New music
Kieron Tyler
Faces: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything… 1970–1975Faces were always about more than just the music. From the moment they were formed by ex-members of The Jeff Beck Group and Small Faces in June 1969, tension was integral. Their front man and singer Rod Stewart ran a parallel solo career throughout the band’s life and the public image as boozy, cheeky lads was useful for papering over any cracks. The story is worth telling, but it is not one told by this collection of their studio albums and singles – more on that in a few paragraphs.Sometimes, the tension surfaced. Talking to Read more ...
Martin Longley
The Chicago Jazz Festival is a freebie extravaganza, held over the Labor Day holiday weekend, its massive crowds welcomed by the looming chromium jelly bean that is sculptor Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate. Onward into Millennium Park, right on the shore of Lake Michigan, there are a pair of long tents for the afternoon sets, with alternating bands ensuring constant musical motion.The evening performances take place on the impressive Jay Pritzker Pavilion stage, designed by Frank Gehry. Completed in 2004, it’s been the jazz festival’s home for the last three years of its 36-year history. It’s as if Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
As the year in which Jenny Hval has already declared war on “soft dick rock”, 2015 seems perfect for the return of Peaches: the electroclash shock-rock pioneer’s bass-heavy, provocative music is the diametric opposite. Rub, her first album in six years, comes as an audio and visual package: each track is accompanied by an artist-directed video featuring everything from Peaches and comedian Margaret Cho sharing a day of zany adventures while dressed in matching hand-knit body suits (complete with comically oversized, flapping penises) to performance artist Empress Stah shooting lasers from a Read more ...
joe.muggs
Natasha Khan has taken a fascinating trajectory through the music world. As Bat For Lashes she first came to public attention as part of an early-2000s wave of psychedelia, allied in particular to the furry starchild Devendra Banhart. But her high drama electropop-tinged sound was as far from Banhart's all-organic “freak folk” as it was from the fiddlier laptop-driven sound of folktronica, and she ended up occupying a space all her own. Only the similarly theatrical Marina & The Diamonds came close to her approach, although the ghastly Florence would ride an altogether crasser and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The New York Times recently wrote that, “For the music business over all, vinyl is still a niche product, if an increasingly substantial one.” How substantial is slowly becoming clear with dramatic rises in vinyl consumption over the last year. The biggest pressing plant in Europe, in the Czech village of Lodenice, last year produced 14.5 million records, while across the US during the same period 13 million were sold, with around 50% of the buyers under 35. It is, of course, a drop in the ocean compared to vinyl’s glory days but, with predictions of a rise in consumption of up to 50% over Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Courtney Pine’s Caribbean-flavoured album House of Legends was released three years ago, and it says a lot that he’s still touring it. This riotously melodic collection of ska, soca and calypso, embellished with some scorching solo work, has certainly proved popular, as the latest sell-out run at Ronnie’s testifies. Pine cheerfully apologised for a lack of CD’s to sell at the gig: they’ve all been sold.However, a critic more prone to stroke his chin than shake his (or her) booty (chin-stroking being generally a male pastime) would probably suggest that this reflects a certain lack of urgency Read more ...
Matthew Wright
For three unassuming musicians, sitting cross-legged in a row, Korean folk-noise fusion band Jambinai’s London debut last night was seismic. With an ambitious project to integrate the techniques and idioms of traditional Korean folk with a blend of noise-rock, drone-rock and electronic music, they gave a concert that was, from the moment the grinding drone of the geomungo started yawing through the crowd, utterly distinct and original.There are two formations performing, a trio of multi-instrumentalists, with Eun Young Sim playing geomungo (a traditional seven-stringed zither, plucked with a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Fetty Wap is the biggest new name in hip hop. His song “Trap Queen” has been on the UK charts for nearly six months and sold two-and-a-half million downloads in the US alone. The singles released since have established him as an artist capable of commercially holding his own with the very biggest, as stars such as Kanye West and Jay-Z have keenly acknowledged. Born William Maxwell II 24 years ago, he hails from Paterson, New Jersey, an area he refers to in songs as “the Zoo” (he has the nickname “Zoovier” tattooed on his face). He lost an eye to glaucoma as a child, giving him an appearance Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence, who are Disclosure, have always made clear they’ve no especial passion for club music. They are, they say, first and foremost musicians and their affinity with dance culture stops there. Despite this they’ve become the biggest act to appear from the deep house boom, and the best of their 2013 debut album Settle harked back to the slick, soulful energy of original Chicago house. They were a breath of fresh air as EDM blossomed crassly around them. Now, however, they reveal their true colours. Caracal is one wet lettuce.Apart from a single track – the likeable Read more ...
theartsdesk
It's Monday morning, some way between the start of school term and the recall of students to college or university. This moment when the routine of study is reimposed creates some of our strongest memories. As the original voice of teenage rebellion, it’s perhaps not surprising that rock ‘n roll voices the pain of education more than the joy.More interesting, though, is the sheer variety of attitudes expressed, and the engrossing drama of each song. From the gentle, sentimental isolation of Sam Cooke to the grossness of The Stranglers, via much outrage, to some candly floss from Britney and a Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Kevin Martin is a busy man. Last year, there was The Bug’s floor-shaking Angels and Devils album and “Boa”/”Cold” collaboration with Dylan Carlson of drone titans Earth. In 2015, after a spectacular headline performance at the Supersonic Festival, he’s back with the King Midas Sound collective and more collaboration: with Austrian ambient wizard Fennesz.King Midas Sound’s 2009 debut album, Waiting For You was a laidback digi-dub masterpiece that often suggested the spirit of Tricky’s finest moments, with it’s mash-up of electronic reggae sounds and creeping industrial textures, underlying the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Pere Ubu: Elitism for the People 1975–1978Pere Ubu’s early records still sound great. The ethos of the Cleveland, Ohio band had nothing to do with prevailing trends when they formed in 1975, and had nothing to with the punk, new wave or what was later termed post-punk which opened many doors for and ears to them shortly afterwards. The timelessness stems from being singular, an aspect of which resulted in them issuing four singles on their own label between December 1975 and August 1978. Yet Pere Ubu were not isolated: their precursor band Rocket From the Tombs was co-billed with Read more ...