New music
joe.muggs
I made a terrible mistake when I first got this LP: I played it on my laptop speakers. That’s not the straight up foolishness you might think, mind – after downloading something for review I’ll often play it quietly in the background while I catch up on admin, because it can be a good way of getting the general shape of an album, an overview as it were, before properly diving into it. But for this album in particular that really didn’t work.Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points is a virtuoso producer – and one of the world’s best DJs, which has taken him on a consistent upward trajectory parallel Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Contrary to popular belief, not all music journalists get off on being snide about the same old easy-to-slate bands. When something like this album arrives in my review schedule, my instinct is to seek the good, to stick two fingers up to my sneering peers. Unfortunately Snow Patrol’s new album is proving a challenge. I am struggling to find the positives.But let’s try. By now, you will know the drill with Snow Patrol. Kind of early Coldplay but lathered in (even more) overwrought emotion and lighters-in-the-air effusiveness. Their songs “Run” and “Chasing Cars” are staples of stadium Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It has to be hoped that Stuart Staples’ songs for Tindersticks aren’t a reflection of his actual life experiences. No-one really deserves that much rejection.For over 30 years, Northampton’s terminally disappointed romantics have been ploughing a furrow as the go-to soundtrackers for failed relationships and doomed flirtations. In fact, they’ve made their own, a place where understated and laidback grooves meet claustrophobic and melancholy vocals that never quite descend into self-absorbed moping. So it is with Soft Tissue, where Staples moodily intones that “I won’t let my love become my Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although it takes seconds to discern that Juniore are French, a core inspiration appears to be the echoing surf-pop instrumentals of Californian studio band The Marketts, whose 1963 single "Out of Limits" became their most well-known track. Add in – exemplified by Trois, Deux, Un’s fifth and sixth tracks “Amour fou” and “Grand voyageur” – the languid atmosphere of the early Françoise Hardy and the result is a form of Gallic retro-futurist garage-pop.Juniore are a Paris-based three piece and Trois, Deux, Un is their third album. There is more to this musical bricolage than the two most evident Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After the March 1969 UK release of the “Return of Django” single, prospective performers of the song could buy it transcribed as sheet music. On the record, the credit was “Upsetters.” For the sheet music, with its photo of a single person, the credit was “Lee Perry, leader of The Upsetters” (pictured below left). Close to a year on from becoming an independent operator, Perry was already singled-out as the music’s principal aspect. A Phil Spector analogue.Of course, in Perry’s native Jamaica, the sound-system circuit meant those at the controls were as much a focus – and sometimes more so – Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The Allergies kicked off their Freak the Speaker tour in Birmingham this week. However, the album that they were promoting was nowhere to be seen on their merch stand – “Brexit issues” apparently. This didn’t dim the band’s enthusiasm one bit though and they had the congregated soulboys and soulgirls of all ages – from teenagers to retirees – bouncing around like maniacs to good grooves aplenty at the Hare and Hounds.The Hare and Hounds is not a large venue and access to the stage is from the crowd, which means that grand entrances aren’t really part of the vibe. So, once warm up DJ Sam Read more ...
joe.muggs
This album only has one serious flaw: LL COOL J didn’t open it with “OK you can call it a comeback”. Sorry, cheap joke (if you didn’t know, his classic hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” starts with the lyric “Don’t call it a comeback!” and this, his 14th album, is his first in 11 years).But honestly no, there really isn’t a lot wrong with this record: LL is in fine voice and furious flow, and the beats – entirely produced by Q Tip from A Tribe Called Quest – are a reminder that old-school, sample-based hip hop can be as heavyweight, as compelling, as mind-bending as anything post-trap youngsters Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Beth Ditto protests too much. 'Do you feel young" she hollered early on, before adding "I don't", one of several references during the gig to her age now being 43. Yet the Gossip singer still displayed the glee and energy of a teenager at their first show, even if her band are now into the reunion phase of a career spanning over two decades. From the start she was sashaying across the stage with joy, a state possibly pumped up by the fact one of her favourite ever bands, the Yummy Fur, had supported on the night. She even donned a T-shirt of the cult Glasgow group for the encore, and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As a live sensation, Fat Dog have been the talk of the year. The London five-piece offer a dementedly energized night out. Performative concerts, tight as zip-wire but hedonistic and loose round the edges. They’ve developed a solid rep for sending audiences nuts. Consequently, there’s a hungry new fan-base salivating for their debut album, WOOF. Coming in at just over half-an-hour, it captures their battering zing; short, sharp and ballistic.Fat Dog’s sound is rooted in proto-techno crunch akin to the movement once known as Electronic Body Music, which is to say bands such as Front 242, Read more ...
Ellie Roberts
Sundiver is the daylight chapter that follows Boston Manor’s 2022 introspective concept album Datura. The second half of the story continues with the same poetic, immersive style but offers a brighter and more substantial experience across the 11 tracks.The transition from the experimental, lingering dusk of Datura into a full and extroverted dawn happens through the continuation of birdsong heard in the former’s closing track “Inertia”. “Datura (Dawn)” opens Sundiver with the same early morning sounds before peacefully asking “could you please open that window, let the new world in”, Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Marie Ulven had not even stepped onstage and her fans were in raptures. Such was the level of excitement for her second night in Glasgow that sing-a-longs to Chappel Roan and Sabrina Carpenter were ringing out almost as soon as support act Nieve Ella had departed.Like Carpenter, Ulven was blessed with the backing of Taylor Swift through a support slot on the Eras tour, but as a live performer there is far less pop sheen and considerably more indie dancefloor sweat to her. From the start she was sprinting about the stage or running on the spot as if limbering up for a park run, and the Read more ...
Guy Oddy
I’ve been a regular attender of the Supersonic Festival for about 15 years and much has changed in that time. When I first rocked up to see Swans, Stinky Wizzleteat, PCM and other sonic treats, the event was a bit of a white boys’ club, both in terms of the artists and the audience, despite being put together and curated by a couple of women.Since then, there has been a major effort to decolonise the line-up and bring in many more explicitly non-Western, female and LGBT+ artists, adding new sounds and textures, while remaining resolutely outside the mainstream. So, it was surprising to Read more ...