New music
Kieron Tyler
The variables which help records attain cult status are usually permutations of obscurity, patronage, rarity and perceived or received notions of greatness. This fluid formula can make an album the acme of grooviness, even if barely anyone cared or had even heard of it when it was originally issued. Witness the Lewis album, L’Amour.This sanctioning process will never cease. There will always be something ripe for resurrection. The price of original pressings is a fair guide to interest and therefore a possible indicator of new audiences for records which had fallen between the cracks. Of Read more ...
Guy Oddy
No one could ever accuse Bob Mould of coming across like Mr Happy. Coupling lively melodies with punk heft and angsty lyrics has been his shtick for most of his 40-year career, first with hardcore punk rock titans Hüsker Dü, then ‘90s power trio Sugar and finally in his own right. Nevertheless it would be fair to say that things have been a bit grim for Bob since 2014’s excellent Beauty and Ruin album and it shows. The death of his mother, relationships ending and reflections on life getting shorter all leave their mark on the lyrics of Patch the Sky.As with Beauty and Ruin though, there is Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Youth, AKA Martin Glover (b 1960), is a renowned music producer and bassist in the post-punk band Killing Joke. He achieved his first success with the latter in the late Seventies and has often been at the forefront of innovation and development in British music since. Having played a key role in developing their uniquely dubby, dark sound, Youth parted ways with Killing Joke in 1982 and formed Brilliant, a band that espoused an ahead-of-its-time dance musical ethos and included the involvement of both future members of the KLF.When the musical revolution of acid house hit the UK in 1988, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
From the late Eighties to the early 2000s, Iggy Pop turned out a succession of sassy rock albums that ranged in quality but usually contained a greasy, dirt-ingrained gem or three. These albums appeared with a garage-punk lack of self-consciousness, doing the rock’n’roll job like a lifer born to it. More recently, however, when not in Stooges mode, the Ig has gone adventuring. He made a couple of albums themed around jazz and French chanson and his latest is also a statement album. It’s a timely one too for Post Pop Depression takes its cue from the two fantastic albums Pop made with David Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Primal Scream might reasonably be referred to as elder statesmen of rock‘n’roll these days, and 30 years or so since first getting together, it would be fair so say that they’ve tried a few different music genres on for size. There's been gentle Byrds-like melodies, MC5 rock action, blissed-out dance music, Rolling Stones swagger, and monstrously heavy motorik jackhammers. The latest incarnation of the Scream, however, seem to have decided to take on the electro-goth mantle from Depeche Mode for a guitar-lite bunch of tunes that's unlikely to be viewed as a classic release anytime soon. Read more ...
mark.kidel
The opening track of Leonard Cohen’s new album says it all: the hum of a spine-chillingly eerie male choir, joined by the throb of an irresistible bass line. We're in for a slow joy-ride through the depths of the underworld. In “You Want It Darker”, one of his unquestioned masterpieces, a title-song as rich in soulful images as anything he has ever written, and in a voice close to a whisper, Cohen alludes to “a million candles burning for the help that never came”. He is, as ever, singing of the shadows that fill our inner and outer worlds, “a lullaby for suffering” in which the only Read more ...
Jasper Rees
A decade ago I was sent to interview George Martin and his son Giles about Love, the remarkable remix of the Beatles catalogue which they created for Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show in Las Vegas. After the interview proper, in which both talked about collaborating with each other and with Paul, Ringo and the widows of John and George, I asked Sir George Martin if we could talk about an area of particular interest to me.I was working at the time on a book about the French horn, and part of the idea was to visit all the big moments in horn history. One of those was “For No One” (from Revolver) Read more ...
james.woodall
For many pop-pickers, the presiding image of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee will be Brian May (he – yes, of course – of Queen) grinding out the national anthem on the roof of Buckingham Palace. For me, there was a much more meaningful moment later the same evening when Paul McCartney, Her Majesty and a tall grey-haired man gathered on the party stage, rubbing shoulders and so magically recreating a little trope of our recent cultural history. The grey-haired man was George Martin, who for a generation of Beatles fans was That Name printed on the back of most of their albums, certainly all the Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Carla Marie Williams is a songwriter, artist mentor and founder of writing collective NewCrowd. She has written for stars including Beyoncé, Girls Aloud, Kylie and Rudimental, with a BRIT Award for her contribution to Girls Aloud’s single "The Promise", and Beyoncé’s recent hit "Runnin". She grew up in Harlesden, north west London, and was involved with music from an early age, but without the resources at home for private lessons, relied on Brent’s community music facilities and a powerful instinct for initiative and dedication, which has seen her win numerous competitions, including, at 15 Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Neil Arthur is on a mission. He was once one half of Blancmange, the British synth-pop band most famous for middle-sized hits of the early 1980s, songs such as “Don’t Tell Me” and “Living on the Ceiling”. He has been the group’s sole member since 2011 and, recently, he’s been busy. Two albums came out last year, the playful Semi Detached and the instrumental, experimental Nil by Mouth, both decent outings that threw off the shackles of being a tribute act to his younger self. A few months later, Commuter 23 appears, a successful continuation of the same mission.This isn’t to say that the new Read more ...
joe.muggs
DJs and techno producers doing “real music” doesn't always inspire the greatest of confidence: they often seem in thrall to other musicians, blind to what makes their own music special, or afraid to take the risks they would with their electronic production.However, Julius Steinhoff of Hamburg's Smallville records and Abdeslam Hammouda, with whom he's been producing house tunes since 2008, defiantly buck that trend. On this album for the ever-reliable Tokyo label Mule Musiq, they've left the dancefloor a long way behind them, and created 13 gentle meditations on life, love and the mind: each Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Music is no exception to the rule that history is littered with winners and losers. In commercial terms, however they are looked at, San Francisco’s Charlatans were losers. They issued just one single in 1966 and a belated album in 1969. While the world hummed along with Scott McKenzie’s "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" in 1967, these pioneers of the city’s scene were without a label and left adrift in the rush to sign Bay Area bands. Big Brother & the Holding Company, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and Quicksilver Messenger Service saw their stock Read more ...