New music
Best Coast, O2 ABC2, GlasgowSunday, 17 June 2012
Best Coast has always been the quintessential California band, an identity the duo has embraced so fully that the artwork for their latest album features the bear that is the state’s mascot. It would be clichéd to remark on the unsuitability of the... Read more... |
CD: Cheryl - A Million LightsSunday, 17 June 2012
Apparently Cheryl Cole is now “the nation’s sweetheart”. These days that doesn’t mean broadcasting sung radio support to a besieged island while the Nazis plot our demise 21 miles across the English Channel. No, instead, all it requires is smiling... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Can, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Dreamboats & PetticoatsSunday, 17 June 2012
Can: The Lost TapesKieron TylerDespite being compiled from previously unreleased material, the extraordinary The Lost Tapes is as wonderful as last year's 40th Anniversary edition of Tago Mago. This archive trawl outpaces previous exhumations like... Read more... |
The Arts Desk Radio Show 4Saturday, 16 June 2012
So here it is, our fourth show of new, rare, exclusive and peculiar music - as ever recorded at Red Bull Studios with Brendon Harding ably manning the machines.As ever, the show is vaguely themed, with Peter and Joe doing their best to emphasise "... Read more... |
CD: The Smashing Pumpkins - OceaniaSaturday, 16 June 2012
Naturally it couldn't be anything as straightforward as a mere album. Rather, Smashing Pumpkins supremo Billy Corgan would have it that Oceania is "an album within an album", and that its 13 songs form a subset of the ongoing Teargarden by... Read more... |
Punk Britannia: Post-Punk (1978-1981), BBC FourSaturday, 16 June 2012
The Sex Pistols played their final live show on 14 January 1978 in San Francisco. According to the third and final programme in the Punk Britannia series, “for many, it would be the end of punk”. It certainly was for ex-Pistol John Lydon, who'd form... Read more... |
Hilary Hahn & Hauschka: Video ExclusiveFriday, 15 June 2012
We're extremely happy to have the first viewing of this beautiful video by Grammy-nominated director Eric Epstein for Hilary Hahn and Hauschka's “Draw a Map”. Its perhaps the most completely realised audio-visual summing up of the area of music that... Read more... |
Sparks, Bush HallThursday, 14 June 2012
It is always easy to remember the first time: 11 November, 1974, Hammersmith Odeon. Sparks. I cannot recall the exact seat where I was sitting when I lost my rock 'n' roll virginity, but it was the second stalls block on the left and the seasoned... Read more... |
CD: Neneh Cherry & The Thing - The Cherry ThingThursday, 14 June 2012
As all the background information to this new release can be found in Nick Levine’s recent interview with Neneh Cherry for theartsdesk, let's get straight down to scrutinising the music. For this serious contender for album of the year deserves more... Read more... |
BLINQ, Ronnie Scott'sWednesday, 13 June 2012
If this gig by the new vocal supergroup, BLINQ, had to be summed up by a musical expression, then poco a poco crescendo would fit the bill rather nicely. The group, Brendan Reilly, Liane Carroll, Ian Shaw, Natalie Williams, plus the Mercury Prize... Read more... |
CD: Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...Wednesday, 13 June 2012
When your albums tend to drop into a frenzy of anticipation after gaps of six or seven years, the creation of a certain mythology becomes inevitable. So much has been written in certain circles about Fiona Apple since the release of 2005’s... Read more... |
Mike Doughty, BorderlineTuesday, 12 June 2012
The solid, shiny band sound on New Yorker Mike Doughty’s most recent solo album Yes And Also Yes was a reason to get very excited about the prospect of him visiting the UK to do some live concerts. But then a couple of weeks ago a new live double CD... Read more... |
