New music
Kieron Tyler
Ruthann Friedman: The Complete Constant Companion SessionsRuthann Friedman’s debut album ought to have clicked. Issued in October 1969, Constant Companion arrived after her composition “Windy” topped the US charts in 1967 when it was recorded by The Association. A consummate songwriter, she should surely have been set to parallel her similarly inclined close contemporaries Carole King or Laura Nyro, both of whose songs were hits for others before they established themselves as successful solo artists.Friedman had support and connections too. She actually lived with The Association – who Read more ...
Russ Coffey
That King Creosote’s latest album was indirectly commissioned as part of this week's Commonwealth Games celebrations immediately qualifies it as one of the more interesting musical pieces to be inspired by a sports event. And that's not meant as faint praise either - this is an indisputably fine album, irrespective of context. But fans of the hirsute singer will surely want to know more. They'll want to hear how it compares to Creosote's own back catalogue - in particular 2011’s wonderful Diamond Mine.The albums have more in common than you might, at first, think. From Scotland Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
London duo Jungle are to be commended for their desire to stay away from predictability. The result of their falsetto-voiced, twinkly alt-pop mission has been plenty of attention in the right quarters. Nominees for the BBC Sound of 2014, multi-million YouTube hitters, and hyped as festival musts-sees, they’ve certainly achieved hot band status, so it’s now just down to this debut album to dunk the ball through the hoop.It doesn’t, really, although it occasionally reaches the right end of the court. Over the course of twelve songs the pair massage the android edges off electro-pop, smear it Read more ...
joe.muggs
The Eighties revival, as is now well documented, has lasted far longer than the actual Eighties. And Elly “La Roux” Jackson is a vital figure in maintaining its durability, coming as she did to massive fame just as the effects of the turn-of-the-millenium club scene electroclash were wearing off, and making sure that plinky-plonky electropop keyboards, icy attitude and sculpted hair were kept on the cultural agenda.Her musical style was entirely distinctive, if a little piercing – it was no surprise that she achieved the success she did, so complete was her mix of sound, look and persona. It Read more ...
Matthew Wright
As the name suggests, New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band was established to promote traditional New Orleans Jazz. This release is the band’s first of original material, and the fact they haven’t been short of a tune since foundation in 1961 only confirms what any jazz-lover will already know, that the traditional New Orleans repertoire is pretty well represented in the record catalogue already.The famous community spirit of New Orleans is reflected in two characteristics of the city’s music in particular: the quality of the ensemble playing, and the relaxed approach to genre. While the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Lewis: L'AmourImagine a very subdued Antony Hegarty whispering over the spookiest moments of Angelo Badalamenti’s music for Twin Peaks. Or conjure up a marriage of Arthur Russell’s shimmering World of Echo and John Martyn at his most intimate, but shorn of all but the most necessary instrumentation. To say that L’Amour, the only album by Lewis, is arresting underplays it. This is one of the most direct and affecting series of songs ever captured in a studio. Yet until a few years ago it was unknown and, even then, only available as a dodgy download with added colour from the scratches Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Ostensibly folk, Emma Tricca’s second album Relic sounds more like a devotional song cycle heard in a church than on a club or festival stage. The massed chorale of Tricca’s voice which opens “Sunday Reverie”, the spectral organ of “Golden Chimes” and the lyrics of “Take me Away”, which yearn of being transported to somewhere she has never been where the trees are aging, all invoke the search for the spiritual.Initially pegged as a Greenwich Village-fascinated folkie inspired by encounters with John Renbourn and Bob Dylan's early champion Odetta, Tricca's voice is as singular and as Read more ...
Matthew Wright
DJ, broadcaster and all-round musical pioneer Gilles Peterson is one of the most influential figures in contemporary music. In a career that has grown from a DIY pirate station to running a succession of record labels, global DJing appearances and his own Worldwide Awards, he’s become famous for his commitment to the most unexpected combinations of new sounds and genres, drawn from restless collaborations worldwide. His support for his own kind of jazz has been a consistent feature of his career, but he’s certainly not the purist of beard-stroking jazz folklore. His interest in Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Maybe they really just don’t make ‘em like they used to. The latest in 2014’s prestigious roll-call of bus-pass rockers is Judas Priest - back minus one original guitarist (relative youngster Richie Faulkner replaces K.K. Dowling). Redeemer of Souls may have been recorded by a bunch of guys mainly in their sixties but the LP feels almost as preposterous, exhilarating and entertaining as anything they’ve ever done. It’s also a real contender for metal album of the year.Comparisons will inevitably be made with Sabbath’s recent 13. Both are comebacks of sorts and both bands are synonymous with Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The Minstrel of Misery or the Poet Laureate of Bedsitland: Morrissey has been musical marmite since he first entered the public consciousness with The Smiths’ debut single, “Hand in Glove”, over thirty years ago. World Peace Is None Of Your Business may be a return to form, but it is unlikely to change his public image. No doubt he will be fine with that.The lyrics, predictably enough, are from the Morrissey that we have all come to recognise and the music is still mostly dominated by the white boy, indie sound that he has long made his own – albeit with occasional trumpet and acoustic guitar Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Right from their lo-fi beginnings, Glasgow’s Honeyblood have always been able to deliver the perfect kiss-off. It’s why it’s a relief to see that the duo’s self-titled debut album retains a fair slice of that crackle and hiss, Stina Tweeddale’s candy-coated vocals still providing a deceptive delivery method for her often venomous lyrics.It’s not always big and it’s certainly not always clever - new single “Super Rat”, for example, combines three minutes of likening a cheating ex-boyfriend to the titular rodent with a playground chant of “scumbag, sleaze, slimeball, grease” - but Honeyblood Read more ...
joe.muggs
As dance music once more sweeps the mainstream, we're returned to the situation of the 1990s where singer and song can seem to become a little detached. Parades of “featured vocalists” deliver refrains for the producer teams who are queueing up to repeat the success of Route 94, Clean Bandit, Duke Dumont and above all Disclosure. And as the field gets more crowded, so the requirements for the singers to sit back, know their place and deliver the simplest hooks become more pressing.Some new generation singers do manage to step into the spotlight of course. Rita Ora parlayed her big hit with DJ Read more ...