New music
New Music Lockdown Livestream Special 1: Miley Cyrus, Metallica, Diplo and moreFriday, 10 April 2020
Given the times, theartsdesk’s New Music section is starting weekly round-ups of new streaming fare to liven the spirits and entertainingly pass the time during this lockdown. Here are our first five suggestions. Dive in!Light In The Attic... Read more... |
Album: Laura Marling - Song for our DaughterFriday, 10 April 2020
Laura Marling has always loved to weave the textures of Seventies Laurel Canyon folk-rock into her music. Never before, though, has she evoked the spirit of David Crosby and Joni Mitchell quite like on her new record. From the opening strummed... Read more... |
ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band From Texas, Netflix review - riffs, drugs and rodeosThursday, 09 April 2020
ZZ Top always seemed like a Texan version of Status Quo. It turns out, from watching this entertaining but hardly revelatory documentary, that is kind of what they are. Directed by Canadian Sam Dunn, best known for his 2005 documentary, Metal: A... Read more... |
Album: Nels Andrews - Pigeon and The CrowThursday, 09 April 2020
This is the perfect album for these dark and dislocating times, a delicious slice of folk-Americana, 10 beautifully crafted songs (plus a bonus online) that envelop you in the gentle winds and fogs of California’s Monterey peninsula, and the waves... Read more... |
Remembering John Prine, one of the great American singer-songwritersWednesday, 08 April 2020
John Prine, who has died at the age of 73 from a Covid 19-related illness, was one of the great American folk poets. Having spent his early adulthood pounding the sidewalks as a mailman in Chicago, he never quite shucked that blue-collar aura of the... Read more... |
Joe Boyd's Recording HeavenWednesday, 08 April 2020
When it comes to making records, I love deadlines. Embarking on an open-ended project, particularly with the infinite number of overdubs made possible by ProTools, is my idea of hell. Back in the Nineties, I once spent an afternoon combining vocal... Read more... |
Album: The Strokes - The New AbnormalWednesday, 08 April 2020
Their debut’s title was a disillusioned shrug, and for most of the 19 years since Is This It, The Strokes have continued with seeming reluctance, releasing new albums fitfully. But here they are, still riding the afterglow of Manhattan’s decadent... Read more... |
Colors performance stream on YouTube review - vocalists on lockdownTuesday, 07 April 2020
The Colors studio in Berlin has quietly created one of the biggest new brands in music from filming back-to-basics performances with laser-focused branding. From international megastars (Billie Eilish, Mac DeMarco) to up-and-comers, singers and... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl Lockdown Special 1: Napalm Death, Brazilian jazz-pop, 1980s indie and moreTuesday, 07 April 2020
For the duration of this C19 Lockdown, rather than the usual sprawling monthly epic, theartsdesk on Vinyl will be presented regularly in bite-sized editions, roving across the pile of releases we have already, since those incoming have been whittled... Read more... |
Album: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – VisceralsMonday, 06 April 2020
The perfect introduction to Newcastle’s mighty Pigsx7 is undoubtedly to be made in the live arena, for it’s here they seriously let sparks fly with monolithic slabs of sound and an exuberance that is truly infectious. That isn’t to say that their... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Hangman’s Beautiful DaughtersSunday, 05 April 2020
A raga-rock circularity. Finger cymbals. A distant, etiolated female vocal. A fuggy atmosphere. A kinship with Jefferson Airplane’s “Come Up The Years”, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” and The Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s... Read more... |
Album: Pokey LaFarge - Rock Bottom RhapsodySaturday, 04 April 2020
Talk about a great big melting pot! The eighth studio album by the man born 36 ago as Andrew Heissler in Bloomington, Indiana, and known to the world as Pokey LaFarge digs deep into the bubbling cauldron of Americana, in its very broadest sense. He... Read more... |
