New music
Katie Colombus
Never ever have I felt so… nostalgic for the late 90s. While memories of platform jelly shoes, silver eyeshadow and purple all-in-ones mostly have me cringing, there’s no denying that the ultimate coolest thing about that generation was "Pure Shores". And now, despite the tabloid mayhem of the band’s first split in the early Noughties, All Saints are back, with a vengeance.I mean that literally – there’s a lot of fighting talk in Red Flag. There’s a nod to the high-profile, relationship-fuelled tabloid fodder that became the band’s downfall, but (dare I say it) there’s a smidgen of girl power Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“7 Years” is one of the biggest hits of 2016, spending five weeks at the top of the UK charts, with plays on streaming sites running into the hundreds of millions. It’s by 27 year old Danish singer-songwriter and former successful child actor Lukas Graham Forchammer and his eponymous band. They have been pop stars in their homeland for half a decade and this album – now boosted with a couple of previous Danish hits – was a chart-topper there last year. The appeal, it seems, is Forchammer’s guileless lyrical honesty, backed with a Clearasil-spotless, squeaky clean stadium pop pitched somewhere Read more ...
joe.muggs
The deadpan duo of Tennant and Lowe have never been easy to suss out at the best of times: maybe their way of layering wackiness on deep seriousness, eyebrow-flickering subtlety on roaring camp, giddy frivolity on erudition, has been their way of staying fresh. The Gilbert & George of British pop, they live to perplex even into middle age and beyond. But even given all that, quite what they're doing starting an album with “Happiness”, a hokey country and western hoedown mixed into the thumping EDM of modern American raves – sounding like Major Lazer going crazy on the chewin' tobacco – is Read more ...
Martin Longley
Since its UK debut in 1982, the WOMAD festival (World Of Music, Arts & Dance) followed its uncertain first steps and early threat of bankruptcy with a swift consolidation and expansion. By the time its first decade had passed, WOMAD was busy spreading around the globe, spawning alternative manifestations in Spain, Italy, New Zealand and the UAE. Not all of these were successful: attempts to colonise the USA eventually failed (Seattle, San Francisco), but along with the long-established twin Spanish weekenders, they have enjoyed a remarkable longevity with WOMADelaide, the Australian Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Free improvisation has been part of the jazz scene since the 1960s, and you would have to look long and hard to find anyone who would be shocked by it these days. So it takes a special kind of imagination to make improvised music sound as fresh as this debut from the young band led by Welsh double bassist and composer Huw V Williams. It’s not, to be fair, completely improvised – Williams can even write tunes – but there’s a rare vivacity about the composition and orchestration. For once the blurb is accurate: “It is a captivating and vital record.” If you’re looking for a statement of all the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
According to the May 1979 issue of the New York art-paper East Village Eye, James White “is treated [everywhere] with awe and the special consideration lacking in most people's lives.” The adoration was boundless. White is “the star, the proof of the divinity that can be had by those who strive for a life beyond the schemes of men, James White is not an animal creature, James White is one of the breed called God in older times.”For those who hadn’t realised White was a deity, his more commonly known alter-ego James Chance remained a mere cornerstone of the New York-spawned no wave scene Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Swedish drummer Magnus Öström is best known as part of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio, which became a successful jazz-rock crossover act until Svensson’s tragically early death in a diving accident in 2008. Since then Öström has pursued a solo career (with supporting band), and this, his third album, shows him exploring similar generic territory to e.s.t. Yet the mood is very different: e.s.t. had a knack of creating slow-burning, melodic hits that lingered in the memory like a favourite aroma. They were subtle and complex, but accessible to many outside the usual jazz crowd. Öström was a Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
I’ve never understood why the great American train journey isn’t as romanticised as the great American road trip. There’s nowhere else you get quite that same uninterrupted time with your own thoughts: to create, to ponder, to come to terms with everything. Certainly not in the UK, where the six-hour stretch from Glasgow to London is punctuated by so many stops that letting your mind wander as a pushchair or a scalding cup of tea makes its way up the aisle is something you do at your peril.Laura Gibson’s Empire Builder is, perhaps, the first great American rail trip soundtrack, named for the Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Another peripatetic mix of the latest global sounds and reissues from theartsdesk’s resident world music fanatic Peter Culshaw. The radio show features a mindbendingly eclectic mix from Colombia, Louisiana, Angola to Brazil, with some new folk from The Gloaming, alt country from Sam Outlaw, bonkers psychedelia from India, and a couple of old numbers from Ali Farka Touré and the Neville Brothers. An Easter sonic feast.To hear the show click on this linkTrack listingBashir Mal Khalifé – "Wolfpack"Kalyanji – "Ananii"Sidestepper – "Come and See Us Play"Kanatu y el Tigre – "Quien de Queda Quien Se Read more ...
Andrew Cartmel
Although this evening began with an introduction by film director Ben Wheatley (responsible for Clint Mansell’s latest soundtrack commission, High-Rise), Mansell’s most frequent collaborator has been Darren Aronofsky. Among the movies they’ve fashioned together is 2014’s Noah, the music from which provided tonight’s opening salvo.Giant, menacing chords lumbered across a sparse soundscape with a pulsing clash of cymbals from Eric Gardner on drums. Ululating, haunting electronic keyboards were played by Clint Mansell himself. The sound clotted into a dense, menacing texture with sustained Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Vinyl now accounts for almost 6% of the money made from music distribution, more than is accrued through free ad-backed streaming services. In the US last year vinyl sales rose to $416 million. Clearly these sort of figures are no threat to the likes of Spotify but then, there is no need for them to be. The fact is that vinyl is re-established as a boutique format and, culturally, its desirability is reaching a peak. Dismiss this as trendiness at your peril. Whatever buyers’ motivations for buying vinyl and digging their record players out of the attic, it benefits all vinyl lovers, from Read more ...
Barney Harsent
It's been a quite while since 2012's critically acclaimed album The Echo Show. In that time, Parisian psych duo Yeti Lane have been backing band for Can legend Damo Suzuki, played with the fractured genius behind Brian Jonestown Massacre, Anton Newcombe, and managed to forge a new sound for themselves. It's a sound that is darker, stronger, weirder and much, much larger.In a sea of new psych sounds, it's increasingly difficult to go diving and come up with pearls. The key, as Charlie Boyer and Cédric Benyoucef have discovered, is to go deeper. Much, much deeper. Through a series of seemingly Read more ...