new music reviews
Matthew Wright

Bold programming always deserves credit. Last night’s Royal Albert Hall audience enjoyed an unusually piquant blend, as grunge-rocker turned soloist Chris Cornell on his Higher Truth album tour was paired with upstart bluesman Fantastic Negrito, known to his mum as Xavier Dphepaulezz, a spicier and more political performer who has invested the growling spirituality of old-time blues with an edge of punky protest.   

Kieron Tyler

Denmark is casting a shadow in a way it has not done before. The international success of Copenhagen’s Lukas Graham is unprecedented. While Aqua, The Ravonettes, Efterklang and Trentemøller are amongst the great Danes who have made international waves musically, Graham has trumped them all to become a surprise world-wide bestseller with the single “7 Years”.

Kieron Tyler

The figures are approximate, but the Yardbirds’ first studio album has been issued on CD at least 12 separate times. With The Move, their debut album and its follow-up Shazam have each had a comparatively paltry eight outings on CD. As for vinyl editions, setting aside the UK originals in mono and stereo and contemporaneous worldwide pressings, similar quantities of reissues of the three albums have hit shops from the mid-Seventies onwards.

Thomas H. Green

The recent Alien Day was a contrived event designed to sell as much tat related to the Alien film franchise as possible. However, it had one intriguing side effect. Seventy-five copies of the soundtrack to the second film, Aliens, appeared on liquid-filled vinyl, created by New York artist Curtis Godino. These strange artefacts are pictured above.

Tim Cumming

It's the first night of The Fall's four-night residency at The Garage in Highbury, north London, a suitably small venue to get the full visceral rub of the current group – Elena Poulou on keyboards, guitarist Peter Greenaway, drummer Keiron Melling, and bassist Dave Spurr.

Tim Cumming

Set in the grounds and rooms of the Master Shipwright’s Palace on the Thames at Deptford, Unamplifire brought together more than 30 artists over eight hours, with new and ancient folk and world music stirring from the riverside wing of the building – a stripped-to-the-plaster-and-floorboards palace, one you might find yourself in after a revolution. Built by master shipwright Joseph Allin in 1708, it’s a rich historical anomaly bordering the bleak remains of what was once the King's Wharf, established by Henry VIII in 1513, and about to be redeveloped by a Hong Kong investment company.

Kieron Tyler

The immediate reaction to Close to the Noise Floor is “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?” This new four-disc set’s subtitle captures its objective in a nutshell: to collect Formative UK Electronica 1975–1984 – excursions in proto-synth pop, DIY techno and ambient exploration. While the stars include Blancmange, John Foxx, Throbbing Gristle and the big cult names Bourbonese Qualk, Legendary Pink Dots and Instant Automatons feature, the less well-knowns Sea of Wires, We be Echo and Muslimgauze are also collected.

Matthew Wright

It’s a nice dilemma. Cameroonian saxophonist and band leader Manu Dibango, who has a Ronnie’s residency ending tonight, helped create the disco sound with his 1972 single “Soul Makossa”. Since then he has ranged over the extended Afro-soul-funk-jazz family of genres with insouciant ease, his showbusinesslike gift for a glitzy riff leading his influence into pop, too. So how to consolidate this influence?

Russ Coffey

It was one of those bright spring days when it seemed every other radio station was playing “Mr Blue Sky”. It certainly didn’t feel like 30 years since ELO toured. But the fans at the O2, last night, knew exactly how long it’d been. Some may even have been counting the years. And the anticipation of whether Jeff Lynne could still cut it, was palpable. In the lengthy queues and security checks, conversation naturally turned to how exactly the 68-year-old might manage the energy of those hits.

Katie Colombus

The last time I spent hours on end listening to Xavier Rudd I was giving birth to my daughter. Weirdly, the anaesthetist had seen him perform in Australia a few weeks previously (this was a few years ago when Rudd wasn’t as heard of as he is now) and we bro’d about the magical coincidence pretty hard, in between contractions.