New music
Kieron Tyler
As the album featuring Simple Minds’ first Top Twenty single, “Promised You a Miracle”, 1982’s New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) was aptly titled. After the success of the next single “Glittering Prize”, it hit number three in the album charts. Five albums in and three years after their first single, Simple Minds were indeed touching gold.Whether their breakthrough into the mainstream was a miracle or not depends on how the band is seen. The album preceding New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) was actually issued as two separate records: Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call. Each featured a Read more ...
Jasper Rees
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” sang John Cale in the droning voice of Major Tom. Whether the spirit of David Bowie was indeed hovering over the Albert Hall for this impromptu memorial late-night Prom is not easily answered. The shape-shifting Bowie who stayed ahead of the game was honoured in a set lasting nearly two hours and covering 47 years of music-making from 1969 to 2016. But anyone hoping to catch a spacemobile back to 1973 was not to be humoured. Those who turned up with lighting-bolt faces should have been warned: this ain’t rock’n’roll, this is contemporary classical.The set was Read more ...
Martin Longley
The Montréal International Jazz Festival's 37th edition presented its accustomed surfeit of gigs, covering the complete range from concert hall spectaculars to small club sessions. A large part of this, the globe's biggest jazzfest, is the massive-scale freebie shows on various outdoor stages. The festival completely takes over Montréal's downtown centre, which just happens to be this French-speaking city’s cultural area. These streets and plazas are already full of venues, from theatres to clubs, with a wide range of audience capacities to suit both the mainstream and the maverick.As if the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Right now we’re at the heart of the silly season. In mid-August no-one releases albums (it’s the same in January). Here at Disc of the Day we’re screaming for something decent to review. But, no, microscopic bands choose to hold their albums back and go head to head with the big names during the pre-Christmas release splurge of September and October. The fact is, as autumn arrives, no-one will cover Blobus & His Black Metal Armada over Britney, Bastille, Ed Sheeran, Haim, Frank Ocean, and the rest. We all like a bit of Blobus, sure, but we have a remit to review what people are interested Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Little-known Brazilian arranger José Prates created the music recorded on Tam...Tam...Tam...! in the early 1950s to accompany a touring dance show. When the show toured Europe in 1958, the tracks were released as an album. So obscure is Prates today that Gilles Peterson made a TV appeal for a good copy of the LP, which he couldn’t source. Yet Prates’ blend of complex, loose-limbed, recognisably African rhythm, with sultry, melodic vocal lines was genuinely an epochal moment in the birth of bossa nova and the modern Brazilian sound. The crucial word here, of course, is “reimagined”. The Read more ...
joe.muggs
Detroit techno music is important. Any student of the club music of the modern age knows this. The sound that fermented among the majority black population of the decaying industrial city in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as disco's last remnants fused with the avant-garde experiments of Europeans who were first getting their hands on synthesisers and drum machines, went on to change the world. It seeded the UK's rave explosion, jungle, drum'n'bass and all the electronic experiments that came after. It created a futurist aesthetic, which managed to be somehow both optimistic and dystopian, Read more ...
peter.quinn
Copenhagen-born bassist Jasper Høiby moved to London in 2000 to attend the Royal Academy of Music. In 2005 he created the trio Phronesis which has toured extensively in Europe and North America and won awards for Jazz Album of the Year in Jazzwise and MOJO for its 2010 album, Alive, as well as a London Jazz Award for its "Pitch Black" performance at Brecon Jazz festival in 2012.Høiby has performed and recorded with a number of artists including Mark Guiliana, Django Bates, Shai Maestro, Julian Joseph, Kurt Elling, Tom Arthurs, Mark Lockheart, Liam Noble, Julia Biel, Marius Neset, Kairos 4tet Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Honestly, you wait years for a lengthy project to come to fruition, then two turn up at once. However, while The Avalanches had to contend with people tapping their watches and sighing wearily, The Earlies’ John Mark Lapham had only his own clock to watch. The measured pace and unhurried approach are reflected in the languorous song spectres he presents here.Starting out life as an idea for his short-lived 4AD outfit, the Late Cord, the project soon outgrew its shell and ended up a huge collaborative effort which sees turns from, among a Hollywood-sized cast, Sara Lowe (the Earlies), Swans’ Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The indie scene isn’t currently enjoying a peak period but FEWS’ debut album, Means, which came out a couple of months back, makes as close a case for tight, post-punk guitar songs played by skinny guys as anything released this year. Part of this is undoubtedly down to producer Dan Carey, whose work with multiple acts, from Bat For Lashes to Kate Tempest to Bloc Party, shows he knows how to capture the best of an artist. But last night the Sweden-based four-piece had to prove they could hack out a persuasive live set on their own.First a word about the venue. The Prince Albert pub, just down Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
This month we’re just going to get straight into it. It’s summer, the sun's out, no time for waffle, just slap a disc on the turntables and wallow in the richness of the sound. Below 42 vinyl releases are reviewed, with no genre boundaries maintained. There should be something there for everyone. Dig in.Eerie Eerie (Tee Pee)Yes, the cover art is just terrible but the eyes are continually drawn to it in awed fascination. The music contained within is equally cheap and trashy but, upon extended exposure, caterwaulingly brilliant. In the same way that The Ramones and The Cramps gave tat and Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Purple’s 2014 debut album, (409), was a burst of party punk straight out of Texas that deftly avoided crass clichés while letting the good times roll. Sophomore effort Bodacious won’t disappoint those who were bitten by the Purple bug the first time around and might even entice new listeners along the way. In particular, a hefty dose of the funk has been added to their exuberant groove, with Joe Cannariato giving his bass a good seeing to where previously he might have sat back. While this means that things may have slowed down in places, this is still music with a beaming smile and a beer in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Since achieving international success in the final years of the 1980s, the late Cesária Évora has dominated much of globe’s perception of music from the Cape Verde (officially Cabo Verde). This fascinating pair of releases reveal other aspects which may not have caused similar world-wide waves. Crucially, they're hugely enjoyable.Space Echo collects 15 tracks by 14 different performers. It’s subtitled “The Mystery Behind the Cosmic Sound of Cabo Verde Finally Revealed”. The Legend of Funaná is a reissue of a 1997 album by accordion player Bitori, born Victor Taveres. It’s also subtitled: “The Read more ...