refine their craft. Every word in every song is flawlessly enunciated, weighted, savoured. And her piano playing always has what the Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich calls “bracing elegance.”Her albums are made in familiar surroundings too. She goes to the studios of the Chicago Recording Company on Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Producer to the stars and creator of the monstrously successful “Uptown Funk”, Mark Ronson knows a thing or two about making noises. He has combined this know-how with a laid-back knack for presenting to make this six-parter for Apple TV+, delving into the history of how developing technology has driven innovation in the music business.It’s an almost infinitely sprawling subject, but Ronson has drawn up a deluxe list of contributors to give him a hand. For instance, an eager Paul McCartney pops up in the episode about sampling to describe how the Beatles experimented with tape loops in “ Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Saunders' Ferry Lane” elegantly paints a picture of revisiting an empty, out-of-season neighbourhood to reflect on an old relationship. It’s cloudy and begins raining. The grass where the couple lay is dead. Birds have flown away. The gentle arms which held the narrator are gone. “I find no present comfort for my pain” sings a forlorn Sammi Smith. Swelling strings darken the mood, as does a plaintive pedal steel.Discomfort of a different kind is addressed by Billie Jo Spears’ up-tempo “Mr Walker, It's All Over.” After leaving Garden City, Kansas for New York to work, she fetches coffee for Read more ...
peter.quinn
This second full-length album from South Korean 10-piece Golden Child moves seamlessly from pop balladry to anthemic EDM without ever losing its footing.With ghostly, submerged bell noises, ominous-sounding low brass, joined by strings and pounding drums that reaches a riotous crescendo, the pithy opener “Game Changer” certainly packs an incendiary charge, a figurative grabbing of the listener’s lapel which nicely sets up the dynamic rhythmic power of “Ra Pam Pam”.Incorporating 1980s-style power guitar riffs, cowbell hits and a squiggly synth line embedded into its chorus, “Bottom Of The Read more ...