dance music
Album: Faithless - All BlessedMonday, 19 October 2020
The big news is that this is Faithless’s first album without longterm frontman Maxi Jazz. Instead, remaining members Rollo and Sister Bliss work with a cross section of vocal talent. A multi-million selling, festival-headlining act, Faithless are... Read more... |
Album: Annie - Dark HeartsWednesday, 14 October 2020
The term electro-pop has kind of lost its meaning, The Top 20 has, for many years, been full of music created on computers, from Charli XCX to BTS to Clean Bandit. Yet still, as a genre header, it's often used to refer to music that riffs on the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Sally Anne Gross and Dr George Musgrave, authors of 'Can Music Make You Sick?'Saturday, 10 October 2020
Today is World Mental Health Day and of course that means an awful lot of hugs and homilies, thoughts and prayers, deep-breathing exercises and it’s-good-to-talk platitudes from people speaking from positions of immense privilege – ranging from the... Read more... |
Album: Groove Armada - Edge of the HorizonMonday, 28 September 2020
Alongside Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada were one of the last big acts to blossom from the 1990s boom in clubland and DJ culture. They are responsible for bona fide classics in “Superstylin’”, “At the River” and “I See You Baby”, and also founded the... Read more... |
Album: Róisín Murphy - Róisín MachineFriday, 25 September 2020
This is a musical homecoming for Róisín Murphy, both geographically and figuratively. She may have been raised in Dublin and spent her gig-going adolescence in Manchester, but Sheffield is where she began her life as a clubber and performer – and it... Read more... |
Album: Sufjan Stevens - The AscensionMonday, 21 September 2020
Sufjan Stevens is an artist of remarkable ambition. His 80-minute long new album, with 15 beautiful and poetic songs, belongs to a long line of pop experimentation that runs through from The Beatles and George Martin’s Stg Pepper’s Lonely Hearts... Read more... |
Album: Doves - The Universal WantWednesday, 09 September 2020
If Doves have a “thing”, it’s that they do “big” with impeccable intimacy. Over ten years and four albums, they consistently displayed exactly the sort of connection that bands like Coldplay and Keane pretend to have. Huge, sweeping scores and broad... Read more... |
South West Four Live, Electric Brixton online review - the dance goes on?Tuesday, 01 September 2020
If two dozen DJs spin tunes and no one’s there, did a rave really happen? There is plenty of time for such questions during the 25 hours of livestreams substituting for SW4’s annual bank holiday party on Clapham Common. It’s a benefit for the Mind... Read more... |
Album: Disclosure - ENERGYThursday, 27 August 2020
When Disclosure appeared a decade ago, they were a necessary antidote to the rank gorgonzola of EDM, which was turning club music into a garish mire of musical infantilism. These two deliberately faceless Surrey brothers, Guy and Howard Lawrence,... Read more... |
Album: Yello - PointSaturday, 22 August 2020
Some of the greatest acts of all time are the ones which find a sound and never need to alter it. Motörhead, Dinosaur Jr, Status Quo... and in the electronic world, Switzerland’s finest, Yello. It’s over 40 years since they first set millionaire... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 59: Johnny Cash, Bananagun, Fleetwood Mac, Romare, PJ Harvey, Kamaal Williams and moreWednesday, 19 August 2020
The usual summer vinyl release slump doesn’t seem to apply this year. During the COVID-19 crisis, the demand for vinyl has risen rather than fallen and theartsdesk on Vinyl reflects that again this month with another monster round-up of reviews,... Read more... |
AIM Awards 2020, SBTV review - a game attempt to rewire awards ceremoniesThursday, 13 August 2020
Music awards shows are a strange beast: part window display, part industry conference and part party. Especially if you don’t have Brit Awards or Mercury Prize budget to create a whizz-bang spectacle, the ceremonies can be an interminable pileup of... Read more... |
