indie
Thomas H. Green
Another week of lockdown so another fresh and lively update on what’s out there, including an interactive orchestra experience, DJ sets, and a concert in your own living room. Dive in!One World: Together at Home – Curated by Lady GagaThe big event in popular music this week is, without doubt, this epic from-their-homes broadcast organized by Global Citizen, the Global Poverty Project’s New York festival arm, and the World Health Organization, in support of frontline healthcare workers. Put together by Lady Gaga, it features an American-leaning who’s who of music stars – Pharrell Williams, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Welcome to the second of our lockdown specials. It’s a small but vital dip into what’s new on plastic. Other than that, theartsdesk on Vinyl wishes you well in these strange times. Stay at home, play records, turn up the volume.Various Cadence Revolution 1973-1981: Disques International Vol. 2 (Strut)Welcome second volume of Strut Records’ carefully collated history of Guadeloupe’s Disques Debs International, “the longest-running and most prolific label to have come out of the Francophone Caribbean”. It follows An Island Story: Biguine, Afro-Latin & Musique Antillaise 1960-1972 which Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Given the times, theartsdesk’s New Music section is starting weekly round-ups of new streaming fare to liven the spirits and entertainingly pass the time during this lockdown. Here are our first five suggestions. Dive in!Light In The Attic ShowcaseThe archival/reissue label Light In The Attic put together an impressive continent-hopping set of live-from-home performances, running the gamut from veteran Brazilian musician Marcos Valle to Alex Mass of Texan fuzz-rockers The Black Angels. Mostly cover versions, the biggest name is probably Jarvis Cocker who, psychedelically shadowed, offers a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
For the duration of this C19 Lockdown, rather than the usual sprawling monthly epic, theartsdesk on Vinyl will be presented regularly in bite-sized editions, roving across the pile of releases we have already, since those incoming have been whittled down a trickle. Welcome, then, to a cross edition of plastic ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre. Dive in!Napalm Death Logic Ravaged by Brute Force/White Kross (Century Media)Great title. You don’t get titles like that with Dua Lipa! Five years after their last album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, the Midlands’ perennial politico noise-riff Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A raga-rock circularity. Finger cymbals. A distant, etiolated female vocal. A fuggy atmosphere. A kinship with Jefferson Airplane’s “Come Up The Years”, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” and The Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties”. Hangman’s Beautiful Daughters' “Love is Blue” is a beautiful, haunting recording.The band’s “Outta My Head” is as great, but is taken at a faster tempo and along the lines of US Sixties psych-garage rockers The Neighb'rhood Childr'n or “Don't Cry Your Tears”, the 1981 single by Edinburgh band The Delmontes.“Outta My Head” and “Love is Blue” are Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Waxahatchee’s fifth album wasn’t intended as an escapist fantasy. Written shortly after Katie Crutchfield decided to get sober, Saint Cloud documents a journey towards self-acceptance; one woman’s reckoning with her past and its impact on the people she loves. But it’s a journey that is as literal as it is metaphysical, Crutchfield’s vivid lyrics and wide-open arrangements painting pictures of the places she has seen along the way: Memphis glowing in the sunlight as if on fire; tomatoes sold by the bag on a roadside in Alabama; homesickness on the crowded streets of Tennessee.After evolving, Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
With them having famously been just teenagers when they released their debut single in 1994 it seems fitting – and not a little tongue in cheek – that the indie rock trio chose Teenage Wildlife for the title of their 25th anniversary compilation. The name – from a David Bowie song that appears on the “rarities” disc of the three-disc set – is clearly one that resonates: it also belongs to a documentary about the band, itself almost a decade old.Where early contemporaries have imploded, drifted apart and cashed in on the inevitable reunion tour, Ash have remained consistent – longevity that Read more ...
India Lewis
Big Thief’s show promised that particular brand of raw singing and perfect guitarmanship that only they can provide, something which they presented with a playful, earnest charm. Adrianne Lenker shared the stage with her three bandmates, two other guitar players and a drummer, all riffing off one another throughout the performance with an obvious love of the sound that they shared. This could sometimes seem perhaps a little indulgent, but the sound that they produced was so good that it was hard to dislike. There’s also something pretty satisfying about a woman performing an excellent solo, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Judging by her debut album, Malmö singer-songwriter Alice Boman’s frosted-glass musical aesthetic has the odd hint of Mazzy Star and draws from the sound world created for Twin Peaks – a similar outlook to Gothenburg’s El Perro del Mar. Dream On is not the full story though. Boman’s first record was released in 2013 and, since then, she has issued another EP and a few singles.And judging by the wide-ranging dip into her catalogue at London’s Union Chapel, she’s keen to stress Dream On isn’t the full story. While all-but one track from the album was performed – “Mississippi” was omitted – “ Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Spook The Herd concludes with “A Fitting End”. In a cracked, reflective voice, Hazel Wilde sings: “I want a door to the Nineties…what a fitting ending, what a perfect scene.” By hoping for a portal into the recent past, it seems an attempt is being made to escape into – or even bring back – times when there was less negativity to deal with than today. A form of nostalgia maybe. Or a criticism of where things are now.Up to this point, the first eight tracks on the fourth album from Newcastle’s Lanterns On The Lake have tackled extremes of view expressed via the internet (“Baddies”), being Read more ...
India Lewis
Angel Olsen’s show at the Eventim Apollo has been much hyped and publicised over the past weeks, an indie chanteuse reinventing herself, recasting herself with a darker, more rocky sound. Her set was clearly and obviously "rock", a sound and atmosphere that often detracted from her wonderful voice, with its brilliant mix of soft warmth and clear, piercing heights. There was something a little off, too, with the sound itself – it was too loud, and at times made both Olsen and her band appear a little sharp. It was a sound that would have worked well in a festival but could be jarring in an Read more ...
Owen Richards
And so, Tame Impala’s evolution from riff-laden psych-mongers to dancefloor-fillers is complete. It’s undeniable from the opening drum machine on “One More Year” supplanting Kevin Parker’s trademark kit-work. The band’s music has always been built from the groove up, but now the head banging has been replaced with waves of rhythm that flow through the body. The Slow Rush is an apt name. This is an album that replicates the wash of a narcotic come-up. Unstoppable, inimitable, and highly addictive.A sense of joyous adventure carries through the songs, less concerned with the destination than Read more ...