New music
Sebastian Scotney
Josh Ritter is in his early forties. He has a two-decade career with 10 studio albums (and, incidentally, a First World War novel) to his name. He has come a long way from trying out open mic nights in Providence, Rhode Island. His albums now regularly make it into the upper reaches of the US folk charts. But he still exudes a boyish charm, a winning and willing smile and obvious enthusiasm for live performing.He now has a substantial songbook and last night, the first of two at Union Chapel, he gave a good selection, some solo with fast fingerstyle guitar, most of them with his regular band Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Finding snapshots to characterise Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign and its aftermath is a tall order. There are so many, and assembling them could result in a wearying cavalcade of the all-too familiar. Whether in book form – such as Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury – or film – say, the new Steve Bannon documentary The Brink – the net result is largely to validate existing viewpoints. Such well-trodden ground begs for new approaches.With the Trump-themed 45, Field Music’s David Brewis reassumes the School of Language persona he last adopted in 2014. Over 10 tracks and 33 minutes, he has Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“As much as I love New York City, it’s all too obvious that Cleveland is about to become the musical focal point that the Big Apple has been on and off since the beginning of the century,” wrote Peter Laughner in October 1974. “I want to do what Brian Wilson did for California and Lou Reed did for New York.” To a degree, the new five-album/five-CD set Peter Laughner achieves this, albeit 42 years after his death.Laughner’s full-page article in Cleveland newspaper The Plain Dealer pointed to the north-east Ohio city’s 15-60-75, Jimmy Ley and Mirrors as the bands who would represent this Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
If there was a downer during the giddy, gleeful Glasgow stop of Gossip’s recent run of shows, it was only when front woman Beth Ditto introduced the band as being “not really together but we’re here”. The dance-punk trio - joined, for this short run of reunion shows, by pre-split touring members Chris Sutton on bass and Gregg Foreman on keyboards - were made to front sweaty rooms, with Ditto in particular a gleaming vision in a sleek black wig and metallic pink dress.The occasion may have been the 10th anniversary of the band’s Rick Rubin-produced 2009 album, Music For Men - hence the huge Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The first thing you notice about Guesswork is the sound. Or rather, what's missing: there are none of the usual jangly guitars. No trusty Rickenbackers. Instead, the singer-songwriter offers up a palette of synthesisers and drum machines. For those who grew up listening to his Eighties' classic, Rattlesnakes, it can be a little disorientating.Scratch beneath the surface, though, and things really aren't so different. Cole's cracked voice is still gloriously soulful and his words continue to ruminate on life's unfolding saga. Unsurprisingly now, at 58, the story has moved on. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Club music has its own micro-universe, with its own rules, jargon, and fans. It also has globe-trotting stars most people have never heard of. Much of the music is functional, to be danced to at 3.00 AM on MDMA, no more, no less, unconcerned with the usual structures and frameworks of rock and pop. In this world, Hot Since 82 is a kingpin.Yorkshire DJ-producer Daley Padley adopted the Hot Since 82 moniker seven years ago and has made a name for himself since, DJing all over the world. He released an album in 2013 and has fired out many tunes and remixes since, garnering multi-millions of Read more ...
Katie Colombus
I never quite know where I stand with with jazz. The endless, drifting circular loops of sound, subversive grooves and syncopated rhythms are like having the same conversation over and over, with slightly different turns of phrase and emphasis on different points.Brazilian psychedelia band Boogarins’ interpretation of this intimate interchange saunters from soft whistling and the warm murmur of trancey beats, through the casual discourse of bluesy guitar harmonies and synthy chatter, punctuated by harder rhythmic rock.Their singing in Portuguese distances me even further from a full grasp on Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It’s hard to convey in an age of equal marriage and gender fluidity the impact that k.d. lang’s Ingénue had when it was released in 1992. The album, 10 tracks that tell of the pain and pleasure of love and longing, was a huge hit with a generation of gay men and women, closeted or out, who felt it spoke directly to them. Straight people were welcome to the party too, of course; broken hearts don't discriminate.Ingénue remains her finest work, the first, she says, that she wrought from her personal experience rather than simply musical expression. Her previous albums had been influenced Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Whatever age you are, in whatever era you grew up – wherever you grew up – you will know, perhaps unknowingly, a large handful of songs by Burt Bacharach, almost all written with lyricist Hal David. The two men met in 1957 in New York’s celebrated Brill Building, where the creative talents positively jostled for attention.Some of the songs came from film soundtracks – Bacharach scored many major movies – and the songs have had many lives, Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield both enjoyed success with “Wishin’ and Hopin’” and “I Say a Little Prayer”, Warwick and Cilla Black with “Anyone Who Read more ...
Owen Richards
Oh to be inside the head of Wayne Coyne. The frazzle-haired frontman has always been an enigma, persistently quirky, morally dubious, and undeniably fascinating. Perhaps King’s Mouth offers our best chance yet to get in there – the album is an accompaniment to his art installation in which visitors enter a giant metallic head. Rather on the nose for a metaphor, but still a hell of an invitation.King’s Mouth is as conceptual as an album gets: a fairytale about a giant baby that becomes king, sacrifices himself for the city, and becomes a monument. Full marks for imagination, the medieval Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
Thirty-three years ago, at Manchester's Festival of the Tenth Summer, I fumed that New Order had been given top billing over The Smiths, much to the mirth of a couple of reviewers of this very parish. History has proved me wrong, obviously. So, to Italy, and a modest-sized and relatively modern piazza (Napoleonic) in beguiling, ancient Lucca. To see two of Manchester’s most revered bands. This time I don’t have to choose sides.It couldn’t be further from Salford, Macclesfield and Bury in every sense. A balmy evening breeze rustles through the leaves and brings welcome relief from the day Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Sum 41 were one of those light-weight punk-ish bands in unfeasibly large pairs of shorts that washed up in the wake of Green Day’s early success in the mid-90s. They soon became the acceptable face and sound of punk, sold millions of albums and picked up armfuls of awards, and even played a role in the rehabilitation of Iggy Pop’s career, by accompanying him on 2003’s Skull Ring album.On returning home from their last, three-year world tour for 13 Voices, instead of doing the smart thing and taking a break, band frontman Deryck Whibley sat down and wrote Order In Decline in less than a month Read more ...