mon 19/05/2025

New Music reviews, news & interviews

Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries

Kieron Tyler

“Tell me what you see” invites Robert Forster during “Tell it Back to me.” The album’s eight songs do not, however, necessarily say what Forster actually sees. These vignettes about encounters between characters come across as imaginary scenarios.

Music Reissues Weekly: Chapterhouse - White House Demos

Kieron Tyler

Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on sale in 20 years’ time. To leave something behind when we die." That was September 1990, in a piece tied-in to their soon-to-be-issued debut single.

Songlines Encounters, Kings Place review - West...

Tim Cumming

Songlines Encounters is your round-the-world ticket to great world music and performances, a chance to travel widely in music and culture without the...

The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review...

Thomas H Green

As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on Spotify...

Album: Rico Nasty - LETHAL

Ibi Keita

Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something less distinct is up for...

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Lucy Farrell, Catherine MacLellan, The Green Note review - sublime frequencies

Tim Cumming

Two singer songwriters in their prime deliver a double header showcase in Camden

Album: Billy Nomates - Metalhorse

Guy Oddy

East Midlands post-punker tries on some yacht rock

Album: MØ - Plæygirl

Thomas H Green

Scandinavian singer injects a dash of outsider melancholy into her fizzing electro-pop

PUP, SWG3, Glasgow review - controlled chaos from Canadian punks

Jonathan Geddes

A no-frills set demonstrated the Toronto quartet's skill with a chorus and a mosh pit

Music Reissues Weekly: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe

Kieron Tyler

Exhaustive guide to how and why a music scene evolved

Supergrass, Barrowland, Glasgow review - nostalgia played with youthful energy

Jonathan Geddes

The Oxford group's revival of their debut album fizzed with excitement

Louis Cole, Roundhouse review - nothing is everything

Peter Quinn

Telepathic grooves and Mahlerian beauty collide in Camden

Album: Peter Doherty - Felt Better Alive

Tim Cumming

Doherty returns with his first solo album in almost a decade

'Classic-era prog’s Olympian pinnacle': Pink Floyd's 'Echoes' returns in their restored Pompeii concert film and as Nick Mason's band's vinyl hit

Graham Fuller

The band's legendary track from 1971 resurfaces not once, but twice

Album: Sleep Token - Even In Arcadia

Tom Carr

The anonymous UK metallers' fourth album is breathlessly inventive and emotive

Album: Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke - Tall Tales

Joe Muggs

A toning-down leads to an opening up of new possibilities in a fertile collaboration

Album: PinkPantheress - Fancy That

Thomas H Green

Hot rising pop star's new mixtape lacks tunes and dynamism

Shack, Union Chapel review - the surprise return of the Liverpool legends does not run to plan

Kieron Tyler

A celebration with a sting in its tail

Album: Arcade Fire - Pink Elephant

Thomas H Green

Seventh from Canadian stadium-slayers contains enough juice to convince

Music Reissues Weekly: John McKay - Sixes and Sevens

Kieron Tyler

The former Siouxsie and the Banshees guitarist digs through his archive and finds treasure

Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street review - songs beautifully crafted

Sebastian Scotney

Gloriously personal expression

Album: PUP - Who Will Look After The Dogs?

Ellie Roberts

A compelling balance between absurdity and sincerity

First Person: rising folk star Amelia Coburn on her French inspiration

Amelia Coburn

The Middlesbrough singer-songwriter on the background story to her latest single

Adrian Utley / Eddie Henderson Project, Ronnie Scott's review - beyond fusion

Mark Kidel

Six musicians in search of common ground

Album: Suzanne Vega - Flying With Angels

Liz Thomson

A diverse album that's still uniquely Vega

Album: Lael Neale - Altogether Stranger

Kieron Tyler

Arresting art pop with a touch of creepiness

Album: Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars

Mark Kidel

A rock opera too scholarly?

Music Reissues Weekly: The Hamburg Repertoire

Kieron Tyler

Perplexing compendium of songs The Beatles covered while playing the German port city

Album: Dr Robert & Matt Deighton - The Instant Garden

Thomas H Green

A couple of old mods waft into delightfully Seventies hippy territory

Footnote: a brief history of new music in Britain

New music has swung fruitfully between US and UK influences for half a century. The British charts began in 1952, initially populated by crooners and light jazz. American rock'n'roll livened things up, followed by British imitators such as Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard. However, it wasn't until The Beatles combined rock'n'roll's energy with folk melodies and Motown sweetness that British pop found a modern identity outside light entertainment. The Rolling Stones, amping up US blues, weren't far behind, with The Who and The Kinks also adding a unique Englishness. In the mid-Sixties the drugs hit - LSD sent pop looking for meaning. Pastoral psychedelia bloomed. Such utopianism couldn't last and prog rock alongside Led Zeppelin's steroid riffing defined the early Seventies. Those who wanted it less blokey turned to glam, from T Rex to androgynous alien David Bowie.

sex_pistolsA sea change arrived with punk and its totemic band, The Sex Pistols, a reaction to pop's blandness and much else. Punk encouraged inventiveness and imagination on the cheap but, while reggae made inroads, the most notable beneficiary was synth pop, The Human League et al. This, when combined with glam styling, produced the New Romantic scene and bands such as Duran Duran sold multi-millions and conquered the US.

By the mid-Eighties, despite U2's rise, the British charts were sterile until acid house/ rave culture kicked the doors down for electronica, launching acts such as the Chemical Brothers. The media, however, latched onto indie bands with big tunes and bigger mouths, notably Oasis and Blur – Britpop was born.

By the millennium, both scenes had fizzled, replaced by level-headed pop-rockers who abhorred ostentation in favour of homogenous emotionality. Coldplay were the biggest. Big news, however, lurked in underground UK hip hop where artists adapted styles such as grime, dubstep and drum & bass into new pop forms, creating breakout stars Dizzee Rascal and, more recently, Tinie Tempah. The Arts Desk's wide-ranging new music critics bring you overnight reviews of every kind of music, from pop to unusual world sounds, daily reviews of new releases and downloads, and unique in-depth interviews with celebrated musicians and DJs, plus the quickest ticket booking links. Our writers include Peter Culshaw, Joe Muggs, Howard Male, Thomas H Green, Graeme Thomson, Kieron Tyler, Russ Coffey, Bruce Dessau, David Cheal & Peter Quinn

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