New music
Album: [MONRHEA] - her[ART]Thursday, 18 June 2020
The debut album from one woman outfit [MONRHEA] shows off the seriously impolite electronica that’s blossoming in East Africa. Electronic sounds from Africa are over-represented in Europe by jolly pop and elegantly faceless house music, but there’s... Read more... |
New Music Lockdown 11: Make Music Day, Greenpeace Festival, Tiny Changes, Kasabian and moreWednesday, 17 June 2020
The lockdown may be loosening but we’re no nearer to gigs and festivals occurring so, for the foreseeable, online is where it’s at. Here, then, is the latest selection of musical happenings that you can wrap your eyes and ears around during the... Read more... |
Album: Neil Young - HomegrownWednesday, 17 June 2020
In the series one finale of metal-detecting sitcom Detectorists, Lance fills in a hole he’s dug after unearthing nothing more than a rusted ring-pull. As the camera pans downwards, we see the riches that were hiding beneath. He was looking in the... Read more... |
Album: Michael Franti & Spearhead - Work Hard & Be NiceTuesday, 16 June 2020
It’s over 30 years since Michael Franti entered the public arena, howling “Television – drug of the nation” backed by harsh, industrial sounds and explosive beats, as frontman for the Beatnigs. He then produced the Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales... Read more... |
Album: Phoebe Bridgers - PunisherMonday, 15 June 2020
Girl-wonder Phoebe Bridgers is one of the brightest stars to come out of the ever-renewing pool of creative talent that bubbles away in Southern California. Her new album, following the release last year of the brillant Better Oblivion Community... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: John Lee Hooker - Documenting The Sensation Recordings 1948-1952Sunday, 14 June 2020
John Lee Hooker’s recording career began on Friday 3 September 1948. He’d attracted the attention of the Kiev-born Bernard Besman, who was in Detroit after his family moved there in 1926 following five years in London’s East End. By the 1940s Besman... Read more... |
CD: Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy WaysSaturday, 13 June 2020
When “Murder Most Foul” was dropped into an unsuspecting world under lockdown, the surprise was palpable, given that eight years had passed since Tempest, filled by Sinatra covers and seasonal tours. That it was a 16-minute epic that took Dylan’s... Read more... |
Album: Norah Jones – Pick Me Up Off the FloorFriday, 12 June 2020
Norah Jones is writing good songs. The 11 of them which appear on Pick Me Up Off the Floor, the seventh solo studio album by the nine-time Grammy-winner, form a very strong album with a convincing and satisfying shape, a journey from hurt and doubt... Read more... |
Album: Larkin Poe - Self Made ManThursday, 11 June 2020
Larkin Poe are an American blues-rock band fronted by the Lovell sisters, Rebecca and Megan, both mainstays of the US Americana scene since their teens, at the start of this century. Best known in Europe for their fired-up gigs and festival... Read more... |
New Music Lockdown 10: Download Festival, Isle of Wight Festival, Gorillaz and a 48 Hour EDM RaveWednesday, 10 June 2020
With festival season upon us but rendered null and void by COVID-19, green field events are looking for ways to present themselves and, this week, in different ways, a couple are doing just that. Also there’s new material from Gorillaz and a virtual... Read more... |
Album: Jehnny Beth - To Love Is To LiveWednesday, 10 June 2020
Jehnny Beth was the formidable and mysterious leader of Savages’ flinty monochrome attack, remoulding stark post-punk into gender-fluid shapes. Retiring the band after two Mercury-nominated albums, and returning to France after more than a decade of... Read more... |
Laura Marling, Union Chapel, YouTube review - communication breakdownMonday, 08 June 2020
Music, as the sociologist Simon Frith long ago pointed out, is “an experience of placing: in responding to a song we are drawn, haphazardly, into affective emotional alliances with the performer and with the performer’s other fans”. Music makes you... Read more... |
