New music
Barney Harsent
You know that thing? That thing that bands of a certain age do? You know… the thing where they get all misty-eyed about past glories and decide to get the band together for one last spin of the big hits? Well, the continuing story of Loop is about as far removed from that as it’s possible to be.When, in 2013, founding member Robert Hampson announced that Loop were reforming after 22 years, it felt like an attempt to put demons to rest, for the pioneering drone rock outfit to end things properly after their sudden implosion in 1991. Indeed, after their curation of the last ever Camber Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Since Gemma Hayes' Mercury nomination in 2003, the Irish singer-songwriter has largely experienced the familar indie fate of meagre commercial returns but increasing cult appeal. How appropriate then, that for her most recent adventures in folk and low-fi, Bones and Longing, she should go down the (increasingly popular) route of crowdfunding. The result is an album that's bound to form an intimate bond with its audience.Bones and Longing kicks off with “Laughter”, a reworking of 2011’s “There’s Only Love” with a more shoe-gazy feel. Its minimal production sets the tone for much of the record Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Is it a strength or weakness that The Bad Plus, who bounced the Village Underground into raptures last night, can create a distinctive ensemble sound with everything from Nirvana to Stravinsky? They proved again that they’re a compelling live act, balancing a propulsive groove and regular melodic sweetening with chameleonic shifts of genre and electric storms of improvisation. Like most things with a hypnotic quality, however, there’s an element of repetition, and in the last couple of songs the joins in their witty musical patchwork were becoming more audible. Their distinctiveness Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
If there's one commonly-known fact about Jackson Browne, it's that (with a bit of help from Glenn Frey) he wrote "Take It Easy" for the Eagles. The first track off their first album, and their first hit single, it remained a trademark for the band despite all the changes they subsequently went through. The following year, 1973, Browne released his own recording of "Take It Easy" on his second album, For Everyman. While the Eagles' version was harmony-packed and radio-friendly, Jackson's version was more introspective and philosophical, as much of his work tends to be.It epitomised the way Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The five lads who comprise the biggest slice of Simon Cowell’s pension fund are back with the follow up to last year’s Midnight Memories. One Direction, are not, in all fairness, canvassing my vote with new album Four. In fact, on the basis of this new collection of songs, they’re doorstepping eight-year-old girls to ask whether their mum’s in.1D have long had a knack of delivering songs that sound, in part, like already established hits, however the reference points here seem less pop and more… well, MOR. Single "Steal My Girl" has a piano introduction that echoes Meat Loaf, before the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A slim 69-year-old man in a rumpled sports jacket looking like a gone-to-seed history lecturer with the colour-clash dress sense of Michael Portillo is gripping a microphone so hard it’s a wonder it hasn’t been crushed. He is barking lyrics in Icelandic so gruffly that this could be any Celtic or Nordic language.This is Megas – born Magnús Þór Jónsson – the Icelandic poet, singer and cultural icon who has been ploughing this particular and peculiar furrow since the early Seventies and, in 1977, helped kick-start Icelandic punk. In Iceland, he is an enduring presence.Here, at the 1920’s cinema Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Brighton’s guitar pop outfit, the Kooks have been churning out largely pleasant but fairly bland songs since their 2006 debut Inside In/Inside Out. Recent album Listen, however, has suggested that things might be changing. Less evident, but not entirely banished, are the unremarkable strum-alongs, with a rawer and funkier groove edging its way into a few of their tunes with some success. Similarly gone is the poodle hair and clothes that made them look like the Verve’s younger, more clean-cut cousins. When the band bounce onto the stage at Birmingham’s O2 Academy, they look like they’ve just Read more ...
mark.kidel
Antony Hegarty has one of those voices that’s poised on the edge of tears. With a singing style at times reminiscent of the great Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli, who broke a thousand hearts in the 1930s, he knows how to draw deeply from his most vulnerable self, gently but firmly taking his audience to the same fragile inner spaces.Explorations of androgyny in popular music have often made possible a form of creativity that rides a knife-edge. Fuelled by transgender freedom, Antony Hegarty plunges resolutely into the cloud of undoing, a place where courageous speaking from the heart can assume Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground Super Deluxe EditionMGM, The Velvet Underground’s label, didn’t have a clue how to promote the band’s third album. The press kit accompanying its March 1969 release described drummer Maureen Tucker as “not your typical virgin. She looks like a red-headed music hall tart and pounds the drums with the force of a weight lifter. A female Brendan Behan.” Lou Reed was said to have “a face that arouses interest but gives no satisfaction.”So it was no suprise that the album indeed became a poor seller and aroused little mainstream interest, which Read more ...
peter.quinn
Is it just me, or do Guy Barker's orchestral charts for Jazz Voice get more refined, more nuanced, more richly detailed every year? Effectively becoming earworm central last night, the Barbican resounded with tintinnabulating glockenspiels, delicately plucked harp strings, punchy horn charts and luxuriant strings, as Barker sprinkled his arranging magic over the customary epoch-spanning celebration of anniversaries, birthdays and milestones stretching back from 2014.Grounded by the fabulous rhythm section of pianist Dave Newton, bassist Chris Hill, drummer Ralph Salmins and the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
If you glanced too hastily at the sleeve you might think Bryan Ferry had made another album called Avalon, that epitome of the sleek autumnal heyday of Roxy Music. But no. Avonmore, though it may sound like a single malt whisky, is named after Ferry's studio complex in West London, not far from Olympia which gave him the title of a previous album in 2010.Avonmore is a worthy addition to the string of solo albums (the self-written ones, rather than his parallel stream of covers discs or the peculiar Twenties throwback The Jazz Age) which Ferry has made since the Eighties, with 1985's Boys and Read more ...
theartsdesk
Peter and Joe are back on MeatTransmission, and as ever their selection goes "Beyond Global" with quite a few voyages out of the world into territories cosmic, ambient and generally out there - stopping in Bamako, Mali, Fukushima, Rio, Jerusalem, Bucharest, Moscow, Lewisham and Avalon along the way for good measure. Expect surprises and brand new sounds at every step. The Arts Desk 02/10/14 by Meattransmission on Mixcloud Tracklist:Gong – I See YouCaribou – Back HomeHassell – Delta Rain DreamRodion GA – ContrastBonobo – DinosaurNuma crew – AromaSchneider TM – Be Ki Don (Cockpit Dub Read more ...