club music
Primal Scream, The Haunt, Brighton review - up-close, short, raucous and sweatyTuesday, 21 May 2019Primal Scream have played in this city, in the recent past, at the 4,500 capacity Brighton Centre but tonight they’re in a venue which holds well under 400. A bananas atmosphere reigns when bands of their stature play intimate shows, and so it is... Read more... |
CD: Kornél Kovács - Stockholm MarathonThursday, 25 April 2019On his second album, Swedish star DJ Kornél Kovács has achieved the impossible and made “tropical house” interesting. Somehow, he's taken every cliché of that slow, lilting pop dance sound Drake and lifestyle influencers Instagramming from pristine... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Pet Shop Boys - Inner SanctumTuesday, 23 April 2019Pet Shop Boys are never shy of producing stylishly conceived fan mementos. Coming not long after Faber & Faber’s hardback collection of Neil Tennant’s lyrics, this four-disc set is just such a slice of lovingly rendered memorabilia. After well... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: BananaramaThursday, 18 April 2019Bananarama are one of the most successful girl groups of all time. Consisting of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward, the band’s third original member Siobhan Fahey left in 1988 to form Shakespears Sister. The trio reunited in 2017 for a tour but new... Read more... |
CD: L’Impératrice - MatahariSunday, 14 April 2019The French have developed an international reputation for a certain smooth style of electronic music. It’s the place where disco and house collide with something more urbane and far less sweaty. Daft Punk provided a defining moment with their 2013... Read more... |
CD: The Chemical Brothers - No GeographyWednesday, 10 April 2019The Chemical Brothers just keep on coming. No Geography could as well be called No Surrender. It’s the sound of two men approaching 50 but still keenly attuned to making feet move on the dancefloor. Partly made using old synths relegated to a dusty... Read more... |
CD: Shy FX - Raggamuffin SoundTapeWednesday, 20 March 2019Everything about this mixtape oozes confidence. It crams 12 tracks plus interludes – all produced by Andre “Shy FX” Williams – into barely more than half an hour. It happily leaves “Roll the Dice”, the single which conquered club and radio... Read more... |
CD: Trevor Horn – Trevor Horn Reimagines the Eighties (feat. The Sarm Orchestra)Thursday, 24 January 2019Over the last decade or so, there have been a couple of noticeable trends in broad-based, popular music that have segued from mild irritation to disfiguring infection. The first is the fey cover version, the awful balladification of perfectly good... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2018: Helena Hauff - QualmSaturday, 22 December 2018The cliché of hard times making for good culture is a distinctly dodgy, even dangerous, one. But there's no doubting at all that the era of Trump, Brexit and all the rest has added an urgency particularly to underground culture, which is leading... Read more... |
CD: My Baby - MOUNAIKI: By The Bright of the NightSunday, 02 December 2018My Baby are one of the most exciting live acts currently in existence. They’re a three-piece consisting of Dutch frontwoman guitarist/bassist Cato van Dijk, her brother, drummer Joost, and New Zealand blues rock guitar virtuoso Daniel Johnston.... Read more... |
DVD: The Man from Mo'WaxSunday, 25 November 2018Recent years have seen a boom in music documentaries. They are, after all, relatively cheap to make and have a readymade audience. Their narratives are usually similar, and so it is with The Man From Mo’Wax: fame and glory, followed by a fall from... Read more... |
Best Albums of 2018Wednesday, 31 October 2018Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why. Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small... Read more... |