singer-songwriters
CD: PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition ProjectSaturday, 09 April 2016
PJ Harvey's ninth album is one with a message. I know this because it marks the first time that my pre-release copy of an album has come with a lyric booklet, despite the fact that it is perhaps the least oblique thing that the Dorset-born... Read more... |
CD: Laura Gibson - Empire BuilderSaturday, 26 March 2016
I’ve never understood why the great American train journey isn’t as romanticised as the great American road trip. There’s nowhere else you get quite that same uninterrupted time with your own thoughts: to create, to ponder, to come to terms with... Read more... |
CD: Damien Jurado - Visions of Us on the LandTuesday, 15 March 2016
Damien Jurado’s last album, 2014’s Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, was, as theartsdesk noted, about “a man setting off in search of himself but never returning”. Its follow-up tracks the same unnamed character and his companion Silver... Read more... |
CD: Leonard Cohen - You Want It DarkerWednesday, 09 March 2016
The opening track of Leonard Cohen’s new album says it all: the hum of a spine-chillingly eerie male choir, joined by the throb of an irresistible bass line. We're in for a slow joy-ride through the depths of the underworld. In “You Want It Darker... Read more... |
CD: Emmy the Great - Second LoveSunday, 06 March 2016
The answers, for the listener curious as to whether Emmy the Great’s Second Love fared any better than her first (it’s the title of her 2009 debut as much as any reference to the songwriter’s psyche), do not emerge until its final track. “Once I was... Read more... |
CD: Steve Mason - Meet the HumansSunday, 21 February 2016
The thing about having a very distinctive voice is that it gives the audience something to latch onto. That’s all well and good, but it can also mean people find it easier to hear without listening. As the familiar tones and comfortable cadences of... Read more... |
CD: Basia Bulat - Good AdviceSunday, 07 February 2016
Canadian singer-songwriter Basia Bulat’s first three albums were recognisably folky. Her main instrument was the autoharp. Good Advice is different. With its more upfront songwriting and verve, her fourth album is a giant leap. It is also Bulat’s... Read more... |
CD: Emma Pollock - In Search of HarperfieldMonday, 25 January 2016
If you haven’t fallen for Emma Pollock by the end of the first two songs on In Search of Harperfield – you know, on the off chance that you have somehow been immune to the first lady of Scottish indie over the past 20 years – then there’s probably... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jon Savage's 1966Sunday, 03 January 2016
January 1966 is a half a century back but some of the music released 50 years ago this month remains fresh, vital and timeless. With its biting invective and energy, Bob Dylan’s “Can You Please Crawl out of Your Window” will never lose its visceral... Read more... |
Best of 2015: Reissue CDsSunday, 27 December 2015
Revealing a new story which completely rewrites an existing one is not easy in the world of reissues. With so much already known, and with pop and rock history constantly being revisited, it’s always surprising when a fresh tale is told. And it’s... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The CitySunday, 04 October 2015
The City: Now That Everything’s Been SaidWith early 1971's Tapestry, Carole King released a worldwide best seller which belatedly recognised that as an interpreter of her own songs, she had no peers. King had made the jump from the writer of... Read more... |
CD: John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black PressureSunday, 04 October 2015
John Grant is nothing if not a confessional songwriter. On his last album, Pale Green Ghosts, there were moments of dark despair, caustic barbs and some surprisingly slinky grooves soundtracking a man who was offering himself up with a breathtaking... Read more... |
