New music
Album: Ellie Goulding - Higher Than HeavenFriday, 07 April 2023
I admit I’ve never really seen the point of Ellie Goulding as a pop star. What is it that identifies her? What aspect defines her music? What sets her apart from the pack? Since I believe femme-led pop music is the defining pop of this century so... Read more... |
Mimi Webb, O2 Academy, Glasgow review - TikTok queen fails to fire with sparse setThursday, 06 April 2023
Blake Rose clearly wasn’t leaving anything to chance. The support act bounded onstage draped in a Saltire, and soon brought up his days growing up in Aberdeen before moving to Australia. That Scottish upbringing helped inspire one of his songs, “... Read more... |
Vossa Jazz 2023 review: Norwegian festival’s 50th-anniversary edition keeps traditional music closeThursday, 06 April 2023
Two drummers are drumming. One held the beat on ABBA’s “Super Trouper”. He is Sweden’s Per Lindvall, more usually associated with jazz. The other is Norway’s Rune Arnesen, whose recording credits are also stylistically varied. Locked-in tight... Read more... |
Album: Thomas Bangalter - MythologiesThursday, 06 April 2023
Popular musicians “going classical” can work well. Look at Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, at Richard Reed Parry and Colin Stetson from Arcade Fire, or at the late Jóhann Jóhannsson who had a successful career as indie and electronic musician in... Read more... |
Album: Reg Meuross - Stolen from GodWednesday, 05 April 2023
Anyone who’s heard even a smidgin of Reg Meuross’s music will know what a wonderful writer he is, homing in on often painful aspects of our shared history and retelling it in powerful and poignant songs that make any half-sentient listener want to... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Dance CrazeTuesday, 04 April 2023
"We’re not just a dance band, we’ve got things to say.” Pauline Black, lead singer with The Selecter, succinctly pins down what made the era of 2-Tone Records so important to the British music scene at the end of the 1970s.A consortium of bands... Read more... |
Album: Josephine Foster - Domestic SphereMonday, 03 April 2023
On Domestic Sphere, Josephine Foster’s guitar and voice are joined by clacking crickets, a flock of sheep and wailing cats recorded in La Janda in southern Spain. There are also Colorado and Tennessee's birds and frogs. Foster’s great-... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: McNeal and Niles - Thrust, Wilbur Niles and Thrust - Thrust TooSunday, 02 April 2023
An original pressing of 1979’s Thrust fetches at least £1000. Its 1980 follow-up Thrust Too can be a relative bargain at around £400. The prices are partly explained by J Dilla having sampled Thrust Too’s “Survival of the Funkiest” and Thrust’s “... Read more... |
Album: boygenius - The RecordFriday, 31 March 2023
Maybe you’ve heard the Native American parable about the two wolves. An old Cherokee’s grandson is grappling with internal tensions; self-hatred and self-aggrandising. For Phoebe Bridgers, one-third of indie supergroup boygenius (usually styled with... Read more... |
Album: The Zombies - Different GameThursday, 30 March 2023
There’s something charmingly unassuming and humble about The Zombies. Nowadays their 1968 second album Odyssey and Oracle regularly figures in all time greatest albums lists, but it was a flop at the time and its reputation grew through a gradually... Read more... |
Album: A Certain Ratio - 1982Wednesday, 29 March 2023
1982 is only A Certain Ratio’s third album this century but it’s one that’s brimming with funky vibes that are more than enough to get anyone on their feet and dancing with a big smile – not that it doesn’t have plenty to say about the state of... Read more... |
Inspiral Carpets, Concorde 2, Brighton review - a raucous catalogue of Madchester-era hitsTuesday, 28 March 2023
As Inspiral Carpets play “She Comes in the Fall”, a great song and one of their signature tunes, its martial drumming drags me into my own past. Seeing them play it at a 600-capacity venue makes me recall seeing them, over three decades ago,... Read more... |
