New music
Kieron Tyler
Judging by her debut album, Malmö singer-songwriter Alice Boman’s frosted-glass musical aesthetic has the odd hint of Mazzy Star and draws from the sound world created for Twin Peaks – a similar outlook to Gothenburg’s El Perro del Mar. Dream On is not the full story though. Boman’s first record was released in 2013 and, since then, she has issued another EP and a few singles.And judging by the wide-ranging dip into her catalogue at London’s Union Chapel, she’s keen to stress Dream On isn’t the full story. While all-but one track from the album was performed – “Mississippi” was omitted – “ Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Norwich is not the first place most people think of as a hub of riveting music but it’s where female duo Sink Ya Teeth hail from. Consisting of bassist Gemma Cullingford and singer Maria Uzor - with both throwing synth into the pot where necessary – the pair have proved themselves a vital presence in the live arena. Their propulsive take on post-punk’s spiked, deadpan funkiness is timely and more-ish, and has been the backbone of their sets, as well as their self-titled debut album. The foundations of their second album retain that purposeful throb, but musically they’ve persuasively expanded Read more ...
peter.quinn
Released to coincide with a new documentary on his life by filmmaker John Scheinfeld, In the Key of Joy celebrates the multifaceted genius of Brazilian producer, composer, keyboardist and vocalist, Sergio Mendes.Recorded between Brazil and California, disc one contains some noticeably fine things, not least collaborations with long-standing friends whom Mendes refers to as his “Three Magi” – bossa pianist João Donato cowrites and performs on the perky “Muganga”; Hermeto Pascoal features on the sinuous groove of “This Is It (É Isso)”, while Guinga writes and plays guitar on one of the album’s Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Recent politics surround the EU and nationhood, fantasies of Irish Sea bridges and trading borders more porous than limestone have revived the granular rub between Eire and Britain, and the Celtic Tiger cool of the Nineties is a history module these days. Nevertheless the creative exchange between the two nations has a long and fruitful history – our folk traditions are conjoined twins, after all, and our contemporary musical cultures part of a continual flow back and forth.Imagining Ireland, first mounted to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising back in 2016, the year of the Brexit Read more ...
joe.muggs
Around the turn of the millennium, when Dan Snaith started releasing music – initially as Manitoba, then Caribou, and latterly also Daphni – he tended to get lumped in with the folktronica movement. In fact, the closest he came to actual folk was a heavy influence from the more delicate side of late 60s psychedelia. But, as with many of the other acts tagged with the f-word like his friend and ally Kieran “Four Tet” Hebden, it was really a clumsy signifier for people who were refusing to accept the artificial separation between “electronic music” and the rest which had become reified with the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
For record buyers, Bona Rays left limited evidence for their existence. One single was issued by the aptly named Mystery Records in 1981. Pressed in a limited quantity by the independent facility Lyntone, it featured “We're Never Going to Miss You”, a poppy new wave outing with funky bass and stabs of synth, and “Catch 22”, a more up-tempo track which came across as an attractive combination of Pink Military and Teardrop Explodes.Bona Rays’ single attracted no attention but now sells for up to £45. According to its insert, the band had an East London address. Their female singer was named Read more ...
joe.muggs
Grimes is hilarious. For all the grandiose conceptualism, apocalyptic visions, high tech sonic manipulation, outré costumes, modish witchery, multiple personas, arch media baiting with her billionaire boyfriend and all the rest, she is still essentially a dork. When she emerged from the weird end of the 00s online electronic music landscape where semi-serious lo-fi genres like “witch house” and “seapunk” abounded, she always seemed kind of goofy with it. And though her musical progression has been a steady accumulation of expensive-sounding production, that same drama student on acid Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
As Gaz Coombes noted around the halfway point of Supergrass’s Barrowland set “the last time we were here it was to say goodbye”. That was a decade ago, when one of Britpop’s most enduring acts finally headed into the sunset. Nothing lasts forever in pop though, and here were Oxford’s finest, back onstage, and looking in fine fettle.They opened with “Caught By The Fuzz”, and it sounded as breathlessly exciting as ever, an under three minute blast of punky pop dynamism. That was a common theme throughout the set, and one that not all nostalgia tours like this can always offer, in that music Read more ...
Guy Oddy
To anyone out of their teens or without a grasp of the Korean language, BTS are probably an unknown quantity. Yet, they are probably the most successful boyband, if not the most successful band, in the world. In fact, just as Abba had a massive effect on the Swedish economy in the 1970s, BTS are a game-changing economic asset and boost to South Korea. Whether they will be better remembered by music lovers or economists in years to come, however, will be interesting to see.BTS are a seven-strong group of androgynous, Korean lads that look like clothes horses. However, a ten-year career has Read more ...
Guy Oddy
While it is only right that Birmingham is finally getting well-deserved credit as the well-spring and self-proclaimed Home of Metal, the media coverage of the Midlands’ place in musical history might lead anyone to think that this particular story both began and ended with the mighty Black Sabbath. This, however, is far from the truth and tonight Grindcore originators Napalm Death made it clear that Ozzy’s mob are not the only locals to have made their mark. For, not only are they a band to have maintained the volume since the mid Eighties but, while Black Sabbath have pretty much called it a Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Ozzy Osbourne stands on the front cover of his new album grinning mischievously in a horror-style bowler hat and cane. Look into the eyes, though, and there's also a hint of sadness. The Prince of Darkness (71) has been beset by a series of health problems, and this, his 12th studio album, may also be his last. If so, what a way to bow out. Ordinary Man's songs look back at the singer’s life with a mix of trademark lunacy and wistful regret, topped off with guest appearances that range from rapper Post Malone to Rocket Man, Elton John. Like many of rock's best recordings, Read more ...
mark.kidel
Moonlight Benjamin, the fierce and deep-voiced vocalist from Haiti, is a powerful presence on stage. On her second album, she is once again supported by a tight cohort of French musicians led by guitarist Matthis Pascal, who has written the music for Moonlight’s Creole lyrics. The band play raunchy yet sophisticated blues, tinged with the bounce of Guadeloupean Zouk, as on the opening track "Nap Chape" and a good dose of pile-driving heavy rock, ably demonstrated on songs such as "Tchoule" and "Belekou".Moonlight Benjamin has a rich contralto voice, at time seductively soft and at others Read more ...