New music
Kieron Tyler
The double album The Sound Gallery was issued in 1995. It collected British easy listening and library music tracks which had been mostly overlooked by reissue compilers as they were beyond a form of musical pale. The 24 cuts were, up to a few years earlier, neither hip or trendy as they were by stuffy old geezers like Joe Loss, aimed at a low-cred easy listening audience, not rare or had been heard by barely anyone as they had appeared on subscription-only music library albums. As a foundational exercise in delineation, The Sound Gallery became as influential a compilation as Nuggets.Side 2 Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Christmas is traditionally that time of the year when cool rock-dudes like to come over all silly and tinselly. Not Eric Clapton. On this, his first Christmas LP, the veteran axe-man spurns the usual seasonal schmaltz, in favour of some good old-fashioned blues. The results, unsurprisingly, go a little easy on the comfort and joy.Xmas chez Clapton it would seem, is more about melancholy and regret. The start of "White Christmas", for instance, could almost be an outtake from "Me and Mr Johnson". Similarly "Away in A Manger" is virtually "Run So Far". If you're a sucker for EC's back Read more ...
Guy Oddy
There’ve been more than a few cold and wet days in Birmingham just recently, as winter has been making its presence properly felt. On Tuesday, temperatures were sent soaring in an over-full O2 Academy however, as heavy metal and hip-hop heads from all over the West Midlands descended on the place to witness the return of South Cali weed ambassadors Cypress Hill. In fact, so full was the Academy that getting served at the bar proved to be a 40-minute odyssey that almost meant missing B-Real, Sen Dog, Mixmaster Mike and Eric Bobo hit the stage and break into “Band Of Gypsies”, the stand out Read more ...
Liz Thomson
The Albion Christmas Band is as much of a fixture as Yuletide itself and their tour runs right through till Christmas – and of course there’s an album, Under the Christmas Tree. Specially formed for the festive period and featuring Simon Nicol (Fairport Convention), Kellie While (Albion Band), Simon Care (Edward II) and of course Ashley Hutchings, it’s a journey through Christmas and its traditions, with songs, instrumentals and readings. The fiddles and accordion certainly add a warm festive feel of chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that and all is beautifully played.It’s a long way Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s astounding to think that given the commercial basis for their whole existence, The Monkees have never released a Christmas album before now. However, it’s a shame that they have waited until the death of one of their number to put out Christmas Party. Even that hasn’t prevented Davy Jones, who passed away in 2012, from performing lead vocals on two of the tunes though.Christmas Party actually has more of a feel of a Micky Dolenz (who sings on eight of the 13 cuts) solo album with occasional input from Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork. In fact, Tork’s only contribution seems to be a banjo- Read more ...
Liz Thomson
A rainy night… not in Georgia, as the great Ray Charles sang, but in London, the second of two nights at the Royal Albert Hall for Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. The 35-date tour that began in Dublin on 20 October and ends in Cardiff a couple of days before Christmas has packed the city’s most celebrated concert venue. The excitement is palpable, and it feels like the majority of the audience is comprised of Jools regulars who know they’re going to have the best of evenings. And by the time he breaks in to the final encore, Prince Buster’s “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than Read more ...
Barney Harsent
As befits an album preceded by lofty claims and vaulting ambition, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships is long. Very, very long. Last year, Matt Healy stated that the next album The 1975 produced had to be an OK Computer or The Queen Is Dead for our times, and gave journalists up and down the country a convenient strapline in waiting. The truth is that it’s more like their Sandinista! (The Clash's triple album), by which I mean it’s great in places, but in dire need of editing. The band fidget throughout, flitting between musical styles with the kind of abandon that perfectly Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After Be-Bop Deluxe finished recording their third album at Abbey Road, their label said they needed something to promote as a single. EMI told band-leader Bill Nelson they wanted a song with commercial appeal. The result was the single “Ships in the Night”, which duly charted during the last week of February 1976. On the back of the hit single, the art-rock outfit’s third album Sunburst Finish became their first to go Top 20. EMI got what it wanted.In the book accompanying the new Deluxe Box Set Sunburst Finish, Nelson candidly says “I never really considered the band to be anything but an Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
My Baby are one of the most exciting live acts currently in existence. They’re a three-piece consisting of Dutch frontwoman guitarist/bassist Cato van Dijk, her brother, drummer Joost, and New Zealand blues rock guitar virtuoso Daniel Johnston. Together they whip up tight, rollin’ sets that are also supremely danceable, leading the audience into jammed psychedelia that also emanates sex, sweat and wildness, their own shamanic performance personas – especially Caro van Dijk’s mesmeric stage presence - only amping up the heat. Their latest release finally lives up to their concerts.My Baby’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although both are Swedish, this particular Majken has nothing to do with the pop-reggae-ska band Majken Tajken which has issued a couple of albums. The singular Majken – Anna Majken to her family – is from Malmö and Young Believer is her debut album. Instead of setting up a shuffling groove like the band, she’s a singer-songwriter whose downbeat songs are infused with her harp playing and a careworn, cracked voice suggesting she’s older than Father Time. Titles like “This War Belongs to You”, “Oak Bench Birch Grave” and “Oh Mighty Discomfort” telegraph Young Believer’s concerns with life’s Read more ...
Jo Southerd
Take a deep breath and surround yourself with some comfortable furnishings before hitting play on this one. Yawn, recorded by Bill at his West Kirby studio of the same name, is just beautiful: a word that’s overused, but feels totally apt in this case. The album hums with emotion, fragility rippling throughout. Classically informed motifs punctuate sad, grizzly guitar, his barely-there voice a close whisper.Subjects are poignant, universal, finding the intensity in the everyday, and many songs clock in at five minutes or more, giving each idea plenty of breathing room. Uninhibited outros are Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
If a new soundtrack for L'Année dernière à Marienbad was needed, Pressing Clouds Passing Crowds is it. Thematically, the collaboration between Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhr, French-Norwegian poet Caroline Bergvall, the Québécois string quartet Quatour Bozzini and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach hits the film’s pressure points: the slippages between experience and perception of space and time. Lyrically and musically, the six tracks connect with the images conjured for the screen by the Alains Resnais and Robbe-Grillet as everything about the album is fluid.While Myhr’s glistening acoustic Read more ...