Sometimes you hear something new and your perspective on music shifts seismically, making everything you were listening to previously sound safe and predictable by comparison. Inevitably, as one gets older and more musically knowledgeable, such moments are fewer and further between; either the shock of the new isn’t as high-voltage as it used to be, or it just irritates rather than stimulates. And so it was a pleasant surprise when, one morning – heralded by a storm of tape hiss and an enthusiastically bashed tribal drum – a new band called tUnE-yArDs (aka Merrill Garbus) came at me from the Read more ...

Dubstep has now permeated pop. Drum and bass was the last British underground bass music to rub up against the mainstream but back in the mid-Nineties the major labels didn't know what to do with it. Apart from launching Goldie's career and leading David Bowie up another excruciating dead end, it failed commercially. Dubstep, on the other hand, has been eagerly embraced by US stars - Jay-Z, Rihanna and Britney Spears, to name three - and UK acts such as Chase and Status, Skream, and Magnetic Man have stormed the charts. This assimilation is invigorating but sometimes, when the latest Read more ...

"How terribly strange to be 70", sang Simon and Garfunkel in "Old Friends", back in 1968. Paul Simon will be 70 in October, so this isn't a bad time for him to be taking a panoramic look at life, love, loss and the universe in this latest set of songs (it's his first since 2006's Surprise).One of the things Simon has left far behind is his mid-Sixties sophomore self, who wrote earnest songs performed with worried sincerity. Today's wizened veteran is more wry and sardonic, but has reached greater understanding, as suggested in his prediction of what the hereafter will look like in "The Read more ...

How much did I like this show? Well, here’s a clue: at the end, the only really bad thing I could think of was that the bass guitar could have been a bit louder. I’ve seen David Gray on stage quite a few times now, and this was easily the most satisfying show, the one that did justice to his voice, his music, his songs, and especially his lyrics, which were, almost uniquely for such an event, audible and understandable almost word for word.Ever since he had a hit 12 years ago with the folktronic “Babylon”, David Gray has become the man that the pop cognoscenti like to sneer at; a singer- Read more ...

Although record producer Martin Rushent was firmly identified with the punk and post-punk eras, the biggest records he had worked on before then were those of Shirley Bassey. His production of The Human League’s epoch-defining Dare changed that.Rushent was a freelance producer and studio engineer – mainly working with artists signed to the United Artists label. It was his enthusiasm that got The Stranglers signed to UA. Before that, he had worked with anyone from prog-rockers Curved Air to pop fodder like David Essex. He’d engineered the T-Rex album Electric Warrior as well.But it was the Read more ...

A potent combination of growling electronics, sub-bass frequencies and expressive vocals seems to have moved back to the centre of the UK's pop landscape in recent months, whether via the likes of James Blake, Magnetic Man or even the unlikely sound of Britney Spears appropriating dubstep signifiers on her new record. All of which makes the arrival in the UK of Canadian duo Bonjay seem very timely indeed.Having met at a Toronto club night in 2006, vocalist Alanna Stuart and producer/instrumentalist Ian Swain (aka DJ Pho) acquired a kind of inadvertent cult status through a succession of Read more ...

Music from Norway can have moods and textures that aren’t found elsewhere. Templates are thrown away and boundaries between genres are non-existent, bringing a thrilling unpredictability. Huntsville, a three-piece with roots in improv music, jazz and folk, take a repetition rooted in Krautrock and imbue it with the organic feel of Americana – they’ve previously collaborated with members of Wilco. The opening cut of third album For Flowers, Cars and Merry Wars, the almost-19-minute title track, journeys into inner space and compresses time. Once over, the ride seems as though it’s barely begun Read more ...

A question passed through my mind before last night’s Donovan show. Special guests were billed for this celebration of his classic psychedelic album Sunshine Superman. Perhaps they'd include Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page, both of whom played on Donovan's records in the Sixties. Then, introducing “Sunshine Superman”, Donovan mentions the then-session player Jimmy Page, who walks on and joins in. Seeing Page reunited with his pre-Led Zeppelin, pre-Yardbirds session man self was incredible. Needless to say, he played great. Donovan shone.Although Donovan got off to a flying start, scoring a residency Read more ...

They started as a band of hyper-accomplished musicians aiming to play fiddly electronica in a guitar-band format and thereby creating a rather witty new kind of progressive rock. Now, minus key member Tyondai Braxton but plus a few leftfield star guests, Battles are playing a neat line in chugging heavy metal calypso techno dub punk pop. No, the notion of genre in the 21st century doesn't get any easier, does it? But preposterous definitions aside, a lot of this record boogies along with a surprising amount of fun given its makers' conspicuous virtuosity and the hodge-podge of influences Read more ...

This month sees an audacious attempt to showcase British dancehall music, when the Cargo venue in Shoreditch hosts the multi-artist revue Showtime!. The Heatwave collective have brought together vocalists from various UK underground scenes, linked by a strong influence from the high-energy Jamaican sounds of the past 30 or so years. While many of the artists involved have found success in crossover scenes like rave, jungle, grime and garage, the appeal of dancehall itself (also known by the overlapping terms bashment and ragga) has traditionally been restricted to predominantly black Read more ...

Over the past five years, Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara have made two albums and an EP together, but it’s only now that they’ve got round to doing what most bands can’t wait to do, which is give themselves a groovy band name. Even though I’m a poo-pooer of most band names (they’re usually either stupid or pretentious, or both) I actually rather like "JuJu". The double “ju” represents the first two letters of Adams’s and Camara’s first names, and the resulting word has a nicely sinister black-magic ring to it. It also has the onomatopoeic bonus of sounding like the band sounds, with their Read more ...