New music
theartsdesk in Pula: Dubstep's Croatian conferenceThursday, 13 September 2012
It's a truism in dance music culture that “everyone's a DJ nowadays”. It's generally meant in a flip, pejorative sense – suggesting that cheap technology means every man Jack and his dog can put a sequence of records together and the role is somehow... Read more... |
Larry Graham & Graham Central Station, Clapham GrandThursday, 13 September 2012
At 66 Larry Graham remains a remarkably supple, handsome man. The huge afro that once towered over him is long gone but the ability to pluck and thump the funkiest rhythms on earth from his white bass remains unmatched. Graham made his name as... Read more... |
CD: P!nk - The Truth About LoveWednesday, 12 September 2012
It's hard to hear P!nk without thinking of the kind of “punks” that scowl in the corners of American high-school movies, possibly befriending some “nerds”, revealing a sensitive side, and/or standing up to a “jock” at some crucial point in the plot... Read more... |
The Killers, RoundhouseWednesday, 12 September 2012
The moment everyone will remember came exactly an hour in: Brandon Flowers was singing “All These Things That I've Done” with the conviction of a man at confession. Behind him a video screen showed a loner carrying a long wooden sign on his... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Bestival 2012: Wild Times Across the WaterWednesday, 12 September 2012
Friday 7th September“Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones famously came to Keith Richards in a dream. Now it haunts mine. Not their classic version, though, oh no. Within an hour of pitching up my tent, setting sausages on the disposable barbecue and... Read more... |
CD: The Killers – Battle BornWednesday, 12 September 2012
The showbiz titibit that has intrigued me more than any other in recent weeks is the story that comedian Jimmy Carr helped to inspire one of the tracks on The Killers’ fourth album. The Lloyd Cole lookalike apparently suggested to Brandon Flowers... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Berlin Festival and Music WeekTuesday, 11 September 2012
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter who you are. You might be a charismatic performer, or the most energetic band in the world. But some settings can’t be outperformed. Holding Berlin Festival at the city’s astonishing out-of-commission Tempelhof airport... Read more... |
CD: Django Bates' Belovèd - ConfirmationTuesday, 11 September 2012
Django Bates has commented that he probably first heard the music of Charlie Parker while still in the womb. Parker's music has thus been part of his musical make up ab ovo, as it were. This brilliant follow-up to Bates' 2010 Parker tribute Belovèd... Read more... |
Lady Gaga, Twickenham StadiumSunday, 09 September 2012
After Lady Gaga's concert at Twickenham last night, I asked some of the Little Monsters scurrying back to the station the name of the last song she had sung. The song she sang right after declaring that she had to bring the evening to an early end.... Read more... |
CD: Bob Dylan - TempestSunday, 09 September 2012
Like Orpheus, Bob Dylan is familiar with the underworld. As he gets closer to meeting his maker, the tone of his work has become less baroque, increasingly stripped down and almost naïve in its simplicity. His latest album marks another episode,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Lee "Scratch" Perry, Cud, Taj Mahal, David CassidySunday, 09 September 2012
Lee “Scratch” Perry and Friends: Disco Devil - The Jamaican DiscomixesThomas H GreenAs bass culture conquers the musical universe, with even Justin Bieber diving into dubstep waters and gnarly electro-goth Skrillex one of the biggest earning new... Read more... |
Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard, The Haunt, BrightonFriday, 07 September 2012
Astonishment is the emotion that creeps up most often when watching 36-year-old New York singer-songwriter Jeffrey Lewis. The term singer-songwriter does him an injustice, in fact, for these days it summons notions of strummed predictability,... Read more... |
