New music
CD: Meat Loaf – Hell in a HandbasketMonday, 20 February 2012
When I heard that Meat Loaf's new album was called Hell in a Handbasket I thought for moment that this lover of rock operatics might have decided to set the collected scribbles of Richard Littlejohn to music. If that thought chills your marrow brace... Read more... |
Carolina Chocolate Drops: Leaving Eden and Moving OnMonday, 20 February 2012
Something falls with a clatter from one of Dom Flemons’s pockets. The Carolina Chocolate Drops’s banjo player, guitarist and all-round picker and plucker has a lot of pockets. Earlier, he’d produced a pipe from one, a tobacco pouch and tuning pipes... Read more... |
CD: Tindersticks – The Something RainSunday, 19 February 2012
Nottingham's Tindersticks were always a band out of time. They may have had something of the night about them when they started two decades ago, but they were too late for the Nick Cave-franchised post-goth party. By the time they had brightened up... Read more... |
CD: Nanci Griffith - IntersectionSaturday, 18 February 2012
Nanci Griffith, the Lone Star State’s dirty realist, has done much of her better work with a Democrat in the White House. I remember interviewing her once soon after the first Gulf War, when she was glum about the prospect of George Bush Snr walking... Read more... |
theASHtray: Whitney, bin men, and the NPG's 'incautious' acquisitionsSaturday, 18 February 2012
Right, out with it: who else had their Valentine’s dinner-out ruined by 36 consecutive requests for Whitney Houston? Not even the entire back-catalogue, either: just “(And I-ee-I-ee-) I…”, over and over.I mean, the basic message is all right, I... Read more... |
Whitney Houston: The Legacy of an R&B DivaThursday, 16 February 2012
Of the many statements and tributes coming from peers and fans following the death of Whitney Houston last Saturday, perhaps the most unlikely of all was the one from the website of Diamanda Galás. One mightn't have imagined the most fiercely... Read more... |
CD: Sleigh Bells - Reign of TerrorThursday, 16 February 2012
Ah, the difficult second album. Except that’s a music hack cliche, isn’t it, rarely a statement of truth. Sleigh Bells sprang fully-formed and perfect, as if from nowhere, back in 2010, and if they have a tough act in following their bombastic debut... Read more... |
Ren Harvieu, Lexington ArmsThursday, 16 February 2012
Five minutes before stage time at the Lexington, the latest retro-soul diva from the mighty Universal conglomerate hovered outside the ladies’ toilet downstairs, holding a crutch and looking decidedly nervous. Ren Harvieu was one of the nominees in... Read more... |
CD: Band of Skulls - Sweet SourWednesday, 15 February 2012
The credibility of blues-rock has ebbed and flowed wildly for 40 years. Once upon a time it was simply the common currency for all major British and American rock bands, as exemplified by Led Zeppelin. Punk’s Seventies heyday put the kybosh on all... Read more... |
Valentine Birthdays on the TubeTuesday, 14 February 2012
What could be more romantic than watching and listening to singers born on Valentine's Day rhapsodising about L.O.V.E.? We have love songs on video from Russia, Japan, Tunisia, America and the Czech Republic. Or if not love exactly, then how about... Read more... |
The Grammys: A Night of Surprises?Monday, 13 February 2012
Well, who could have predicted that? For once the Grammys proved that the US recording industry establishment is up for the challenge of reflecting the sense of a world in social and cultural flux by throwing surprise after surprise, bombshell after... Read more... |
CD: Porcelain Raft – Strange WeekendMonday, 13 February 2012
Remember Primal Scream’s woozy “Higher Than the Sun”? It’s a fair bet Mauro Remiddi does. His debut album as Porcelain Raft drifts through 10 foggy songs as disconnected, yet warmly melodic, as that era-defining excursion through the ether.Italian... Read more... |
