New music
Tim Cumming
With books including Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways and Landmarks, Robert MacFarlane has established himself as one of the leading writers on landscape in the English language, continuing a literary tradition that contains talents as diverse as John Muir, Robinson Jeffers, Edward Thomas and Laurie Lee. His 2017 collaboration with the artist Jackie Morris on a large-format book of poems for children called The Lost Words: A Spell Book has now been adapted for stage, with Morris creating brand new art works for a UK tour, beginning on Friday 8 February at Snape Maltings, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Delta Sweete was Bobbie Gentry's second album. Issued in February 1968 six months after her single “Ode to Billie Joe” topped the US charts, it did not make the US Top 100. Nonetheless, it is classic southern-gothic country and a peerless concept album about her roots. Of its 12 tracks, eight were written by Gentry.Mercury Rev’s Pledgemusic-supported homage Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited employs 12 singers – one for each track. Their frontman Jonathan Donahue crops up in brief supporting vocal roles. The core line-up is Donahue, band-mate Grasshopper and former Midlake Read more ...
Jo Southerd
In recent weeks, you may have noticed signs for the Better Oblivion Community Center, from billboards to park benches, all displaying a mysterious helpline telephone number. This was not some new community support project, but a surprise collaborative album from premier sad songwriters Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. Though Oberst was releasing music before Bridgers was born, their partnership is not unexpected: they share a heart-on-sleeve outlook and a mutual respect for each other's music, and have toured and appeared onstage together. Now on this new album, they elevate each other’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Learning that your band’s demos are being issued as an album must be infuriating. Add to that the discovery that the deal to release the LP was made without your knowledge. Then, there was the further surprise that the record was to be released by Parlophone, The Beatles’ label. The complications were compounded by subsequently realising the release wasn’t limited to the UK – inexplicably, the record was also issued in VenezuelaThis is what happened to the unwitting High Wycombe quartet Rainbow Ffolly, whose sole album Sallies Fforth was issued in May 1968. Released in mono and stereo Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Tip of the Sphere is a freewheeling blend of vintage sounds that evokes San Francisco in the early Seventies. To fans this will come as little surprise. McCombs has been moving in this direction for a while, and his new album draws heavily on his earlier work. There's a some of the intimacy of Wit's End and a lot of the prettiness of Catacombs. More than anything, the singer takes what he did with his last LP, Mangy Love, and makes it all a little better.The opener starts with a looping psychedelic riff reminiscent of early Tim Buckley. Over the next few Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Ripples may be Ian Brown’s first album in nine years but it gives absolutely no impression of a man grasping at straws to resurrect his career after the non-event that was the Stone Roses’ 2011 reunion. Baggy grooves, dancehall reggae vibes and socially conscious lyrics mark King Monkey’s latest solo set, all delivered with characteristic swagger. In fact, such is Brown’s confidence that he hasn’t just sung on Ripples but produced, created the artwork, played guitar, drums and various other instruments, and pulled in his sons to contribute both their musical and song-writing talents.Lead Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Last spring, Imagining Ireland took a fresh, shamrock-free look at contemporary Ireland’s cultural scene, with spoken word and alt-folk mixing with indie rock and jazz, classical, gospel and rap, with the line-up led by Bell X1’s Paul Noonan and Lisa Hannigan.One year on, and Imagining Ireland returns, but with a new brief – to examine the Irish life in England – and a new line-up. And for contemporary Irish folk fans, this line-up will be your ticket to heaven – led by The Gloaming’s genius fiddler Martin Hayes and sean nos singer Iarla O'Lionaird, alongside two of the best younger singers Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The Specials were era-defining, making this a hugely anticipated album for many. On paper they’ve released a bunch of albums since the Eighties but their discography is misleading. Encore is their first major work in decades. It’s a big ask for it to match their iconic status, akin to when The Stooges and Kraftwerk reappeared with new music decades after their legendary prime. It succeeds in places but does not – and, of course, never could – match the impact of their early work.On their first two albums The Specials brilliantly embodied the unfettered possibility of a vital and uniquely Read more ...
The Dandy Warhols, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - a silver jubilee jaunt with plenty of new tunes
Guy Oddy
This week, the Dandy Warhols rocked up in Birmingham to begin the UK leg of their 25th anniversary tour with a gig in the Institute’s shabby but beautiful main hall, with its dusty neo-classical alabaster reliefs and almost comically antiquated balconies. It was indeed the perfect venue for a band that have spent so many years taking the psychedelic and adding their own twist to create something fine but far from mainstream. Needless to the say, the almost capacity audience lapped it all up, even though not too many seemed to have come out on this cold winter night with the intention of Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Japanese band MONO have been around for 20 years, inhabiting a musical landscape that straddles post-rock and contemporary classical sounds. Not ones to let things go stale, however, their 10th album not only sees the debut appearance of drummer Dahm Majuri Cipolla, but also brings some new elements to their signature sound.In particular, Nowhere Now Here adds washes of electronics throughout MONO’s deliberate and studied tones, while bass and keyboard player Tamaki Kunishi also brings her Nico-like vocals to the band for the first time on the maudlin ballad, “Breathe”. That’s not to say that Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Few bands have grown up in real time in quite as interesting a way as Girlpool. It’s partly a question of timing: Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker were barely old enough to play bars around the release of their precocious 2013 debut EP, with its sing-song harmonies and cover like a child’s painting. And it’s partly a reflection of how their musical world has expanded with each release, each new album showing off a fuller sound yet still perfectly reflecting the internal and external chaos of figuring out your place in a confusing world as a young adult.This evolution has never been more Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A compilation on which Philip Glass and Terry Riley rub shoulders with Controlled Bleeding and Smegma is going to be interesting. Throw in Data-Bank-A, Dog as Master, NON and Suicide, and it becomes clear what’s striven for is an all-encompassing overview of something particular rather than a miscellany of random names included as attention-grabbers.Over its four CDs, Third Noise Principle explores the world described by its lengthy sub-title as Formative North American Electronica 1975–1984, Excursions in Proto Synth pop, DIY Techno, Noise & Ambient Exploration. It’s the follow-up to Read more ...