wed 18/06/2025

New music

CD: Hifi Sean - Ft.

One of the great things about club music is that it deals with ageing in very different ways to rock – and as such can offer fantastic creative rebirths. Witness theartsdesk's recent startling Q&A with Mark Hakwins aka Marquis Hawkes, who'd been...

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The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

It could be a book, film, TV or radio piece, essay or exhibition. If it’s about or based on The Beatles, the question is always the same: how on earth can anything new be said? In the case of Ron Howard’s Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years,...

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CD: Pictish Trail - Future Echoes

Johnny Lynch – the artist otherwise known as Pictish Trail – is one of the country’s most intriguing musicians. In 2010, he upped sticks and moved into a caravan on the remote island of Eigg, ensuring every appraisal of his work evermore would refer...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys signed with Capitol Records on 24 May 1962. Early the next month, their first single for the label became “409”/”Surfin’ Safari”. It was not their debut release. The “Surfin'”/ “Luau” single had been issued in November 1961 by Candix....

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CD: KT Tunstall - KIN

This album is the rebuilding of KT Tunstall - in a spiritual sense if not a musical one.It’s not a huge departure from the norm in terms of sound. She's kept the distinctive zazzy guitar pop and poetic lyric, imbued with a style of music that skirts...

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CD: M.I.A. - AIM

Back in February, M.I.A. released the first single “Borders” from this her fifth and allegedly last album, taking a powerful aim at the refugee crisis engulfing the world. The video was as stark and simple as the track, with still, almost painterly...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Musician John Foxx

“The best and most confident debut since ‘Anarchy in the UK,’” said weekly music paper Sounds of the debut single by Ultravox! “Dangerous Rhythm” had been released in February 1977. “Cosmic reggae," declared Record Mirror. Melody Maker identified a...

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theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 20 - Ramones, Freddie Mercury, Pet Shop Boys and more

Once again theartsdesk on Vinyl returns to offer a round-up of the very best available on plastic, covering every style imaginable and, this month, a few that have to be heard to be believed. From albums to 7” singles to boxsets, all vinyl life is...

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Prom 61: Kamasi Washington

Californian saxophone phenomenon Kamasi Washington is never knowingly understated. He rocked up for his Proms debut on Tuesday night having led a vast musical entourage on tour across Europe all summer, and delivered an ecstatic, if occasionally...

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Björk Digital, Somerset House

Australia and Japan were first to host Björk Digital, but it lands at London’s Somerset House with fresh, never-before-seen work. The immersive virtual reality exhibition collates several digital- and film-based works born from Björk's critically...

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CD: Meat Loaf - Braver Than We Are

Britain loves Meat Loaf. Never mind that his 1977 breakthrough, Bat Out of Hell, was once inescapable on pub jukeboxes and in school sixth form rooms throughout the land. Or that “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” was the country’s...

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theartsdesk at Shambala Festival 2016

The Short VersionSet in the grounds of elegant Northamptonshire country house Kelmarsh Hall, Shambala has a wild atmosphere wherein psychedelic hippy antics meet spliff-lovin’ post-hip hop youth. It’s a great party, with a friendly, high-spirited...

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