New music
Matthew Wright
There were no shouts of “You’re a genius!” from the Hammersmith crowd last night, as there have been earlier in Newsom’s tour. But there were the shrill gasps of astonishment and adulation you would usually find at a One Direction gig, or during a tense rally at Wimbledon, not from a mature, West London audience attending a recital of harp and song. Live, her voice is fresh, and the accompaniments clearer than on record, which allows the incredible range and ambition of her compositions to stand out.Newsom played mostly from the new album Divers, but there was enough from earlier releases to Read more ...
peter.quinn
Maria Schneider is one of the luminaries of contemporary jazz. The composer, arranger and bandleader, together with her 18-piece orchestra, first came to prominence in 1994 with the release of their debut recording, Evanescence. Blazing the crowdfunding trail as ArtistShare’s first release, Concert in the Garden (2004) made history as the first recording to win a Grammy with online-only sales, while "Cerulean Skies" from Sky Blue (2007) picked up another Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition. Featuring the soprano Dawn Upshaw, Schneider's song Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
CeeLo Green is a real character, a personality in an age when pop is dominated by a homogenous mush of “sexy”, gym-bodied, media-trained nothingness. Hits such as "Crazy", with Gnarls Barkley, and his own “Fuck You” propelled him from a quirky southern US hip hop outsider into the pantheon of proper stars. More recently, his career has been mired in a court case wherein he was accused of spiking a dinner date with Ecstasy. Last summer he acceded to the drug aspect but was cleared of non-consensual sex. His fifth album, then, can be seen, especially in America where the case received more Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s one of the greatest rock songs of the Seventies. The production is dense and the churning guitars are thick with tension. Beginning with a minor-key riff suggesting a familiarity with The Stooges’ “No Fun”, the whole band lock into a groove which isn’t strayed from. The tempo does not shift. Rhythmically, this forward motion has the power of a tank stuck in third gear. The voice suggests John Lennon at his most raw. Two squalling guitar breaks set the Jimi Hendrix of “Third Stone from the Sun” in a hard rock context. Produced by former Hendrix co-manager Chas Chandler, it could be Read more ...
Matthew Wright
It seems perverse and self-defeating to record Australian piano trio The Necks. Acquiring over 25 years a reputation as the ultimate long-form improvisers, their single-take performances unfold with intricate, mesmerising drama, each one differing according the environment, acoustic, and mood. A dedicated groupie who followed this month’s extensive European tour (15 venues, 19 gigs, 19 days) would hear a noticeably different piece every time. So there’s something of the lepidopterist’s specimen about the idea of fixing these organic musical creatures in the binary certainty of a recording. Read more ...
theartsdesk
In the arts there is never a best of anything. There is good, great and glorious. But best? There is, however, Stop Making Sense. Talking Heads invited the director Jonathan Demme to film them in performance over three nights in December 1983 at Pantages Theater in Hollywood. The result is (arguably) the greatest concert movie ever made. And the good news, as a restored version is released on disc, is that time has not diminished its greatness, any more than it has shrunk the outsize suit David Byrne wears for “Girlfriend Is Better”, which if anything looks bigger in an era free from shoulder Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Peter Culshaw’s latest global round-up of new music and reissues features the usual spendidly earbending eclectic selection. There’s 1960s Indian lounge, 1970s Senegalese music unearthed by the ever-adventurous Analog Africa label, Arabic Jazz and a Cuban song about the dangers of lechery, not to mention hot off the press Four Tet and a couple of tracks from Lebanon’s brilliant current art-pop export Bachar Mal-Khalife. Two top Korean indie tunes are introduced by musician Jim Kim, and guest presenter Germaine-Nicol Hughes from the Asgard Agency plays some country blues and a Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's something reassuringly resistant to modernity about Jeff Lynne. In much the same way that his cast iron Brummie accent and demeanour have remained unchanged despite decades in Los Angeles, so his music remains in a late 20th century interzone – its real concerns being the songwriting of the Sixties and the huge, glossy production values of the Seventies and Eighties.And so it is here. The songs and vocal delivery are full of shameless nods to his sometime fellow Travelling Wilburys Bob Dylan (“Ain't it a Drag”) and Roy Orbison (“I'm Leaving You”), as well as to Paul McCartney (almost Read more ...
Tim Cumming
When it comes world music there are few countries bigger than Mali in terms of impact and popularity. (Cuba probably ranks a close second.) It’s from Mali that Songhoy Blues hail, one of the few major new successes in world music to emerge in the past few years. In many ways, it is a dwindling genre, where the chances of “discovering” a little-known great like Ali Farka Touré or Cesaria Evora are getting close to zero – most people, like everywhere else, don’t listen to that old stuff anymore: by and large it’s hip-hop, R&B and digital beats. The fresh and the fine-ground does still Read more ...
Travis Barker
We had an awesome producer, Jerry Finn, who was just a few years older than us. Jerry was usually wearing a Replacements T-shirt and Vans sneakers. He had worked with Green Day, Jawbreaker, and a bunch of bands on Epitaph Records, including Rancid and Pennywise. Jerry wasn’t some asshole rolling up to the studio in a Bentley - he was one of us. He could be honest with us, and we would listen to him, which is really important.These days, “producer” means “I’m going to write some songs for you.” He didn’t do that - he was more about giving us ideas and lending an extra set of ears. He’d Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
For those missing the glory days of pop-dance crossover acts such as Faithless and Basement Jaxx, Free School just might be the answer. Their second album bubbles over with euphoria and catchy tunes, shaded with a multiplicity of well-chosen dancefloor styles. Their name is ill-chosen, disappearing on Google unless you write “free school band Birmingham”, but these two Midlands producers have hit a purple patch and it’s time to pay attention.There are plenty of guest vocalists although only Mute Records’ wonk-tronic act Maps, who appears on the Dirty Vegas-style pop-house throbber “Good Read more ...
Matthew Wright
The idea of being a one-man band usually has a double edge to it, the pluckiness of independence undercut by intimations of ramshackle loneliness. Dan Turnbull, performing as Kent nu-blues musician Funke and the Two Tone Baby, touring his second album Balance, expresses the dilemma well. Singing and beatboxing, while also playing harmonica, guitar, tambourine, stompbox and loop pedals, he brings a frenzied energy and multi-faceted sound to original, contemporary, blues ballads of love, awe and contemplation.His songs usually begin gently, as he builds up the material to deploy on the pedals, Read more ...