New music
Jasper Rees
“I was a very good soprano.” Of all the sentences you’d not expect to hear tumbling from the mouth of Keith Richards, that one is up there with "Tap water for me, please, and I do hope this vegan restaurant is non-smoking." He has the addled larynx of a Fag Ash Lil who, when not mopping and dusting, perches on a barstool glugging gin and puffing on Bensons. But once upon a time little Richards did once sing for the Queen. Got a free bus ride up to the London and all, he recalled with a wide-eyed cackle. When his voice broke and he was relieved of his cassock, he was most put out. “We sang our Read more ...
bruce.dessau
It is not easy to kickstart a fresh musical career after you've been in a painfully fashionable – and intermittently brilliant – band. It is even harder when this is your second bash at starting out again. And harder still when a couple of months ago you trousered enough money to keep you in leather jackets for a lifetime by briefly reforming that original band for a pair of festival cameos. Yet last night erstwhile Libertine and ex-Dirty Pretty Thing Carl Barât did enough to suggest that, if he digs his heels in, his personal rock drama might have a memorable third act yet.Barât's recent Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel has professed a kinship with Roy Orbison and his grand musical dramas, it’s John Cale that she covers on her debut album. Choosing the slow-burning “I Keep A Close Watch” from 1975’s Helen Of Troy (Cale re-recorded it in 1982 on Music For A New Society) is telling. Not only does Obel look for and seek to telegraph emotion, she is allying herself with performers and songwriters recognised as passionate and heartfelt. After her openness, it’s fair to ask whether Obel is similarly affecting. Of course though, both Orbison and Cale have had a few years Read more ...
joe.muggs
Here, we present the exclusive first showing of a new video by the Brighton/London band Belleruche. This clip for “Fuzz Face” is highly arresting, an ingenious and slightly disturbing collision of hi and low-tech, made using thousands of photocopies, and its indicative of a band who are taking some very interesting ideas into the mainstream. But more importantly from theartsdesk's point of view, Belleruche's increasing profile is indicative of a broader cultural shift in the music world.Watch the video for "Fuzz Face" by Belleruche:
Although they have brought rock and hip-hop elements into Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In 1920s London, those who could afford to indulged in a craze for wild parties - pyjama parties, sailor parties, pool parties - the wilder the better, with American jazzers such as the Blackbirds Revue providing the stomping music. Resplendent in glittering finery at the heart of this social whirl was a new generation who rejected the dark tragedy of World War I in favour of sheer hedonism.At the time their names were splashed across newspaper society pages every day - the stunning society beauty Lady Diana Manners, the middle-class arriviste and genius novelist Evelyn Waugh, the Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
“It’s not often you get a global superstar down at the Elephant and Castle,” marvelled a local who spent the evening dancing like a dervish to the infectious music of Manu Chao, who had breezed into London for a rare show last night off the back of a short tour of Japan and the West Coast of America. The first person I saw as an usher was Colombian philosopher Oscar Guardiola-Rivera whose book What if Latin America Ruled the World? suggests - among many other things - that the US is becoming the next Latin American country. Like the others he was wearing a Colombiage T-shirt - the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The music of Sibelius might speak of Finland, its unpopulated spaces, vast inland lakes, semi-Arctic climate and long, dark nights, but the annual Lost in Music festival brings together a bewildering array of Finnish bands and singers that range from rockabilly and ska to introspective folk and – of course, the national staple – heavy metal. It's hard to forget Lordi, the monster-costumed heavy-metal outfit that won the Eurovision song contest for Finland in 2006. But, as Sibelius might have agreed, an axe-wielding man in a latex mask is just one aspect of Finnish culture.It's true, though, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Andy McCluskey (b 1959) is singer and frontman of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, one of the most successful groups of the late Seventies and early Eighties electro-pop boom. They reformed five years ago but have been in no rush to dive into things, finally releasing a new album, History of Modern, this autumn.The other person at the heart of OMD is McCluskey's creative partner Paul Humphries, and the classic line-up also contains multi-instrumentalist Martin Cooper and drummer Malcolm Holmes.The group began in earnest in 1978, signing their debut single "Electricity" to Tony Wilson's Read more ...
theartsdesk
It began with a review of 100 Years of German Song. Roused by a comment to a reader (see Igor's comment below), Fisun was moved to email Igor in support of his trenchant views on arts funding. It wasn't long before other writers at theartsdesk got involved and an eruption of lively and passionate emails followed. Some of these views may surprise our readers, some will undoubtedly annoy. But we at theartsdesk have decided to go ahead and publish, unedited, our unrehearsed and spontaneous exchange. We hope you'll enjoy, and join in, the debate.It began with a review of 100 Years of German Song Read more ...
howard.male
Paradoxically, the greater the number of established artists you find yourself comparing a new talent to, the more original you are eventually forced to conclude this new talent is. So let’s get those comparisons out of the way: this Kansas City gal sounds a bit like Cassandra Wilson, Joan Armatrading, Me’Shell NdegéOcello, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, Bob Dylan, Bill Withers… and the list could go on. But more importantly Krystle Warren already seems to exude the same kind of gravitas as all of this illustrious roll call.I have to confess it was not what I was expecting. A Read more ...
Russ Coffey
First up, a confession. I’m one of those who’ve never considered KT Tunstall to be quite the real deal. She’s sometimes described as indie, but I’ve always found her more background music for filling out a tax form to than someone to help you through a lost weekend. On a recent single she sings about being “still a weirdo”, but it comes over to me about as convincingly as Guy Ritchie’s accent. Weirdo? That cutesy Sino-Scottish face and Jimmy Krankie accent are only a curio when stacked up against mainstream AOR, which is clearly what she doesn’t want to be. To me she’s indie-lite. Or Melua- Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
McDonald's (the hamburger people) are rarely acknowledged for their contributions to the arts, but without them we may never have witnessed the meteoric rise of composer Eric Whitacre. When he was 14, he heard a casting call on the radio for a McDonald's TV ad, persuaded his mother to drive him into Reno, Nevada to join the throng of hopeful teenagers, and ended up making a brief appearance in the "McDonald’s Great Year" commercial.This didn’t propel him up the yellow brick road to Hollywood, but it did net him $10,000 in royalties, with which he bought an ESQ-1 synthesizer and a Drumulator Read more ...