New music
Matthew Wright
For an album exploring the theme of heartbreak in wintry, coiling musical phrases, peppered with stark, fractured lyrics, the reception of Björk’s original Vulnicura was ever so slightly lukewarm. Her spacious and probing compositions were admired rather than adored, her analysis of breakup seeming to have a steely, cerebral edge. So it was a brave decision to adapt these songs for strings, an alteration that’s unlikely to make them any more accessible.Losing the rhythmic texture offered by the percussion, which is only partially replaced by a chopping string pulse on pieces like “Notget Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Jewel fans from circa 1995, when the folky rebel-poet-warrior's first multi-platinum album Pieces of Me (one of the best-selling debut albums of all time) was released, have been longing for more of that fresh, raw, melodic artistry ever since.But after the fiercely made Spirit, a world tour and This Way, what came next was a seemingly experimental series of new sounds – the bewildering intellectual pop of 0304, a Christmas album, two kids' CDs released by Fisher Price, a country album and a starring role as June Carter Cash in a Lifetime Channel film.Twenty years on and Picking Up the Read more ...
Russ Coffey
James Morrison is undeniably one of pop’s more likeable and unassuming recent stars. Influential too: his laid-back sound has paved the way for recent megastars like George Ezra and Ed Sheeran. How much that constitutes a good or bad thing, though, divides opinion. Some find Morrison's blend of folk and soul relaxing yet intimate; others have said it's so bland it has its own zen. All, then, agree the amiable singer is a little short on grit. Maybe Higher Than Here can offer something a little more raw? The album starts off promisingly enough. “Demons” – an anthem to positive Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Laraaji: Ambient 3 – Day of Radiance“If you are OK with this as being an ‘ambient’ record, then I am OK with it too,” says Laraaji in the booklet accompanying this new reissue of his first album, 1980's Day of Radiance. He goes on to explain that back then he described his music as “‘beautiful’ or ‘ethereal’ or ‘celestial’.” As for being defined as New Age, he declares: “I have always accepted it. It was a term that was very alive at the time I began exploring this direction.” Minimalism is another genre which Day of Radiance could slot into quite comfortably. Pinning down exactly what Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Back in the early 2000s, it was rumoured that Ryan Adams had covered Is This It by The Strokes in its entirety. According to my extensive cataloguing of the career of Americana’s enfant terrible, only “Last Nite” ever surfaced (I have a live version, which opens with a couple of versions of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”), but the point is that Ryan Adams is no stranger to these sonic experiments. Which is why, as a huge fan of both artists I have found it both amusing and perplexing to watch the internet collectively lose its shit over Adams’ version of Taylor Swift’s 1989.The parallels between Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Killing Joke are a band that inspire near devotion in their fans. Their 1980 eponymous debut is regularly cited as one of the best of all time, and they’ve managed two very decent outings since the original line-up of Jaz Coleman, Paul Ferguson, Kevin "Geordie" Walker and Martin "Youth" Glover reformed in 2008.With Pylon, their 15th studio album, not a great deal has changed. The band show absolutely no sign of letting up on the raging fire and apocalyptic anger that have become trademarks, but it seems to suit the times a little better now. Perhaps the world has caught up with them – maybe Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Two years ago, Dylan played his best concert in years here at the Royal Albert Hall, the dim stage circled by vintage movie studio lights, and circling Dylan a band seasoned enough to bottle its own oil, delivering a new kind of quiet, late-night music. The broad unpredictability may have had gone, but so had those too-common troughs in quality and penchant for urban barns in Wembley. Could this new quality – forget the width – be sustained?After the release this year of Shadows in the Night, recorded at the same Capitol studio Sinatra used, with the same band that joins him tonight, a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Standing in front of a table filled with small consoles, Beardyman reaches into a blue bucket for an audience-suggested title to the next song he’ll create live, from scratch, in front of us. “The Muppets on Trial” is what he ends up with. Tapping speedily at the equipment – presumably his custom-designed Beardytron 5000 Mk II – he loops his own beatbox percussion and haunting soundscape noises into a backdrop, then starts a preposterous dialogue wherein he does an extended impression of Miss Piggy in court, relating how Kermit mistreats her. As the song goes on, she and Elmo from Sesame Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's a new kind of forum for electronic musicians. Certainly not a rave, and not just a recital to earnest nerds, built on a kind of patronage, but a long way removed from a standard corporate gig where you're just providing the interchangeable soundtrack to X or Y product launch. The realm of the technology party, often seen at conference-festivals like Amsterdam Dance Event and Sónar, but increasingly as a standalone thing throughout global cities, is something very 21st century, very odd, and still to be negotiated.But this is a necessary negotiation: technology is creating new Read more ...
joe.muggs
The world of Rodney Smith aka Roots Manuva often feels like a hermetic one. Despite his increasing elder statesman status the Stockwell-raised rapper, producer and visionary exists away from trends and scenes, a self-professed armchair philosopher, whose lyrics more often than not have the feel of internal dialogue, and whose music tends to the claustrophobic. And so it is here: the real, outside world is often referenced, starting with the sociological mutterings of the opener, “Hard Bastards”, but it always comes to you through Smith's thought processes, bounced back and forth in word games Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Asif Kapadia’s Amy packs a punch. It is a wrenching, clear-eyed portait of a supremely talented, charismatic young woman being whittled away by voracious, relentless 21st century celebrity, exacerbated by her own demons. At the UK box office it’s become the second most successful documentary feature film of all time (after Farenheit 9/11). Part of its power is, of course, the raw, soulful singing of its central protagonist. Now a soundtrack arrives, a collage of Winehouse favourites, demos and live takes interspersed with the instrumental music of Brazilian film composer Antônio Pinto.Where Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Let’s not get carried away. The news, announced at the end of September, that vinyl sales generated more money than the combined income of Spotify, Vevo and YouTube’s free services sent waves of celebration through the record-loving community. $166 million vs. $222 million – yaaaaaay! Vinyl sales up 52% on last year and now accounting for a third of all physical sales – yaaaaaay again! But the truth is that paid subscribers to streaming services – as opposed to the “free” advert-funded model - raised over a billion dollars in income. Google “Vinyl sales now 1970s” and there are plenty of Read more ...