Can’s The Lost Tapes towers over any of the other reissues theartsdesk has covered this year. Although not strictly a reissue – it collected unheard recordings from tapes which had lain in the band’s archive – it rewrote the story of the seminal German band, offering a new perspective on their creative process and what they had issued. More than any of this, its three discs were a great listen and as essential as any of their albums - Soundtracks, Tago Mago and Future Days.
On Sailing to Byzantium Christine Tobin's utterly singular music fuses with the amaranthine force of WB Yeats's poetry to create one of the most transporting jazz releases in aeons. From the iridescent colours of “The Wild Swans at Coole” and the statuesque tranquility of the title track, to the subtly ornamented melodic line of “The Song of Wandering Aengus” and the deeply poignant “Long-legged Fly”, the album's unique sound-world and intense depth of feeling completely seduce the senses.
Reading How Music Works feels a bit like breaking into David Byrne’s house and randomly nosing around the Word files on his computer. First there’s some stuff about whether specific types of music were subconsciously written with certain acoustic spaces in mind, then there’s a biographical bit about Byrne’s experiences as a performer.
The Prodigy: The Fat of the Land 15th Anniversary Expanded Edition
Thomas H Green
With a hollered “hello Glasgow” and immediate launch into “Magpie”, the emotionally ragged song that opens this year’s Sugaring Season, it was as if Beth Orton had never been away. On this last date of her UK tour, the night before her 42nd birthday, Orton’s notoriously husky singing voice was unsurprisingly even throatier, more tremulous than usual. It had the effect of lending even more intimacy to cuts from a new album that, after a six-year gap and particularly tumultuous personal circumstances, emerged bathed in the quiet glow of domestic bliss.
Viva Forever! isn’t the clunker it’s been labelled. It’s also not the thin gruel of the standard West End jukebox musical. The real problem is that it can never be Mamma Mia!, the globe-conquering, ABBA-derived franchise previously devised by its producer Judy Craymer.
It was predestined that Lou Doillon would shadow her half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg and their mother Jane Birkin by going into music. More surprising is that her full-length calling card, debut album Places, is entirely written by her. The female members of her clan have generally relied on material from outside, so Doillon is a trailblazer. Part of the annual Trans Musicales festival, this show at Salle de la Cité in Rennes, Brittany’s rain-soaked capital, was an opportunity to discover what she’s about before the UK release of Places next spring.
It is quite a sight to see your children doing the heads down Quo boogie but, by the time the band reach “Whatever You Want”, that is exactly where my daughters, aged 14 and nine, are at. The rest of the Brighton Centre, not sold out but respectably full, is on its feet too. Just beside us a well-preserved man of around 70 is going completely bananas, shirt open, sweat pouring off.