Introducing the fifth number in this evening’s set, Erin Birgy speaks to the audience for the first time. “This is our last song, thank you,” she says. Thoughts of early Jesus and Mary Chain shows instantly surface. Is this going to be a 20-minute wonder? A five-song digest of where Birgy – who records and writes as Mega Bog – is now, playing her first UK dates since the release of her seventh album The End of Everything? Is it the end of the show?Despite the announcement, it isn’t. Ten songs are played over 50 minutes. But the proclamation is emblematic of the issues and questions inherent Read more ...

There’s been a sense of anticipation around Ghanaian-Australian Genesis Owusu ever since his ebullient 2021 debut album Smiling with No Teeth. He won a bunch of Arias, Australia’s Grammys, but could he break internationally? He’s toured the US with Paramore and is due to hit Europe in the Autumn, including a stop at Berghain.His new album is a match for its predecessor, in terms of eclecticism and bravado, and has a higher quantity of immediately hooky songs, so it shouldn't be a hindrance in taking things next level. Owusu has said that it was partially inspired by Waiting for Godot and Read more ...

On the face of it, this is an extremely simple record. It is big, stomping, party-monster neanderthal synth-rock.There’s no new sounds here: the structures are classic garage punk, the synthesisers’ growl and squeal sounds like some jerry-rigged setup from the 1970s, and the double drum kits and John Dwyer’s growls and yelps are downright primal. Aside from the equally retro-sounding big synth pop ballad finale “Always at Night”, it’s music to fling yourself around and get loose to, and in a sense that’s all you need to know. But the more you live with it, the more complex and perplexing Read more ...

Two producers named Martin worked with Buzzcocks and Joy Division. Martin Hannett was in the studio for Buzzcocks’ debut release, the Spiral Scratch EP, issued in January 1977, and also for the bulk of the tracks spread across their last three United Artists singles in 1980. He also shaped every studio recording Joy Division made for Factory Records.Martin Rushent (1948–2011) was teamed with Buzzcocks after they signed with United Artists in August 1977 and continued the relationship with the band’s Pete Shelley following the band's split in 1981. In March 1979, he recorded four tracks with Read more ...

Of all the Scottish bands to be name dropped at a Chvrches gig, the Bay City Rollers would be far down the list. Thankfully singer Lauren Mayberry was only citing the 70s group in reference to her tartan outfit, and not a surprise cover of “Shang-A-Lang”, but the Glasgow trio do share another similarity, in that they’ve proved to have considerable staying power in the pop world.As Mayberry noted later in the set, the 10th anniversary of their debut album is approaching later this year, but this night, the second of two homecoming shows, was more focused around the present rather than a Read more ...

There was a youthful tinge to the jubilant chorus of “here we, here we, here we f****** go” that greeted Le Tigre arriving on stage. The band may have not released any new material in well over a decade, but the Glasgow crowd gathered for this reunion show was not simply those who remembered the first time but an all ages mixture, which is a reflection on both the power of the trio’s music and a depressing indictment of the cultural and political issues that still imbue the group’s tunes with relevance.The latter factor did, at least, have a musical benefit, as at no point did this gig ever Read more ...

Tony Kushner’s early 1990s play Angels in America is an epochal, mystical, political, state-of-the-nation address, revolving around the AIDs epidemic. By no means straightforward, its narrative runs the gamut from New York’s gay scene to God’s own sexual proclivities, via the ghost of executed Cold War spy Ethel Rosenberg, the fall of the Soviet Bloc and much else. At over three-and-a-half-hours long, it’s not for the fainthearted. Neither is the new concept album from Christine and the Queens, which is inspired by it.Described by its creator as “the second part of an operatic gesture that Read more ...

Estonia’s Mart Avi styles himself as “the twilight samurai of alternative pop”. He creates “nowhere-somewhere music, mapping uncharted territories between avant-pop and timeless grandeur”. The characterisations are issued via AVICORP, his internet presence.The in-person Mart Avi has an arresting charisma; a star quality making it impossible not to be drawn in by his 40-minute performance at Tallinn Music Week. The look could be enough – cutting a David Bowie and Brett Anderson dash. Despite what he says about its nebulousness, his music is a moody electropop with shades of The Associates, Read more ...

Kesha is one of the 21st century’s most characterful pop stars. She’s regularly stepped out of the boxes people have put her in, musically and otherwise. But, even taking into account truly oddball songs such as “Godzilla” (from 2017’s Rainbow), or projects such as working with Flaming Lips, Gag Order, created with cosmic ultra-producer Rick Rubin, is by far her most out-there work. It’s also the sound of a tormented human being.On her first two albums Kesha personified young American women raucously embracing hedonism, breaking out of the cultural straitjackets that had head-melted Britney, Read more ...

In one sense you know what you’re going to bet with Róisín Murphy. Disco beats, a lot of bright colours, costume changes, goofing about, kick-arse vocals, and hats – lots and lots of hats. And yes, all that was present and correct at the Royal Albert Hall. But in another way, any given show is alien territory.Murphy is an artist who has never sat still since her first releases with Moloko in 1994, not just reinventing herself from project to project as is standard for savvy pop acts, but shifting from minute to minute between accents, sounds, attitudes, seriousness and foolishness, futurism Read more ...

Duran Duran were back in their hometown of Birmingham this weekend for the first time since performing as part of the open ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games and were justly forthright in trumpeting their local history. Even Pinner-born Simon Le Bon was keen to claim his stake, telling the audience a long and convoluted tale about being dubbed an honorary Brummie by UB40’s Ali Campbell 25 years ago.“Ordinary World”, for instance, was introduced by Le Bon stating, “It’s been quite a year. For Duran Duran and Birmingham. The high point was playing the opening of the Commonwealth Games and Read more ...

Record Store Day is nearly here. At theartsdesk on Vinyl we have a selection of goodies which are appearing exclusively in record shops. See anything you fancy?THEARTSDESK ON VINYL’S VINYL OF RECORD STORE DAY APRIL 2023Suicide A Way of Life Rareties (BMG)With Suicide’s underrated 1988 album A Way of Life heading for reissue, this Record Store Day release amps the anticipation with a four-track 12” of associated odds’n’ends. It opens with a live version of, supposedly, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”, but it is, in fact, frontman Alan Vega vamping around songs including Fats Domino’s “ Read more ...