New music
peter.quinn
McCartney and Wonder. Jagger and Bowie. Mullard and Baker. Music history teaches us that the star collaboration doesn't always transmute into artistic gold. The Chairman of the Board himself, with a little help from Vandross, Streisand, Bono et al, had a spectacular misfire with Duets Vol 1. Mercilessly butchering many of Francis Albert's best-known songs, the results, artistically speaking, aren't so much a case of, “Yeah, I once recorded with Sinatra, you know,” as, “Number of copies: entire stock. Ship to: my private nuclear bunker.” And that title, Duets, is a bit rich. But then Frank Read more ...
joe.muggs
Simon Raymonde's Bella Union label occupies an enviable position within the music world. Successfully (although, as you'll see below, only just) weathering the travails of an industry beset by downloading and market fragmentation, it enters the 14th year of its existence strong and confident, with an impressive roster of maverick artists with actual or potential mainstream appeal. But then Raymonde knows a thing or two about making the weird popular: as part of the Cocteau Twins from 1979 to 1997 he brought some really intensely strange and beautiful music to mass audiences around the world. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Clichés about the frozen North aside, music from the Nordic countries is often described as redolent of glacial landscapes or icy wastelands. But the music of percussionist Terje Isungset goes further – his instruments are carved from Norwegian ice. Pulled up from the depths, his ice is 600 years old, crystal clear with no imperfections. Ice Music is literally that: music played on ice. Patting bars, hitting blocks and blowing through his ice trumpet, Isungset reflects Norway’s environment like no one else. We may have recently reported on music made by ice-cream vans, but this was music Read more ...
joe.muggs
2010 saw some major shifts stirring up the UK club music ecosystem and unleashing some fascinating hybrids and variants of existing sounds out into the wild. As the hefty bass of dubstep muscled its way firmly into the heart of the mainstream, everything else was forced to rearrange its position, with some surprising results. The most aggressive sounds proved to have a sensitive or celebratory side, the hoariest old rhythms were given a new lease of life and – despite the supposed globalisation of the weird wired world – highly localised club scenes were once more at the forefront of Read more ...
theartsdesk
In the next instalment of our Year Out/Year In series, theartsdesk's New Music writers cast a critical eye over 2010, and offer some recommendations for 2011, incorporating some very funky videos. Our selection of recommended albums from the past year ranges wildly over electronica, world, jazz, indie, rock and folk. We also note some disasters and sad losses. Written by Howard Male, Peter Culshaw, Russ Coffey, Peter Quinn, Bruce Dessau, Kieron Tyler and Thomas H Green.PETER CULSHAWGood things about 2010 Brad Mehldau's surpisingly successful mix of classical, film and jazz music for the Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Captain Beefheart, who with his Magic Band made John Peel’s favourite album, 1969’s extraordinary Trout Mask Replica, died of complications from multiple sclerosis last week, aged 69. In tribute, below is a feature from 2003, much of it unpublished till now, in which members of several incarnations of The Magic Band reminisce about their tyrannical, brilliant leader, and the jaw-dropping story of Trout Mask Replica’s creation. At the time I spoke to them, the Captain was living in the desert, a reclusive but successful painter known as Don Van Vliet who had been a minor star in the Read more ...
graeme.thomson
At one point in Joe Dunlop’s Boy's Own adventure-style dramatisation of the events leading up to Live Aid, concert promoter Harvey Goldsmith asked Bob Geldof: “Why are you doing it, that’s the question?” I’ve interviewed Geldof on a number of occasions and there’s no doubting either the sincerity or enduring nature of his commitment to Band Aid. I’m not sure, however, that I or anyone else, and certainly not this film, has ever quite got to the bottom of Goldsmith's question. Why Geldof? Why Ethiopia? And why couldn't he let go?By 1985 Geldof was a washed-up pop star looking not only for Read more ...
theartsdesk
Yesterday was yesterday. Today there's the rest of the week. What are the options? You could go to the shops and exchange all your presents, or you could pursue something more in the cultural line. To which end, theartsdesk is delighted to propose some suggestions. Our writers strongly recommend that you do one or more of the following while opportunity knocks. ENGLAND LondonVisit a Georgian medicine cabinet. London is full of treasures which fail to register on the public radar. One such gem is The Symons Collection at the Royal College of Physicians in Regent's Park. The display Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Over the last 25 years I've done a lot of DJing, or at least playing records in public that, occasionally, people have been refreshed enough to dance to. I've done sets in all manner of scenarios, from nightclubs to house parties, to gallery events, to a Finnish festival in front of thousands, to a Balham comedy club. The last used to pay me £300 a night to play the same cheese and predictability week after week, but one evening when I put on "Fools Gold" by The Stone Roses and my heart sank with boredom, I knew it was time to get out, £300 or no £300.So what is an "unexpected party Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
"Compared to the way I feel now", said Ray Davies 50 minutes in, “having a nervous breakdown was a jaunt.” His voice was even, matter of fact. He didn’t look distressed, merely appeared to be stating what he thinks is obvious. Julian Temple’s documentary about The Kinks’s leader and songwriter was packed with such moments – revealing and so open that it was impossible not to be affected by Davies’s low-key passion. This assured portrait was more than the story of a pop star. With Davies as a unique guide, Temple captured an alternative portrait of how the Sixties unfolded.The broadcast of Ray Read more ...
sue.steward
"The way I keep in touch with the world… is very gingerly… because the world touches too hard." That honest and hugely poignant statement by the musician, composer, songwriter, painter and full-on eccentric Captain Beefheart comes from a documentary film by Anton Corbijn titled Don van Vliet: Some Yo Yo Stuff (1994). His staccato delivery is a clue to the terrible toll of sharing his life for decades with multiple sclerosis, but it also feels like a comment on those who just didn’t "get" his music, his performances and his shimmeringly surreal conversations. It carries extra meaning now that Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
When theartsdesk asked Simply Red’s PR company for some pictures of the band to accompany this review, the images sent were of Mick Hucknall – alone. Which is probably all you need to know about who Simply Red are. Last night’s audience at this, Simply Red’s final ever live show, needed no reminding that it was all about Hucknall, however he’s billed. For them, his arrival on stage after the band had set the groove drew more applause than the music.What’s been billed as Simply Red Farewell, The Final Tour began in April in Brazil. Since then, it has wound intermittently through Britain, the Read more ...