dance music
Pop Will Eat Itself, Chalk, Brighton review - hip hop rockers deliver a whopperMonday, 13 May 2024
By midway, things are cooking. “Can U Dig It?”, a post-modern list-song from another age (Ok, 1989), boasts a whopping guitar riff. Keys-player Adam Mole, his ushanka cap’s ear-covers flapping, leaps onto his seat, waves his synth aloft. Frontmen... Read more... |
Album: Dua Lipa - Radical OptimismFriday, 03 May 2024
This album has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor Future Nostalgia came along just as the Covid crisis was properly kicking into gear, and it became, in its way, era defining. As we said at the time, it was “the sound of a musician... Read more... |
Album: Justice - HyperdramaSaturday, 27 April 2024
Justice are a couple of super-suave rock star analogues. Leathers and aviators, yes, but with a very Parisian insouciance. Their music is the same. It has a rocker-friendly je-ne-sais-quoi, but air-brushed with the glitzy sci-fi futurism one might... Read more... |
Album: Pet Shop Boys - NonethelessThursday, 25 April 2024
This album came with an absolutely enormous promo campaign. As well as actual advertising there were “Audience With…” events, and specials on BBC radio and TV – the latter an Imagine special with Alan Yentob really going in with... Read more... |
Album: Mdou Moctar - Funeral for JusticeWednesday, 24 April 2024
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of his band’s previous discs – not so much desert blues as desert punk.Taking up the twin causes of the... Read more... |
Album: Nia Archives - Silence is LoudMonday, 08 April 2024
At 24, Bradfordian Nia Archives has already clearly marked out her musical territory.While many of her Gen Z contemporaries have embraced the rave, jungle and drum’n’bass sounds of the early-mid 1990s, she’s done it more wholeheartedly than most:... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Groove Machine - The Earl Young Drum SessionsSunday, 10 March 2024
A few records changed music. One such was “The Love I Lost (Part 1)” by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes. Issued as a single by the Philadelphia International label in August 1973, its release introduced what would become a major characteristic of... Read more... |
Say She She, Koko review - flawless, pizazz-filled show from rising starsFriday, 08 March 2024
Back in 1979, Koko operated as The Music Machine. As such, the Camden Town venue lent its name to the film Music Machine, marketed as the British equivalent of Saturday Night Fever. Buying into this vision of the North London setting as a hot-bed of... Read more... |
Album: Bolis Pupul - Letter to YuThursday, 07 March 2024
This album starts on an extremely literal note. The whole record is themed around Belgian born-and-raised Bolis Pupul’s explorations of the Chinese side of his heritage after his mother’s death in 2008, and his regrets at not having done so when she... Read more... |
Album: Paloma Faith - The Glorification of SadnessFriday, 16 February 2024
Paloma Faith is pretty much the dictionary definition of “full-on”. Always in elaborate hairdos and outré ruffles, big of personality and big of voice, she enthuses and emotes with firehose intensity at any opportunity. So it comes as no surprise... Read more... |
Album: Black Grape - Orange HeadThursday, 18 January 2024
Shaun Ryder is now known mostly for being Shaun Ryder, via any random TV programme that will pay him a couple of quid. In this light, his musical achievements have lost some of their shine over the decades. But, if given the chance, a couple of... Read more... |
Album: Kali Uchis - OrquídeasFriday, 12 January 2024
Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis hasn’t made large waves this side of the Atlantic. Perhaps this is because her appeal has partly been rooted in Latin communities across the US and, indeed, Central and South America. Last year her third album,... Read more... |
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