New music
CD: Glymjack - Light the Evening FireSunday, 15 April 2018
There’s a crisis in popular musical vocals. They’ve reached a very naff stasis. After a decade-and-a-half of Cowell hegemony and stars that have risen during the same period, a generation thinks there are only two ways to express emotion. One is... Read more... |
CD: Neil Young + Promise of the Real - ParadoxSaturday, 14 April 2018
Paradox is a strange stoner Western directed by Neil Young’s partner Daryl Hannah. You can see it on Netflix. The soundtrack is by Neil Young and his now regular band, Promise of the Real, which includes two of Willie Nelson's sons, Micah and Lukas... Read more... |
Arcade Fire, Wembley Arena review - sensational spectacleFriday, 13 April 2018
The Stones do it. U2 too. It takes immense and lordly clout for a touring band to breeze into town and each night summon a major recording artist to step onstage for some party fun. For Arcade Fire’s first night at Wembley Arena it was Chrissie... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Jeremy Cunningham of The LevellersThursday, 12 April 2018
Jeremy Cunningham (b.1965) is bass player and a founding member of The Levellers, as well as being a visual artist in his own right. During the 1990s The Levellers, and most especially their 1991 album Levelling the Land, became a phenomenon. The... Read more... |
CD: Manic Street Preachers - Resistance is FutileThursday, 12 April 2018
Over the years the Manics have travelled a varied and adventurous musical path with styles ranging from punk to disco-rock. One thing has remained constant: their intense sense of righteousness. Until now. Resistance is Futile finds... Read more... |
CD: National Jazz Trio of Scotland - Standards Vol.IVWednesday, 11 April 2018
The National Jazz Trio of Scotland are not really that at all. With a name designed to sound like a stiffly formal unit they are, in fact, an entity based around Bill Wells, a Scottish institution, albeit an alternative one. He’s been around the... Read more... |
Joan As Police Woman: 'I was going to die if I didn't have some way to express myself' - interviewTuesday, 10 April 2018
Joan Wasser – aka Joan as Police Woman – is known as a sophisticated songwriter and a pretty groovy person. But most of all it’s her gorgeously warm voice that's earned her a cult following. Over seven albums her angst-ridden vocals have explored... Read more... |
CD: Laura Veirs - The LookoutMonday, 09 April 2018
Two minutes into The Lookout, a couple of related parallels bubble up when the David Crosby of If I Could Only Remember my Name and Gene Clark at his most sparse spring to mind. It’s not that the album’s opening cut “Margaret Sands” sounds like... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Radka Toneff and Steve DobrogoszSunday, 08 April 2018
Fairytales is lovely. It opens with a subtle version of Jimmy Webb’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” which merges Radka Toneff’s emotive and intimate vocal with Steve Dobrogosz’s sparse piano lines. The ingredients are minimal, there is no... Read more... |
CD: Brazilian Girls - Let's Make LoveFriday, 06 April 2018
This New York band’s first album for a decade is as good as anything else they’ve done, but what were they thinking with the track order? Things get off to an agreeable bouncy Blondie-esque start with first single “Pirates”. But after that there are... Read more... |
CD: Kylie Minogue - GoldenThursday, 05 April 2018
Oh this is annoying. One really doesn't want to be mean about the People's Princess. Kylie is one of the great pop stars of our time: charming, witty, a survivor, with several dozen proper classic songs under her belt, she has never stopped sparking... Read more... |
CD: The Damned - Evil SpiritsWednesday, 04 April 2018
The Damned may very well be the last men standing from the first wave of UK punk – albeit with only Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible still there from the original line-up – but with their new disc they haven’t even thought of resting on their... Read more... |
