New music
matilda.battersby
Kate Rusby’s Christmas show was a brilliant way to get that festive feeling. Standing on a stage lit by three huge glittering stars and a collection of colourful glowing baubles, she and her band (“the boys”) worked their way through a surprising and heartwarming selection of traditional carols, set to unusual tunes and with creative flare.The Barnsley Nightingale’s version of “While Shepherd’s Watch their Flock by Night” was set to the tune of “On Ilkley Moor Bar T'at”. It was extraordinary. She sang “And this shall be the sign” instead of the bar t’at bit. At every introduction of a new Read more ...
david.cheal
Let’s hope that the first posthumously released Amy Winehouse album is also the last; not because it’s in any way bad – actually it’s a pretty decent collection of songs from throughout her career – but because “pretty decent” is about as good as it gets. After this, if there’s anything left, it will surely only be the sound of a barrel being scraped.Assembled by Winehouse producers Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson, it’s a patchwork of alternative versions, some newer stuff, some bits and bobs, plus her famous duet from earlier this year with Tony Bennett. What shines through immediately – and Read more ...
howard.male
Some critics have lazily compared Baloji to Somali rapper K’nann: both are African rappers who had lucky childhood escapes from countries about to descend into war and chaos, but beyond that they seem to have quite different approaches to what they do. K’naan is as much a pop musician and poet as he is a hip-hop artist, firmly concentrating on melody, song structure and hooks. Whereas Baloji, at least on the evidence of this album, seems to want to engage more with roots music while finding ways for his rhymes to fit in with already established musical idioms.So Kinshasa bands Zaiko Langa- Read more ...
marcus.odair
A Hawk and a Hacksaw began a decade or so ago as a solo project, when Jeremy Barnes stopped drumming with indie-folk cult heroes Neutral Milk Hotel. It was with the 2004 addition of violinist Heather Trost, however, that the sound was found: a peculiar, and occasionally mariachi-tinged, take on East European folk.The pair have subsequently toured with Portishead and Calexico, and worked with Beirut’s Zach Condon on his bestselling 2006 album Gulag Orkestar. This, however, must be their most imaginative project yet: a live soundtrack to a 1964 film by the Armenian director Sergei Paradjanov. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It catches everyone out that Duran Duran’s version of the hip-hop classic “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” comes off so well. Not just affable entertainment but actually fiercely funky, raising a large section of the Brighton Centre to its feet. Duran’s 1995 covers album Thank You – from which the song comes - was once voted by Q magazine as the worst album ever, but looking around at the enthused reaction, including my own, that all seems rather irrelevant. Midway through their set, Duran Duran are a persuasive force.The four Durans – Nick Rhodes (keys), Simon Le Bon (vocals), John Taylor ( Read more ...
Russ Coffey
If anyone tells you that Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra (1969) wasn’t a masterpiece then they’re an idiot. In fact, it was, more or less, the only successful use of an orchestra with a rock band ever. Now, 40 years on, a pensionable Purple have hit the road again with a full symphony orchestra. But they’re not playing the Concerto. They’re playing their hits. Critically, they’re performing them without founding keyboardist, Jon Lord, and guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore. So, at 8.30pm when support band Cheap Trick had failed to ignite the room, even with a five-necked guitar, a 12 Read more ...
matilda.battersby
Can the Hanson brothers ever rid themselves of the shackles of “MMMBop” (the 1997 hit that brought them global renown)? More to the point, should they bother to try? These were the burning questions I armed myself with as I prepared to watch a band whose progress, it’s fair to say, I’ve hardly followed in the last 15 years since their falsetto singing and rambunctious head-banging brought the world such joy. So, having done some serious mugging up, and listened to their back catalogue, I was interested to see where fortune would have taken the clean-cut trio with the flowing blond hair.As Read more ...
Russ Coffey
For a couple of uber-hip rock nerds, The Black Keys do often still make pretty conventional music. After flirting with hip hop on the Blakroc project (and some of that mentality rubbing off on 2010’s release, Brothers), it’s back to straightforward, if sophisticated, blues-rock for the Ohio-based duo. But if there’s not much that's groundbreaking or experimental here, it’s all pretty likeable stuff: the sort of material that gives unchallenging listening a good name.By resting the Seventies guitarscape over rhythms that are more Fifties and Sixties in tone, Auerbach and Carney have given El Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Asked what attracted her to the music of South America, Catherine Ringer says, “C’est comme ça. Boom-ta-ta-boom, ta-ta-boom, ta-ta-boom-da boom, boom-da-da-boom.” She begins singing. “Boom-da-boom-da-boom, doo-doo-da-doo. It’s the rhythm of rock'n’roll,” she concludes. Ringer still exudes the spontaneity that defined Les Rita Mitsouko, whose first French hit, "Marcia Baïla", was fuelled by Latin rhythms. Yet now, she’s on her own, in London promoting her first solo album, Ring n’ Roll, released here this week. Her partner Fred Chichin died in November 2007.He’s gone, but Ringer says, “There Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“LSF” is unarguably a monster of a song. In fact, that whole of Kasabian's self-titled 2004 debut album was a cracker, but seeing the entire sold-out Brighton Centre, balconies and all, on their feet, hands aloft, as one, singing the wordless backing chorus of “LSF” is quite a thing. Even when they stop, and five of the six band members wander off, skinny rake guitarist Sergio Pizzorno stays back and conducts the crowd. He keeps walking away from the lip of the stage, teasing and then turning round and throwing his arms in the air, leading them onwards and upwards. The crowd don’t stop Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Dan Treacy of the TV Personalities told a magazine that, “If the word cult ever described a band then it’s The Callas.” Given that his own band are one of the ultimate British cult groups, that’s saying something. The TV Personalities reference is apt, for The Callas have supported them and have a certain amount of the same shambolic charm, as well as the same art-world aspirations. The Callas’s Ionas brothers, Aris and Lakis, are involved in organising exhibitions of their artwork and early editions of the album arrive decorated with their personalised handiwork. When they get together with Read more ...
graeme.thomson
There are many reasons to love the music of Randy Newman, who turns 68 today. For starters he’s a renowned ironist and a caustic wit who is nevertheless capable of being as emotionally straight as any heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriter. The man who wrote “I Think it’s Going to Rain Today”, now a bona fide American standard, “I Miss You” and “Real Emotional Girl” could hardly be said to be all surface and no feeling.What else? He is a cool, scholarly musician's musician yet also a master wordsmith, a combination far rarer than it might seem. He is the Grammy and Oscar-winning composer of a Read more ...