New music
Russ Coffey
Talk about not going gentle into that good night. In the year or so since Wilko Johnson announced he had terminal cancer, he has stunned doctors and fans alike by giving a string of blistering concerts and candid interviews. But Going Back Home - a retrospective LP featuring Roger Daltrey on vocals – is, surely, his final parting shot. It's also an ambition fulfilled. For the two men have long admired each other and Daltrey remarked in a recent interview how they were inspired by the same American R’n’B.Johnson then chipped in, “Don’t matter how hard you try, you can’t sound like you’re from Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: Lou Adler – A Musical HistoryLou Adler is more than a stitch in rock’s rich tapestry. Akin to a whole spool of yarn, he helped Carole King realise the monumental Tapestry, was integral to making 1967’s epochal Monterey Festival happen, brought The Mamas & The Papas to the world and co-wrote Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World”. Adler is a towering figure in music. Lou Adler – A Musical History is an overview, collecting records he masterminded. A reminder that the achievements did not spring from nowhere, the disc frames this man within the world he operated in.Many names Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Belinda Carlisle (b. 1958) grew up in Los Angeles, one of seven siblings. In her late teens she was lured into California’s nascent punk scene, becoming briefly involved with one of its premier bands, The Germs. She went on to form The Go-Go’s with singer-songwriter Jane Wiedlin (and eventually a long-term line-up consisting of Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock and Kathy Valentine, the last leaving last year in acrimonious circumstances). After spending time in the UK in 1980, touring with various 2 Tone bands, they released a single on Stiff Records, “We Got the Beat”.Returning to LA, the Go-Go’ Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Out on the fringes of rock there ain’t half some noisy bastards. It’s not just Wire magazine-friendly, supposedly cerebral sorts who push the boundaries, not just avant-garde industrialists, Finns making “tone music” and Japanese gentlemen with vast arrays of effects pedals, every one bearing a manifesto quoting Deleuze, Nietsche et al. Nope, sometimes there’s just a visceral joy in pushing music far over the edge, and it can be done on the cheap after a few pints, just for kicks.Gabber does it, or used to, and certain varieties of puerile yet enjoyable drill’n’bass too, but there are more Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Liars are well known for trying different musical styles. In times past, we’ve had the punk funk of 2010’s "Proud Evolution", the industrial noise of 2007’s “Dear God”, 2006’s freak folk “The Other Side of Mt Heart Attack” and the psychedelic garage rock of 2008’s “Freak Out”, to name a few. On their last album, 2012’s WIXIW, Liars tentatively dipped their collective toe into the world of electronica. Mess sees the band expand on this by giving their keyboards a good kicking, dropping their guitars and coming out with some seriously dark electronic sounds, reminiscent of Black Strobe’s Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Seb Rochford’s five-piece Polar Bear is now ten years old, and the band's post-jazz amalgam of lugubrious saxophone phrases and scratchy riffs, scarified electronic soundscapes, and mesmeric, crackling drum and bass rhythms has matured. The giddy thrills of nearly winning the Mercury Prize (with Held on the Tips of Fingers in 2005) are long past, and they seem content with the trappings of the alternative scene, releasing limited edition vinyl and selling inscrutable T-shirts. That stability of identity has, perhaps, contributed to a subtler, slower-burning sound that lets the details breathe Read more ...
joe.muggs
Bernd “Burnt” Friedman is one of the most relentlessly questing of experimental musicians. In over 30 years of making music and 25 years of releasing it, he has specialised in researching ancient, hypermodern and as-yet-undiscovered methods of soundmaking, including traditional and home-built instruments and the application of high-tech methodologies to established forms from around the world, in particular jazz, western club sounds, and African and Japanese styles.A tireless collaborator with a staggering array of other musicians, he has formed long-running partnerships with other genre- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Lost in the Dream takes a while to make its presence felt. Four tracks in, with “An Ocean in Between the Waves”, it all falls into place. A frosted-glass take on the Bruce Springsteen of “I’m on Fire” washes out from the speakers and submerges the ears in a warm bath. Familiar-sounding yet just alien enough to attract attention, the song builds upon itself to climax with a crescendo which could easily win a stadium audience over.Although an early home for the pre-solo Kurt Vile, until Lost in the Dream The War on Drugs has largely been the one-man band of Philadelphia’s Adam Granduciel. He Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Jane Birkin: Mes Images Privées de Serge / Françoise Hardy: Message PersonnelThe bond between Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin still resonates. They met while on the set of the film Slogan in 1969 and were soon a headline-grabbing couple. Although they separated in 1980 and he died in 1991, Birkin still recorded his songs and continues to do so. Françoise Hardy’s public profile was more measured, but she was and is central to the fabric of French culture. The coincidence of these two releases being issued in the UK at the same time is about more than each being French. Gainsbourg also wrote Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Julian Siegel’s urbane, generically layered voice has, as both reeds player and composer, forged a unique and revered position in the jazz world. He leads a quartet of pioneering drive and technique, featuring pianist Liam Noble, bass player Oli Hayhurst and drummer Gene Calderazzo. Their 2011 album Urban Theme Park was widely praised for its improvising ambition, diverse sound worlds and smouldering virtuosity.He has a distinguished presence in jazz-rock in the form of the band Partisans, co-founded nearly 20 years ago with the guitarist Phil Robson, and also leads a trio with Joey Baron and Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Lily Allen, which you can call a victory for the omnipresent don’t-call-it-a-comeback PR campaign surrounding her forthcoming album. Specifically I’ve been thinking about how I was far less cynical in my early 20s, when I honestly believed that this girl with the trainers and the attitude had created something new: pop music that sounded like the sort of loud-mouthed, heart-on-sleeve, imperfect person that I was. Lately I’ve been rolling my eyes at the calculated controversy of the week, clicking quickly past the mediocre new songs those controversies Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Reinvention is the way of the 21st-century diva, cloaking in the latest bright sonic colours. Kylie, the Australian girl-next-door and occasional British national treasure, has a track record of trying on new styles to see if they fit and her career is sprinkled with a few diamonds as a result. This latest incarnation, however, her twelfth album, is a stylistic (if not actual) return to where she started, the vapid, candy-coated monstrosities of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, albeit updated to blank-eyed, uber-compressed, post-Rihanna EDM-pop du jour. In other words, it mostly sounds like Read more ...