New music
Reissue CDs Weekly: John Coltrane - Giant StepsSunday, 20 September 2020
Giant Steps doesn’t suffer from a lack of availability. A couple of weeks ago, two editions of John Coltrane’s 1960 landmark set were available in a central London music store. One was a 2002 CD version which supplemented the album’s seven tracks... Read more... |
Album: This Dream of You – Diana KrallSaturday, 19 September 2020
“Produced by Tommy LiPuma.” That phrase has appeared on just about every Diana Krall album since the summer of 1995, when the Cleveland-born mogul arrived at the GRP label – it would be his sixth and last music industry affiliation –... Read more... |
Album: Alicia Keys - AliciaFriday, 18 September 2020
Alicia Keys is a puzzling mixture. On the one hand she’s the hyper-achieving, multi-platinum, 752-Grammy-winning America’s sweetheart, all dimply smiles, positive-thinking ultra sincerity and the kind of showbiz over-emoting and singing-technique-as... Read more... |
GogolFest:Dream review - the best music festival of the summer?Thursday, 17 September 2020
GogolFest:Dream in Kherson, somewhere near the Crimea in Ukraine was the music festival of the summer. Admittedly, in my case and for many, having missed out on WOMAD, Glastonbury, Fez, and others it was the only festival of the summer, and the bar... Read more... |
Album: Fish - WeltschmerzWednesday, 16 September 2020
"This party's over" snarls Fish on Weltschmerz, and, this time, it seems the big man really means it. After threatening retirement for many years, the ex-Marillion singer has finally called time on his recording career. His final... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Where Does a Body End?Tuesday, 15 September 2020
Michael Gira, Swans’ band leader and last remaining original member, has a reputation for being an intense and difficult individual who doesn’t compromise easily. This is illustrated by the band having been home to some 35 different musicians since... Read more... |
Album: Marilyn Manson - WE ARE CHAOSMonday, 14 September 2020
It's the self-portrait on the cover that gives the first hint that something's changed with Marilyn Manson. The eyes are blank, his face weary. No longer does the singer look like the Antichrist Superstar. He seems more like a middle-aged... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The London Pub Rock Scene, The Year The UK Turned Day-GloSunday, 13 September 2020
The standard recitation goes like this. In the early Seventies a London scene evolved, centring on bands playing in pubs. Music was taken back to the grassroots. Finesse was unnecessary. What happened was dubbed pub rock and it laid the ground for... Read more... |
Album: Toots & the Maytals - Got to be ToughSaturday, 12 September 2020
Toots Hibbert may have invented the term “reggae” with his 1968 hit “Do the Reggay” but he has never felt boxed in by the genre. During his almost 60-year singing career, he may have recorded some of the greatest ska and reggae tunes of all time,... Read more... |
Album: Ammar 808 - Global Control/ Invisible InvasionFriday, 11 September 2020
Ammar 808, named after the 1980s Roland drum machine TR-808 is the vehicle for Tunisian producer Sofyann Ben Youssef. He has been exploring, notably in Maghreb United (2018), a rich vein of resonance between the music of North Africa and electronic... Read more... |
Album: Doves - The Universal WantWednesday, 09 September 2020
If Doves have a “thing”, it’s that they do “big” with impeccable intimacy. Over ten years and four albums, they consistently displayed exactly the sort of connection that bands like Coldplay and Keane pretend to have. Huge, sweeping scores and broad... Read more... |
Singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter: 'I wanted to do something. I wanted to be useful in some way'Tuesday, 08 September 2020
Music has never been more important than in these dark, dislocating and death-stalked days, fear and grief visiting us in ways once unimaginable. The lack of live music – the lack even of the possibility of live music in the near future – is an... Read more... |
