New music
Thomas H. Green
FRIDAY 24 JULY, by Guy OddyEven for a festival whose whole purpose is to platform a rich range of artists from cultures all around the world, WOMAD 2026 is seriously on top of its game for a new start at a new venue deep in the heart of rural Wiltshire. The 2000-acre Neston Park, created in the 1790s, proved a beautiful setting that mirrored the excellent acts and fine weather. It's certainly no Womud and sunscreen is at something of a premium during long summer days.
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Similarly, the food on offer is consistently off-the-hook and the Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
This album is such a remarkable document, and on so many levels. Perhaps its main "story" is that it could well be the very last studio recording by Jack DeJohnette (1942-2025), having been made during sessions on two successive days at a studio near the great drummer’s home just outside Woodstock in upstate New York, at a time when he was already avoiding travel, and, as it was to turn out, not quite a year before he died.DeJohnette was indisputably one of jazz’s greats and the sheer wonder of his musicianship shines through on this wonderful record. As Ethan Iverson has written, among jazz Read more ...
Joe Muggs
We’ve said it before but it bears repeating. The globalisation of music culture, from ultra mainstream to underground, in the past decade has been a bigger revolution, affecting more people, than punk or acid house ever were. Case in point is the rise of South African dance music, in particular the slow and sensuous amapiano sound which exploded worldwide in 2020 as millions stuck inside in COVID lockdown simultaneously discovered its mood-lifting properties via online DJ sets. It got adopted by stars from Beyoncé and Drake down, created huge DJ careers, and has generated one bona fide Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The reappearance of Gloria Mundi’s I, Individual is a surprise. Most of what related to UK punk – however tangentially – over 1977 and 1978 has been reissued, and has often been around the houses multiple times. But, until now, Gloria Mundi have escaped the attention of those recycling this aspect of the past.I, Individual was Gloria Mundi's first album, originally issued on 7 July 1978. The band were live circuit regulars from late 1976 and split in 1980 after a second, very different, album which came out in October 1979.
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Tom Carr
If there is only one artist who you could say is in their moment, then it would be hard to look past Charli XCX. Having set in motion a whole cultural zeitgeist with previous album Brat, the pop and dance extraordinaire has forayed into fashion and film, lending to the score of Emerald Fennel’s take on Wuthering Heights last year. With seemingly the world at her beck and call, Charli could have gone in any direction for album seven. Having conquered the mainstream with Brat, marrying electropop with dance and rave to wide acclaim, the easy choice could have been to return to that well Read more ...
Liz Thomson
London was where James Taylor got his big break when, after a rocky, drug-strewn apprenticeship in New York City, he reinvented himself as a solo performer and managed to get a demo tape to Peter Asher, who played it to his pal Paul McCartney. “Something in the Way She Moves” in particular caught the Beatle’s ear: "I just heard his voice and his guitar, and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great.” Taylor was the first non-UK act signed to Apple, and he recorded his eponymous debut at Trident Studios while The Beatles were working on Read more ...
Ibi Keita
Fans have been waiting for a new Strokes album for six years, and after a few listens, Reality Awaits left me feeling more disappointed than excited. There are moments where the band remind you why they've been one of the most influential rock bands of the last 25 years. The guitars still lock together effortlessly, the rhythm section is as tight as ever, and there are flashes of melodies that stick around long after the album ends. I can hear what they were aiming for, and I respect that they didn't just make The New Abnormal again. Some reviews have praised that willingness to push Read more ...
Mark Kidel
It’s always a pleasure to meet again with Charles Lloyd, whose sweet and expressive tone first enchanted me as a teenager in 1963, when he graced the Chico Hamilton Quartet, along with the guitarist Gabor Szabo – notably on the classic album Passin’ Thru Lloyd’s – affinity with Eastern spirituality which he demonstrates in his latest release, a homage to the sadly missed Indian percussion master Zakir Hussain, was always evident, long before his first visit to India in 2009, when most of the tracks on this album were recorded.Lloyd had first heard Indian music in 1957 – Ravi Shankar and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The key track gives the album its title. “Where the Fades Meet” opens with swelling strings, which are swiftly underpinned by groovy, shuffling, percussion. The lyrics are carried by a chorale singing of a “fading signal”, “stillness” and “shadows.” It seems to about what lies in the gaps between the perceivable. The melody has a vaguely eastern Mediterranean lilt. Overall, it leans into evoking an exotica-inclined Rotary Connection – the late-Sixties/early Seventies outfit that was a core influence on acid jazz.“Where the Fades Meet” is the sixth track on the seventh album – there has also Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
I didn’t want to review Shania Twain. My sense of her is of ancient mega-selling hits I can’t stand. I didn’t even go to her Sunday afternoon set at Glastonbury 2024. But it’s difficult to get most music writers to cover the biggest pop stars of our era. So here we are. And, you know what? It's a much better album than I was anticipating.I wasn’t looking forward to slating a smorgasbord of nursery rhyme, line-dance cheese. Given her remit, it felt unfair and pointless. But I’m off the hook. Even the songs that head that way, such as the breakbeat-rolling “That’s the Money”, boast acceptable Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The title “Tone Phase 1 for 2 Guitars & 4 Oscillators” is a giveaway, clearly indicating what’s going to be heard once the LP has landed on the record player. And, indeed, the first track on the second side of Eleh’s newly reissued Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis 1 seamlessly fuses single tones generated by electric guitars and analogue oscillators. However, what’s less apparent from taking in the title is the magnetic power exerted by the track during its translucent progress over ten minutes. Hypnotic.The same applies to what follows: the also-ten-minute “Tone Phase 2 for Read more ...
Liz Thomson
What an extraordinary band are The Punch Brothers, a bunch of conspicuously talented musicians whose six albums never fail to delight and stimulate as they push the boundaries of acoustic music to what you think would be beyond breaking point. It’s been said that they’ve taken “bluegrass to its next evolutionary stage, drawing equal inspiration from the brain and the heart”.Virtuosos all, The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers marks the debut of fiddler Brittany Haas with the band which, in addition to Chris Thiele, includes Chris Eldridge on guitar, Paul Kowert on bass, and Noam Pikelny on Read more ...