New music
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Corinne Bailey Rae’s heart may speak in whispers, but it dreams in glorious technicolour. The title of the Leeds-born songwriter’s new album is an echoey chorus line that swims among the layers of its opening track – a song with the bridge of a boiling ocean that hints at dance-pop beats, reinvention. “The Skies Will Break” was surely an album title contender in its own right, perhaps not so much for its dubious poetry as for the glorious moment of catharsis it signals – a head rush, and then a moment of serenity.Fans concerned, from that giddy opener, that new love and a six-year hiatus have Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
"Sunshine came softly through my window today..." How fortuitous that veteran Scottish tunestrel Donovan should have picked London's glorious first day of summer to stage his "Beat Cafe" event at the Palladium. The plan was to rove across his back catalogue to celebrate his 70th birthday (which actually falls on Tuesday) as well as his half-century in the music business.The cavernous Palladium space wasn't packed out, but the loquacious and ever-exuberant troubadour didn't seem to have noticed as he bustled about the stage like a small pixie with an outsized guitar. He clearly has a healthy Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
When US singer Meghan Trainor broke through a couple of years back with the massive hit “All About That Bass”, it seemed a clear-cut case of a woman’s response to lollipop-headed, bulimic mainstream media images of her sex. No argument, right? But no, a backlash quickly arrived, saying that Trainor was anti-feminist and the song was “skinny-shaming”. What a load of bollocks. In a culture where women are consistently, ruinously, continually portrayed as pneumatic bikini babes, or with the bodies of adolescent boys, Trainor was a breath of fresh air.She still is, and Thank You’s standout Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
In which two of the biggest beasts of Brazilian music played in tandem (and it was often playful) sparred with each other and revealed despite being rivals, how close they have been and remain. The equivalent might be something like the Sting/Paul Simon duet concert, the difference being that these two have known each other for half a century and were architects of the late sixties Tropicalia movement in Brazil, a musical revolution where, as Wordsworth might have said at the time “bliss was it to be alive, but to be young was very heaven”. The duo and others brought global pop, avant- Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Bold programming always deserves credit. Last night’s Royal Albert Hall audience enjoyed an unusually piquant blend, as grunge-rocker turned soloist Chris Cornell on his Higher Truth album tour was paired with upstart bluesman Fantastic Negrito, known to his mum as Xavier Dphepaulezz, a spicier and more political performer who has invested the growling spirituality of old-time blues with an edge of punky protest. Cornell is a grizzled old-timer, but he wears the years lightly. He spent the 1990s fronting grunge pioneers Soundgarden, followed by a solo career now five albums old. Read more ...
joe.muggs
Canadian singer/producer Jessy Lanza's records – and this one more than ever – can feel like they're mapping an alternative history, one where populist and leftfield electronic music were never separate. Two aspects dominate her sound: her crisp, clear pop vocal, and a palpable love of the sonorities of drum machines. Through every song you can hear echoing a history of electro, from its roots in Suicide, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk, on the one hand through eighties pop, new wave, Madonna, Prince and Timbaland, and on the other through the underground Detroit techno Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Denmark is casting a shadow in a way it has not done before. The international success of Copenhagen’s Lukas Graham is unprecedented. While Aqua, The Ravonettes, Efterklang and Trentemøller are amongst the great Danes who have made international waves musically, Graham has trumped them all to become a surprise world-wide bestseller with the single “7 Years”. Whether or not his brand of streamlined pop appeals – theartsdesk declared that “7 Years’” parent album has a “shiny plasticity that carries no real weight” – it has helped generate interest in the music of Graham’s home country which has Read more ...
howard.male
When the Tuareg band Tinariwen first started to come to prominence a decade or so ago, world music purists tried to lay claim that they were purveyors of what they called "desert blues". The reason being, presumably, that the blues in their blinkered eyes was a purer, more authentic form than rock (which was what Tinariwen were really all about). But having said that, Tinariwen sound like Tanita Tikaram compared to parts of this second album from fellow Saharan desert rockers Kel Assouf (who feature Tinariwen guitarist and singer Anana Harouna). The title translates as "Surprise" and a Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Snarky Puppy make music on their own terms. Boundary-straddling is their stock in trade, from their origins between Brooklyn and Texas, their technique comprising complex orchestration and individual improv, an expansive approach to genre that spans spiky experimental to the seediest lounge-funk, and an aesthetic that’s heavily amplified but flavoured with horn-driven acoustic sound.After a series of Family Dinner albums that flouted their eclecticism with guest appearances from world music, gospel and blues stars including Lalah Hathaway, Salif Keita and Laura Mvula, for this, their 11th Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The figures are approximate, but the Yardbirds’ first studio album has been issued on CD at least 12 separate times. With The Move, their debut album and its follow-up Shazam have each had a comparatively paltry eight outings on CD. As for vinyl editions, setting aside the UK originals in mono and stereo and contemporaneous worldwide pressings, similar quantities of reissues of the three albums have hit shops from the mid-Seventies onwards. The Move have not been afforded au courant hipster vinyl editions, but a few versions of the Yardbirds’ set have been issued over the past six or so years Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
I find myself incredibly conflicted by a musician like Gregory Porter. Is my lack of response to his effortlessly soulful voice (the “liquid spirit”, perhaps, of the 2013 Grammy-award winning album of the same name) a symptom of some sort of emotional lack, or a product of the music itself being, objectively, pretty dull? Crossover appeal thanks to last year’s hit collaboration with UK dance duo Disclosure means cross-genre review assignments, so forgive me if I’ve simply missed the point, but for an album that boasts as many as eight jazz musicians and vocalists at times, Take Me to the Read more ...
Katie Colombus
When life gives you lemons, what do you do? Well, Beyoncé took the fruits of her musical labour, those of the black women before her and those hanging between her husband's thighs, to create something pretty sharp. This is a new sound, a new music movement, a new way of hearing her music.Her sixth studio album is way more than just that. It is accompanied by a film, a "visual album" that premiered on HBO and is streamed on Jay-Z's subscription-based music service Tidal, which allows a way more kaleidoscopic, intense and profound experience.Accompanied by spoken-word Read more ...