New music
Peter Culshaw
Peter Culshaw’s nomadic monthly round-up of the latest brilliant intercontinental sounds includes Frippertronics from São Paulo, Indian classical electronica, Vietnamese jazz and Ethiopian nostalgia. It features great new releases from King Ayisoba, Blue Beast, Orchestra Baobab and some terrific compilations, notably from the late, great Nashville master songwriter Guy Clark.The show was recorded at the enterprising MusicBoxRadio UK’s spanking new studio in Farringdon, London. Since being posted on Mixcloud the show has already gone to number two in Mixcloud's Latin chart and Afrobeat chart, Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Laura Marling's new album is called Semper Femina - two words the singer-songwriter also has tattooed on her leg. It's Latin for "always a woman". Despite having the motto inscribed on her flesh, Marling claims to find it hard to write intimately about other women. Hence the singer describing her recent spell in Los Angeles as a particularly "masculine time" causing her now to look "specifically at women". Full marks for ambition, some might feel, but might she be overthinking it?If the underlying rationale can seem a tad laboured, the music is anything but. Fans will be familiar with Read more ...
William Green
Apocalyptica are a band that became famous for playing Metallica on cellos. And tonight they’re playing only Metallica covers because it's 20 years since they released Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, their debut album. The quartet formed at Finland’s Sibelius Academy in 1993 and the man responsible for bringing together classical cellists to play metal is Eicca Toppinen. Tonight, referring to their debut album, he admits that they were “expecting to sell 1,000 CDs”. Six million albums later and constantly on tour they return to their roots: without Metallica there would be no Apocalyptica. Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Soundtrack work may have been seen as a respectable sideline for veterans of the punk era for a while but it has taken 40 years for Paul Weller to join the likes of Nick Cave and Barry Adamson and strike out in this genre. Somewhat fittingly, Weller’s first foray into cinema provides the accompaniment to Johnny Harris’ gritty boxing flick Jawbone and it’s certainly no aural wallpaper but instead provides an ebb and flow of its own even without the accompanying visuals.The sprawling “Johnny/Blackout” opens the album with a sonic soundscape that builds and falls back for 20 minutes and is a Read more ...
joe.muggs
There is no band of the Eighties generation who've remained both as big, and as great, as Depeche Mode. Duran Duran? Lightweights. U2? Sunk into self-parody a long time ago. But the boys from Basildon are something else: they've come through all the pressures of fame, addiction, ageing and the rest with their mojo very much intact, sounding like themselves but still writing fresh songs and hitting new emotional spots. They are also clearly still willing to experiment sonically, as signalled by the drafting-in of James Ford of techno duo Simian Mobile Disco as producer for their 14th album.All Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Julian Cope is one of pop music’s outsiders, a singer and author who began his career in the post-punk pop band The Teardrop Exolodes but whose solo career has drifted gleefully off-radar, more recently releasing albums that blend psych, Gaelic music, blues and prog rock at the rate of about one a year. He takes to the stage decked out in his usual leather vest, knee-high leather boots, and beige three-quarter-lengths, with his grizzled mane poking out from under a navy cap and sunglasses. He’s greeted by a rowdy yet well-intentioned audience, who’ve evidently grown up with his music, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Temples’ debut album, 2014’s Sun Structures, was an instant and surprise success. Within weeks of its release, the Brit-psych outfit were headlining major venues for the first time. Sun Structures went UK Top 10. Tame Impala had opened the door and Temples stepped through. As if to stress this, Volcano’s fourth track, “Oh the Saviour”, rhymes “lava” with “impala” and, three tracks on, “Open Air” could pass for a Tame Impala stomp-along.Instead of taking Temples further out, their second album Volcano is a consolidation which drops the overt nods to Oasis and supplements the edgy 1966-Beatles Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In May 1956, the Texan label Starday issued a wild rockabilly single by Thumper Jones. Its top side, the kinetic “Rock It”, was primal, uncontrolled and wild. The flip, “How Come It”, was less frenzied but still driving and infectious. Original pressings of the two-sided pounder in either its 45 or 78 form now fetch at least £200. This is not your usual rockabilly rarity though. The record’s label credited the songs to a Geo. Jones. Thumper Jones was a pseudonymous George Jones (1931–2013), who was cashing in a hip style: the only time he did so with rockabilly.At this point – the Thumper Read more ...
Matthew Wright
There’s scarcity value in a Tanita Tikaram gig these days. Like seeing a rare bird, you feel special for simply having been there. Last night, in a programme spanning her whole career, she made a strong case to be a songbird of unique character. Her originality is not ostentatious; it charms its way into your heart like a lullaby. Yet despite not inhabiting an obviously radical sound-world, by the end of a long and generous set, she had become compelling. She can’t be mistaken for anyone else.If we’re brutally honest about it, Tikaram lost her star quality 20 years ago. But she has continued Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Vinyl is not a cute, retro, style statement. Well, OK, it can be. But it’s also an analogue format that’s as current as its user wants it to be. Aiding this process, for those who are determinedly forward-looking, is the Love turntable (main picture). Created by Swiss design kingpin Yves Behar, working with LA-based Love CEO CH Pinhas, the tone-arm revolves around the record and, via infrared technology, is controllable from a phone, allowing listeners to traverse tracks as they please. The idea, promo-ed on Kickstarter, is that it makes the vinyl experience better for those more used to Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Sleaford Mods have had an amazing run. The duo are prized by their fans for their ultra-basic set-up – a guy with a can of lager standing by a laptop, and a guy ranting – but few would have imagined them almost making the Top 10. Yet that’s exactly what last year’s Key Markets album did. However, the backlash has started, with dispiriting talk of a one-trick pony having run its course.Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn have previously done four albums together (Sleaford Mods also existed before that), catering to a punk-spirited fan base who relish the ethos of a socially conscious outfit Read more ...
Liz Thomson
An album to please old fans and make new ones, Windy City is a peach – even at first playing it feels like slipping in to a worn-in pair of jeans or boots, a comfy ol’ fit. And that’s because the songs are country classics and in our musical DNA.Alison Krauss might have grown up in Decatur, Illinois but she surely has Tennessee blood in her veins. Windy City finds her paired up with Buddy Cannon, a state native who’s produced albums by the likes of Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Billy Ray Cyrus. Her debut for Capitol, it’s her first solo outing in almost 18 years and she’s backed by some of Read more ...