New music
Lisa-Marie Ferla
That Nikki Nack, the third album from tUnE-yArDs, sounds as if it could share the name with some brightly-coloured superhero from a nursery rhyme seems appropriate, because that’s always been how I’ve pictured Merrill Garbus. It’s a persona that she has seemed happy to play up to this time around, in the colourful publicity shots and Pee-wee’s Playhouse-inspired videos that have preceded this release, but it’s also one that’s a perfect fit: an eclectic and experimental creator of songs (“songwriter” seems a touch simplistic a way to describe the way that she loops beats, whoops and ukelele), Read more ...
joe.muggs
Back on the air for their best show yet, Peter and Joe are here to take you round the world, and occasionally further afield still.In the first half they focus on the groove, with Cambodian and Mexican-Peruvian psychedelia, Brazilian rap beats, French dubstep, Polish trip-hop, Glasgow Afrobeat and Welsh rap-folktronica among others; in Part 2 they go altogether deeper, with Saharan radio recordings, Maghrebi musicians digging Stravinsky, a Japanese electronica monk and unearthed cyborg gay porn soundtracks. Enjoy the trip! Full tracklist is below. The Arts Desk 03/04/14 by Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Travelling minstrels once spread news and social commentary via song, leavening it with bawdiness, social satire and raw humour. On those terms, Lily Allen is the premier folkloric songwriter of our times. Her songs are filled with pin-sharp detail that places them right in the now, some so precisely that by the end of the year they’ll be outdated (notably the title track’s caustic crack at the girl-pop crown). If music were judged on lyrics alone Sheezus would receive a straightforward 5/5 score, for its ruthless, specific, righteous perspective on themes running from our blank-eyed i-celeb Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Anyone who remembers the critical mauling that The Horrors received on the release of their first album, 2007’s Strange House, might be surprised to learn that seven years later, they have just put out a fourth set of new songs. Not only that, but that it wouldn’t be a stretch to describe Luminous as eagerly awaited by many.However, while the release of each previous Horrors album has seen significant stylistic musical leaps, Luminous sees the band settle into the sound of 2011’s Skying and build further upon its early Simple Minds-esque template. This isn’t to say, however, that Luminous is Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Who knew the human spirit needed such bureaucratic care? The celebration of International Jazz Day, founded by UNESCO in 2011, at King’s Place last night was nothing if not well cared-for. Sponsored SGI-UK, an arm of the global Buddhist movement, who were raising funds for UNICEF, proceedings are guided globally by legendary pianist Herbie Hancock, a UNESCO Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue and Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. It bore the warning signs of art designed to appease a committee, and that’s a very different thing from making the spirit leap and the heart Read more ...
mark.kidel
Brian Eno is a born collaborator as well as a highly esteemed producer. He is one of those musicians with a strong personal signature but who work with a minimum of ego. Branded as an egghead – a barbed label which reflects as much as anything a deeply British mistrust of intelligence – Eno might seem an unlikely partner for Underworld’s Karl Hyde. But he’s, among other things, a lover of intricate rhythmic patterns – a love first revealed in the groundbreaking collaboration with David Byrne, My Life in a Bush of Ghosts, as well as a fan gospel's inspirational vibrancy. Both these Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Dreaming about teeth, teeth falling out specifically, is supposed to represent anxiety and transition. Already this year The Hold Steady have based an album around the concept and now, on his own band’s fourth album, Greg Barnett of Pennsylvania punks The Menzingers seems to be wrestling with similar visions. “Dreaming that my teeth are falling out,” he sings on “Bad Things”, the album’s second track; “I’m driving, there’s no steering wheel.”Sure, the four-piece are old hands at this by now, but it’s hard to believe that there isn’t a social subset of anxiety devoted to the album after the Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
My preconceived and somewhat misguided idea of the Cabo Verde islands (the official name for Cape Verde these days) was that they were basically a hotter version of the Canaries, with a spare and volcanic landscape that, being a Creole culture in the middle of nowhere, produced a few remarkably wistful singers, most famously the great Cesaria Evora. The islands seem to be a hothouse of tremendous female singers - other purveyors of nostalgic music being the likes of Sara Tavares, Lura and the more cosmopolitan Paris-based Mayra Andrade. On my first proper night in Praia, the capital of Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The career of Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero is an anomaly. It’s heartening that such curveballs occur, with artists taking an alternative, individual route to success. To those with any rock’n’roll romance left, it’s a sign that, even in these ADD., Tweet-trending, homogenous times, there are still unexpected ways for atypical acts to sustain a career. The pair were metal-loving Mexican teens who became virtuoso acoustic Dublin street buskers, leading to an Irish hit album and, eventually, a global career that’s seen them working on Hollywood blockbusters. Appealingly, they fit no pop Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Grace Jones: NightclubbingThe scary, steely Grace Jones persona distracts from what has always been her best aspect – the music. Of course, the image is inextricably linked but, taken on their own, her albums have the power to delight. Nightclubbing is hands-down her best album. Originally issued in 1981, it was a coherent statement sequenced like a nightclub act which had danceable peaks, toughness, the influence of Weimar-era Berlin cabaret and a reflective, sensitive conclusion which left a lingering impression. Its reissue brings an opportunity for a fresh assessment. Especially as two Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Was Britpop really two whole decades ago? As rumours fly around about an Oasis Glastonbury reunion, Noel’s nemesis Damon Albarn has certainly not stood still. After Mandarin opera, world music and fronting a cartoon band among other things, he has finally found time for his debut solo album. Everyday Robots is hardly likely to challenge Parklife in the sales department or receive retrospectives in 2034, but it is a strikingly memorable, strangely melancholy work.The tone from the start is distinctly mellow. Nothing jumps out at you but it all seeps in on repeated listens. Read more ...
Graham Fuller
The March release of North Star, Curved Air's first studio album for 38 years, was no small triumph for vocalist Sonja Kristina and drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa. Surging yet deliquescent, it echoes here and there the psychedelic pomp of the first three LPs they and original core members Francis Monkman and Darryl Way recorded at the height of the progressive rock era.Sonja Kristina Linwood was a former folkie and a two-and-a-half year veteran of the stage musical Hair when, in January 1970, she joined violinist Way and keyboardist-guitarist Monkman's classically based group Sisyphus, Read more ...