New music
theartsdesk
The festival market is one that has, like much of Britain, become oversaturated of late. Here at theartsdesk however, we feel that there’s room for one more as long as it’s of the highest possible quality. Here, then, is our line-up, a dream festival pulled together from our writers’ highlights of the past year. It’s two days over two stages and, best of all absolutely no danger of getting some hideous water-borne disease while sleeping in a substandard tent. SATURDAY MAIN STAGEThe Prodigy: 10.00 - 11.30The Prodigy may have been going for a quarter of a century but their fire is far Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Revealing a new story which completely rewrites an existing one is not easy in the world of reissues. With so much already known, and with pop and rock history constantly being revisited, it’s always surprising when a fresh tale is told. And it’s even more so when it’s actually worth knowing. Although issued in June, Saved by the Bell: The Collected Works of Robin Gibb 1968-1970 has been saved for the end of the year as it was instantly apparent that it did, indeed, rewrite history. It also included a wealth of extraordinary music, most of which had never been previously released – or even Read more ...
Guy Oddy
To say that The Suicide of Western Culture’s Long Live Death! Down With Intelligence! appeared without fanfare in November would be an understatement. Emphatically underground without even a listing on Amazon UK, the Barcelona duo’s record company were clearly not expecting great sales from their third album. Nevertheless, The Suicide of Western Culture certainly provided a sonically enthralling disc that is head and shoulders above anything released by any of their leftfield fellow travellers in 2015.Long Live Death! Down With Intelligence!’s low tech approach marries a post-rock attitude to Read more ...
peter.quinn
My Album of the Year is The Thompson Fields, a stunningly beautiful collection of eight new pieces by the acclaimed composer, arranger and bandleader, Maria Schneider. It's one of those incredibly rare albums in which every element – breathtaking textural detail, gorgeous melodies, transfixing solos and the sheer expressivity of the playing – comes together in a kind of magical alignment.The magisterial Arriving by Loose Tubes, the final piece of the band's valedictory residency at Ronnie Scott's in September 1990, following Dancing on Frith Street ( Read more ...
Jasper Rees
They say there are no second acts, but in the world of contemporary dad rock there’s little else. This year Squeeze became the latest band to re-form, not in quite the original line-up, but in an incarnation which patched up previous cracks between its two front men. The result was a cheerful tour and an enlightening album. I caught the live show at the Royal Albert Hall, where the old songs inevitably fared better than the less familiar new ones. In their studio incarnation, the robust new songs have the potential to sink into the marrow.Cradle to the Grave is the latest addition to a small Read more ...
Barney Harsent
2015 was a phenomenal year for new music. As such, choosing just one album seems an arduous if not impossible task. But Christmas is, as we know, a time where arduous tasks are very much the order of the day, as we inconvenience ourselves routinely and with at least the appearance of good grace.It’s been a year where some of the most moving and emotional music has been made using machines. Enigmatic house producer Man Power revealed himself to the world as Brit Geoff Kirkwood with a breathtaking, self-titled debut, while Ukranian producer Vakula (Mikhaylo Vityuk) wowed those who paid Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The year has seen great albums from the fringes – in English folk, Leveret’s beautiful instrumental debut New Anything, or Stick in the Wheel’s visceral, political, London stew of an album, From Here, and Sam Lee’s assured, exploratory second album, Fade in Time. In Jazz, there was the likes of Partikel’s String Theory on Whirlwind Recordings, and in World music, Songhoy Blues’ debut. However, the frontrunners for this writer's favourites of the year were both rock icons of wildly different hue – Keith Richards’ Crosseyed Heart and The Fall’s Sublingual Tablet.It took a while to settle on Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Is language a barrier to international recognition? Is English necessary to make waves worldwide? Musicians from the African continent and South America regularly perform in their native tongue beyond the borders of their home countries. But often they are – rightly or wrongly – marketed or pigeon-holed as world music, a branding which allows for eschewing the Anglophone. The always problematic label of world music can be and is debated endlessly, but one thing is certain: for Scandinavia, most internationally successful music is delivered in English.Of course, after setting quirky micro- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Choosing an album of the year is an exacting process. For an album to be arresting, it either has to come as a bolt from the blue or build on what’s come before in a way which represents an identifiable artistic development which takes things to new level while saying something fresh. Holding patterns and restatements of default settings will never have an impact, especially if they speak of or to comfort zones.Alina Orlova’s third album, 88, is arresting, a bolt from the blue and represents identifiable artistic development. Boxes ticked then. More importantly, it is also the album which has Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The news that Lush have reformed didn’t come as surprise. Their comparable contemporaries Ride and Slowdive had also done so over the past couple of years, and My Bloody Valentine – an influence looming over all three – returned in 2007 after over a decade’s abscence. Unlike the others, Lush, who were on 4AD rather than Creation, have reissued their complete catalogue as a box set during the run-up to re-hitting stages next May. Chorus has the potential to eclipse the reappearance as it doesn’t edit history like a one-or-so hour live concert.With Lush, editing is probably necessary to make a Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There's a line of argument – and a fairly convincing one – that this is the decade that pop culture lost its imagination. Right now the cinemas are booked out with the latest sequel to a 38-year-old movie franchise, my Twitter feed is collectively losing its shit to a new Twin Peaks trailer and a Stone Roses reunion is headlining half of next year's festivals. We haven't even been bothered to come up with a name for this decade, although when our children's children run nostalgic compilation shows dedicated to the "twen-teens" I will happily take the credit.Against a backdrop of Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Contemporary jazz is a world full of magpies – artists who flit between genres and build glittering nests of disparate musical influences. Rock up to a so-called jazz night today and the repertoire can come from anywhere, you’re as likely to hear Jimi Hendrix or J. Dilla as Jerome Kern, and pianist Brad Mehldau has played a role in making that happen.Over the course of the past twenty years, Mehldau has established himself as one of the most distinctive and influential pianists of his generation, a musician with a healthy lack of respect for musical boundaries. Cast an eye over the tracklist Read more ...