New music
caspar.gomez
INTERLUDE 1: INVALID CODE-AGEDDON6.45 PM on Saturday 22nd May and all is well. Like tens of thousands of others across the UK (or maybe even more?) my wall flatscreen is tuned to Glastonbury’s livestream. Prior to the event itself promos for Water Aid and the like roll by, the kind usually on the huge screens beside the Pyramid Stage at the festival.One of my usual Glastonbury compadres, Finetime, is round, the fridge is loaded with beers, posh bottles of Bordeaux breathe by the radiator. Finetime has made his patent fiery quesadillas, timed for the 7.00 PM start. We’re going to make a right Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
So, blinking, after too much isolation, into a spring evening for a first live indoor gig for over a year was always going to be exciting, if just for novelty value. But for a gentle breaking-in to live music, the London Bulgarian Choir was an inspiring choice. Having 26 singers on stage is an achievement at the best of times. In the excellent acoustics of Kings Place the choir somehow managed to oscillate between the earthy and the unearthly in waves of sound.A wider interest in Bulgarian choirs was prompted by the success of the album series Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares put out in the 1980s Read more ...
Liz Thomson
In May 1981, a new-minted music graduate newly embarked on a career in journalism, I was pleased as punch to secure a commission from Capital Radio. Forever Young: Dylan at 40 was broadcast on 24 May. I’ve a tape of it somewhere, this 30-minute programme voiced by a guy more suited to Carlsberg ads. The script – written using a golf-ball typewriter, music cues in its wide margins, hints of Tippex here and there – turned up a couple of weeks ago as I tidied my study. I was 23, younger than Bob Dylan when he wrote “Blowin’ in the Wind”, and 40 then seemed rather old.Dylan's career was at one of Read more ...
Asya Draganova
The title of Cavalcade, or a “dramatic procession”, could not describe better the contents of black midi’s new release. This cavalcade of an album moves between fast and noisy tracks like the singles “John L” and “Chondromalacia Patella” to the soulful “Marlene Dietrich”, the slowly building psychedelic repetition in “Diamond Stuff”, and the nearly 10-minute closing opus “Ascending Forth”. In fact, black midi’s record pulls together a collage of musical, literary and historic references that may initially appear somewhat random – a place where acoustic and electric guitars, a violin, a jazzy Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Back in the mid-Eighties, BBC television started broadcasting The Rock'n' Roll Years, one of the first rock music retrospectives. Each half-hour episode focused on a year, with news reports and music intermixed to give a revealing look at the development of rock culture against the context of current affairs.That is more or less the basic template employed by the makers of Apple TV+’s new eight-parter, 1971 - The Year that Music Changed Everything, ballooning that half-hour to around about six hours of great music, incredible footage, and more great music. It’s loosely based on David Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sunshine Theatre were based around Aberdare in South Wales. In 1971, they recorded their only single. Fifty copies of “Mountain” / “I Want” were pressed. The quartet also used the name Albert and gigged with fellow Welsh outfits Budgie and Man. In August 1972, they played at Malvern Festival. There was an appearance on the Welsh TV pop programme Disc a Dawn. And that was it. Sunshine Theatre became less than a footnote, a forgotten band.However, what’s forgotten is often rediscovered and requires evaluation. The single made its way to the internet and has been for-real reissued. It is Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The idea live music is back is worth shouting about. Indeed, the BBC News has been doing just that about this gig. In reality, though, while it’s a joy to be out (this is my first major venue concert for a year-and-a-half), Live is Alive is a stepping stone towards a ‘proper’ gig, rather than the real deal. The Brighton Dome is less than half full, the moshpit set with cabaret-style tables, everyone socially distanced. As the event’s MC, local radio presenter Melita Dennett, explains at the start, we are to stay seated, no dancing – “you can wiggle your bums!” - while drinks can be obtained Read more ...
mark.kidel
Mdou Moctar is often dubbed as the “Hendrix of the desert”. He is not the first West African musician to be linked with African-American guitar stars. Just as you can hear echoes of John Lee Hooker in Ali Farka Toure, and Taj Mahal could collaborate seamlessly with Toumani Diabate, the young musicians emerging brutally into a world of international mining robbery and fundamentalist terror, naturally find inspiration in music from over the ocean. As with so much in music, the influences flow both way, or, from another point of view, there is an epigenetic kinship resounding through shared DNA. Read more ...
Russ Coffey
If there's one songwriting technique Twenty One Pilots' Tyler Joseph has perfected over the years, it's the art of combining upbeat melodies with angst-ridden lyrics for maximum emotional impact. It’s evident throughout his band's work (and never more so than on 2015's multi-platinum Blurryface); Scaled and Icy simply takes the formula and pushes the "upbeat" to the limit. In a recent interview, Joseph describes his latest tunes as "shiny and colourful" with lyrics that "address some pretty heavy things". Rather than being worn down by life's setbacks, though, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Gary Numan says that his new album “looks at climate change from the planet’s point of view… it feels betrayed, hurt and ravaged… it is now fighting back.” Intruder is, then, a bleak, apocalyptic concept album. Given his last album explored similar terrain and that gothic dystopian wordplay has been central to his work for a decade, this isn’t new territory. Then again, his Eighties fans shouldn’t quibble. His chart-topping classics are riddled with po-faced Ballardian sci-fi so, arguably, it’s simply what Numan does.Where Intruder is different is the sound. Numan’s recent work often placed Read more ...
joe.muggs
Lambchop leader Kurt Wagner has suggested that the title of this album is semi literal: that he wanted to write “something akin” to classic, Great American Songbook show tunes, rather than his usual country-tinged style. If so, it’s for a rather gloomy sort of a show. At the beginning, it does suggest you’re going to get some high drama: the rather Leonard Cohen-ish “A Chef’s Kiss” would certainly fit in a middle of a musical in the “how did I get here, where will I go?” bit where the protagonist is alone in the spotlight on a blank stage. But where you might expect such a number to pick up Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Things got out of hand at theartsdesk on Vinyl this month and these reviews run to 10,000 words. That's around a fifth of The Great Gatsby. It's because there's so much good music that deserves the words, from jazz to metal to pure electronic strangeness. That said, this is the last time theartsdesk on Vinyl will reach this kind of ludicrous length. So enjoy it. Dig deep. There's something for everyone. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHThe Fratellis Half Drunk Under a Full Moon (Cooking Vinyl)Look, I’m the first one to gleefully, mercilessly dance on the grave of so-called landfill indie (the wave Read more ...