New music
Thomas H. Green
With December upon us theartsdesk on Vinyl has been kept busy with sacks full of fantastic plastic, so much so that we’re saving the poppier stuff for a pre-Christmas blow-out in a week’s time, so watch out for that. In the meantime, here’s a wild cross-section of music that takes in Norwegian avant-garde death metal, Cuban reggae and frantic Syrian techno-folk bangin', along with an enormous amount else. There aren’t many who can say that, but we can, so dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHMargo Price All American Made (Thirdman)Rising Nashville country star Margo Price plays country’n’western and has Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Nothing beats a great singer-songwriter live and unadorned. So it was with Tom Russell at London’s 100 Club on the penultimate night of his UK tour. Accompanied by his faithful friend the brilliant Milanese Max Bernadino on guitar, the man whom Lawrence Ferlinghetti describes as “Johnny Cash, Jim Harrison and Charles Bukowski rolled into one” gave a brilliant performance which was a masterclass in audience engagement.Russell’s most recent album Folk Hotel featured prominently, already very familiar to everyone present it seemed, and there was an early dip into his 2015 folk opera The Rose of Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Alexander Armstrong is one of TV's great Renaissance men. Not only is he the genial host of Pointless, he's also an actor, comedian, and, of course, the voice of Danger Mouse. But Armstrong's first love is music. Singing earned him a scholarship to Cambridge, and, in recent years, he's crooned his way through two successful albums. It was surely just a matter of time before he set his sights on Christmas.In a Winter Light sees Armstrong trying his hand at a range of festive styles, from carols to easy-listening. Unfortunately, Armstrong's baritone is not suited to everything. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Until now, the easiest non-bootleg way to hear the early Rolling Stones live was via the various home cinema editions of October 1964’s T.A.M.I. show. Otherwise, although they employed backing tracks for broadcast, the American DVDs of their Ed Sullivan Show appearances caught the band in thrilling full flight. The new BBC sessions collection On Air fills out the picture by collecting 32 tracks they recorded between October 1963 and September 1965.Decent Decca-era archive collections of the Stones barely exist due to their poor relations with ABKCO, the organisation which owns their rights Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although the Hardanger Fiddle is regarded as a traditional Norwegian instrument, its use stretches back to no earlier than the middle of the 17th century. The music players summon from its strings is more easily seen as traditional though: music to dance to. Tuned differently to a standard fiddle, the hardingfele does not have a set amount of strings but instead has four for playing and four or five resonating, sympathetic strings underlying those which are bowed. The baroque viola d'amore, which also has sympathetic strings, is a near relative. Once heard, the keening, resonant power of the Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s quite a shock to realise that industrial metal-heads Godflesh have been beating on their particular drum (on and off) for some 30 years. Under lead noise-monger Justin Broadrick, titanic riffs and weaponised beats wrapped up in claustrophobic paranoia have given the British punk, metal and experimental music scenes periodic sonic shake-ups, while also influencing many from around the world with a yen to channel their own primal screams through highly amplified tunes turned up to 11. Godflesh might even be described as a Great British Export, given their somewhat unexpected and Read more ...
Barney Harsent
When Irish rock band U2 marked the release of 2014’s Songs of Innocence by loading it into everyone’s iTunes for free, it was an attempt to find a new angle on the "event release". While it was certainly that, it wasn’t, shall we say… universally well received. Thankfully, for its companion piece, Songs of Experience, the band has opted for an altogether more traditional delivery system. There will be no humanitarian air-drops of WAVs over the shire counties – you can tell the Home Guard to stand down.This, of course, means we're paying for the pleasure this time round – so what do we get? Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“The Prodigal Son of Magnesia” is an attention-grabbing title. So are “Three Legged Giant Centipede” and “Public Execution of the Sleeping Lotus Eater”. Each suggests that the album from which they are drawn could be a prog rock epic inspired by conflating existing myths with newly made-up fancies. Track lengths exceeding 10 minutes further the impression. Yet despite surface impressions, 1 is not a showcase for instrumental prowess or tricky arrangements. The first solo album from Finland’s Timo Kaukolampi is instead about immersive, intense atmospheres.Kaukolampi has form. As a producer, he Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Robin Rimbaud, AKA Scanner, has been releasing music for over two decades. There was a point in the mid-Nineties when he was a media “thing” due to the way he sampled sounds plucked from the airwaves. Shockingly, this included phone calls because cordless home phones are as accessible as any other radio signals. He has long operated on the art-intellectual spectrum, bridging electronic, industrial and avant-classical, collaborating with everyone from Wire to Michael Nyman.So to Fibolae, titled for a word that came to him in a dream, and his first album in eight years. Giving background to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 1976, Polydor Records was actively considering signing the Sex Pistols. The label’s Chris Parry checked them out live in Birmingham during August. In September, he had a prime spot behind the mixing desk at the 100 Club’s punk festival from which to consider British punk rock’s figureheads. However, the band’s manager Malcolm McLaren signed them to EMI. Moving on, Parry began pursuing The Clash and recorded demos with them that November. They went on to sign with CBS.Despite being led up the rock ‘n’ roll garden path by the Pistols and The Clash, Parry didn’t give up on punk and, following Read more ...
Katie Colombus
If I found it acceptable to swear at my children, I would serenade them with Björk's "Tabula Rasa". It goes: "My deepest wish, Is that you’re immersed in grace and dignity, But you will have to deal with shit soon enough, I hoped to give you the least amount of luggage, Got the right to make your own fresh mistakes, And not repeat others' failures." It's my own personal vision of utopia, in a nutshell.The rest of the album is equally as sage, and frank - notes and noises that create a soundscape made up of early English evensong ("The Gate"), with flutters of pagan pipes and rushes of Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Nick Mulvey (b.1984) is a singer-songwriter who draws from a refreshing and unexpected palette of global roots music, modernist classical and electronica. His second album, Wake Up Now, was released earlier this year, and showcases a man on a quest, an artist who regards music as a direct expression of spirit. Along its course, it contains some of 2017’s finest, most intriguing music.Mulvey grew up in Cambridge, studied music in Cuba, and became part of pop-jazz experimental group Portico Quartet while studying ethnomusicology at London’s School of African and Oriental Studies. He played the Read more ...