singer-songwriters
CD: Gruff Rhys - BabelsbergWednesday, 06 June 2018
For his fifth solo album (not counting last year’s delayed soundtrack to Set Fire to the Stars) Welsh singer-songwriter and sometime Super Furry frontman Gruff Rhys inhabits an imaginary landscape in order to deal with issues that are all too real.... Read more... |
CD: Snail Mail - LushMonday, 04 June 2018
Lindsey Jordan was 16 when she released her first EP as Snail Mail on her local punk label Sister Polygon Records. Two years later, she has graduated from high school and signed to Matador Records, home of Stephen Malkmus, Kurt Vile and Helium. Lush... Read more... |
Malcolm Middleton, Brighton Festival review - mordant brillianceFriday, 25 May 2018
Before starting this review a decision was taken: that the over-used description of singer-songwriter Malcolm Middleton as a “Scottish miserablist” would not appear. However, this has proved impossible. Middleton is renowned, to the coterie who... Read more... |
CD: Glymjack - Light the Evening FireSunday, 15 April 2018
There’s a crisis in popular musical vocals. They’ve reached a very naff stasis. After a decade-and-a-half of Cowell hegemony and stars that have risen during the same period, a generation thinks there are only two ways to express emotion. One is... Read more... |
Joan As Police Woman: 'I was going to die if I didn't have some way to express myself' - interviewTuesday, 10 April 2018
Joan Wasser – aka Joan as Police Woman – is known as a sophisticated songwriter and a pretty groovy person. But most of all it’s her gorgeously warm voice that's earned her a cult following. Over seven albums her angst-ridden vocals have explored... Read more... |
CD: Fenne Lily - On HoldTuesday, 03 April 2018
Fenne Lily is a young Bristolian singer-songwriter whose voice will take her far. Her debut album is decent enough, and there are songs on it that reach out and grab you by the guts, but it’s her extraordinary, fragile voice that stays in the mind.... Read more... |
CD: Don McLean - Botanical GardensSaturday, 17 March 2018
Oh dear. After a bumpy couple of years which included an all-too-public arrest for domestic violence to which he pleaded guilty, Don McLean is releasing his first new studio album in eight years. Metaphorically (and sometimes literally) it hits a... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Malcolm MiddletonWednesday, 14 March 2018
Malcolm Middleton (b.1973) is a Scottish singer-songwriter whose music has a devoted fanbase. Instead of the faux-vulnerable, non-specific, sub-Jeff Buckley flannel touted by many of his contemporaries and younger peers, Middleton’s work is grounded... Read more... |
Diana Jones, The Lexington review - at the crossroads of folk and countryWednesday, 14 March 2018
The delicious flame-grilled burgers and the vast array of bourbons on offer at the Lexington, hard by yet another “King's Cross Quarter”, added atmosphere to the opening night of Diana Jones’s European tour. Finger licking is (quite rightly) not... Read more... |
CD: Snowpoet - Thought You KnewMonday, 19 February 2018
While some albums cram in more fillers than a Christmas stocking, Thought You Knew, the second recording from the London-based group led by the 2016 Jazz FM Vocalist of the Year Lauren Kinsella and multi-instrumentalist Chris Hyson, is all about... Read more... |
CD: The Fiction Aisle - Jupiter, FloridaFriday, 19 January 2018
The third album from Thomas White under his Fiction Aisle moniker is a match for its delicious, under-heard predecessors. White remains best known for his output with The Electric Soft Parade and Brakes but the prolific Fiction Aisle (three albums... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Vocalist Cécile McLorin SalvantFriday, 05 January 2018
The vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant first came to the attention of the jazz scene when she won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz competition in 2010. In 2013, her Mack Avenue Records debut WomanChild garnered a Grammy nomination.... Read more... |
