New music
Matthew Wright
Over 30 years after he made his debut as a solo artist, woodwind multi-instrumentalist Courtney Pine is still Britain’s most prominent and influential jazz musician. He had a crucial role in reviving interest in jazz in the 1980s and 1990s, and has been an important role model for black British musicians. His own performances have always been informed by an awareness of both his Caribbean – his parents were Jamaican – and British musical identity, and as well as jazz, he has made albums exploring reggae, ska, drum'n'bass, hip hop and more, as well as, more recently, funk and soul. Read more ...
Russ Coffey
On Wednesday night, the music world took a small step closer to the realms of science fiction. Roy Orbison, 30 years dead, stood in front of a packed Hammersmith Apollo. It wasn't a resurrection, of course, but a hologram, and a damn fine one. Virtual Roy wiggled, turned around and occasionally thanked the audience. At one point he even looked like he was going to pick his nose (it turned out to be just a wipe). The audience responded with plentiful applause and open-mouthed wonder.The evening started in a very human way. The organisers had had the good sense to find a support act which Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Ambient metal outlier and leader of the mighty Earth, Dylan Carlson’s new solo album is the soundtrack to an imaginary western, based on the true story of a conquistador and his twenty-year journey, with his Moorish servant, through an area which is now defined by New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Texas. Featuring expansive drones and austere guitars, while being freed from the discipline of a rhythm section, Conquistador is minimalist, cinematic stuff that suggests a more leftfield take on Ry Cooder’s soundtrack to Paris, Texas.Conquistador isn’t Dylan Carlson’s first solo outing but it Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Exorcism begins with a track titled “Rapin’”. Its lyrics tell of a late night walk home during which the drunk protagonist is sexually assaulted. “Did you pick me because there’s no one else around?” asks Jenny Wilson in an account of her own experience. Two days later she goes to a doctor and, as she puts it, “I had to show my body again”.Tracking the attack and its aftermath, Exorcism is thematically testing. The closest parallel springing to mind is the 1982 single “The Boiler”, by Rhoda with the Special A.K.A. Wilson’s fifth album draws from being raped, the emotional, institutional – Read more ...
Barney Harsent
This Saturday marks Record Shop Day, when Midas-touch music execs turn car-boot staples into gold simply by re-releasing them and charging 30 quid for the pleasure. Normally, the pressing-plant backlog that these needless, gaudy trinkets cause means that new music, typically that put out by innovative artists on small independent labels, gets moved to the back of the queue so that the big fat kids can get their dinner first.Thankfully, Sonic Cathedral has managed to sneak in early and are releasing this expanded version of Mark Peters' mini-cassette album the day before, on Friday, April 20. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Brian James’ opening cut is “The Twist”. Not the Sixties dance-craze song, but a melodic guitar-driven rocker simpatico with what Australian bands The Hoodoo Gurus, The New Christs and The Screaming Tribesman were dealing in during the late 1980s. Detroit’s slash-and-burn is in there, as is a pop sensibility. “Slow it Down”, Side Ones third cut, sounds like an alternate-universe hit single: one where edgy pop-rock ruled. Side Two opens with “Ain't That a Shame”, a mid-tempo, moody outing with the feel of the Johnny Thunders of “Subway Train” and “It’s Not Enough”.Back in the Britain of 1990 Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
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 melismatic singing (for women – wandering wildly about the higher registers on every syllable, a la Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston), the other is voice-breaking (for men - cracking into a vulnerable falsetto a la Jeff Buckley/Coldplay). It’s all very boring. There are so, so many other ways to express emotion. Just ask Louis Armstrong, Ian Dury, Read more ...
mark.kidel
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. Members of the band and Young play themselves in the film, or at least play roles that seem inspired by their fantasies of themselves as figures of the old Wild West. The film is a mess, and sometimes feels like little more than a string of fanciful promos. The soundtrack is perhaps most interesting as a manifestation of the way in which rock Read more ...
Jasper Rees
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 Hynde. For the second, Jarvis Cocker lolloped up in a cream twin-breast linen suit to deliver that radio-friendly anthem, “Cunts Are Still Running the World”. Plus ça change, as they say in Montreal.From “Everything Now” to “Wake Up”, this was a sensational spectacle. Arcade Fire have taken the concept of performing in the round and, with the aid of an Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
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 group were punk-influenced folk-rockers whose songs were often polemic and political. It was no coincidence that their main flush of popularity was during the premiership of John Major. They became a focus for anti-government feeling, especially among those affiliated with the travelling and festival communities (remember Major’s “New age travellers Read more ...
Russ Coffey
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 the band in a more relaxed mood. And curiously, it suits them rather well. The subtext of the album is the fading of the anger of youth. The tone is established on the first track, "People Give In", a kind of blend of Nick Cave's "People Ain't No Good" and Leiber/Stoller's "Is that all there is?". The sweeping chorus - "there is no theory Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
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 block many times since the Eighties when he first started making waves with his very personally curated and individual perspective on jazz. Since those days, he’s worked with all sorts, ranging from Isobel Campbell to Aidan Moffat to Future Pilot AKA. His fourth National Jazz Trio of Scotland outing is a likeable, laid back odd-pop curiosity.Vol. IV Read more ...