new music reviews, news & interviews
Thomas H. Green |

Maisie Peters is a singer-songwriter from Sussex who’s 26, next week, and is a protégé of Ed Sheeran (she’s on his Gingerbread Man label).

Kieron Tyler |

“Love Train” is first up. Rather than the 1972 O’Jays’ hit, this totally different song was originally released as the B-side of a 1971 single – though it’s often credited as a 1968 release. By The Lovemasters, a Chicago band active under that name from 1970, it’s an absolute winner – vaguely along the Temptations line, with a circling guitar figure, subtle piano fills and a loose funkiness. Their founder member Edith Andrews had been active in Chicago’s music from the late 1950s.

Thomas H. Green
Drake just released not only his expected ninth album, Iceman, but another two albums, Maid of Honour and Habibti. Forty-three songs. Two-and-a-half…
Guy Oddy
Tamikrest are one of the swaths of Tuareg bands that were born out of the violent oppression of their people at the hands of the Malian Army, Kremlin…
Joe Muggs
There’s a whole wide open area of leftfield music that belongs entirely to Chicago. The 1960s social radicalism and futurist musical experiments of…

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Ellie Roberts
What starting again after 14 years looks like
Liz Thomson
Country icon bids a gracious farewell to the road
Thomas H. Green
The last, vast, galactically huge, regular record reviews
Mark Kidel
Echoes of the Fab Four in songs of love and loss
Kieron Tyler
The tangled musical legacy of one of San Francisco’s great Sixties bands
Guy Oddy
Cronos and his crew are as gloriously heavy, evil and catchy as ever
Joe Muggs
A long history of bleeps, clonks and funkiness is channelled into this Danish techno
Tom Carr
Fifth album from Basement is more fleet-footed and breezy, but still rocking and hefty.
Liz Thomson
The Rick Rubin trilogy reaches completion
Ibi Keita
Not quite the team they were in college
Kieron Tyler
The follow-up to ‘Autobahn’ is given a startling aural makeover
Liz Thomson
Twenty years and counting!
Thomas H. Green
Fifth album by queasy indie-folk sorts finds poetry in dark corners
Kathryn Reilly
The most palatable Spice invites us all to dance with joy
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A post break-up album, packed with real life, real good times, and real hurt
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Drones and noise and mellow folkie flavours make for a fine weekend
Kieron Tyler
Salvation Army band dynamics, a country music lilt and more
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Belfast hip-hoppers explicitly refuse to tone things down
Kieron Tyler
Soul treasures from 1969 are made easily available for the first time
Katie Colombus
The Brooklyn four prove less is more
peter.quinn
This debut album is a genre-hopping feast for the ears
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The singer has gone from tiny clubs to arenas in just three years
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At 85, Ringo has found a voice a world away from his cartoon persona
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On a late career roll, the German rock star talks techno, time machines and Satanic anarchy

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