New music
Guy Oddy
Bands who successfully emulate their heroes on their debut album, as The Strypes did with Snapshot, their 2013 homage to sharp-edged garage blues, sometimes find themselves wondering where to go next when the dust of critical and popular acclaim settles. Instead of the well-worn path of a timid, evolutionary change to their sound, the Strypes have decided to shake things up considerably by throwing something from all their favourite bands into Little Victories. Unfortunately this has led to the creation of an album that is unfocused at best and derivative at worst. It also suggests that the Read more ...
mark.kidel
Iris DeMent’s settings of poems by the great 20th century poet Anna Akhmatova are as original as they are courageous: it's so easy to fall short of the genius displayed by the Russian mistress of the lyric verse. This is a work of love and devotion – prompted in part by DeMent’s adoption, along with her partner the equally original and talented Greg Brown, of a girl from the former Soviet Union.There is a kinship between the singer from the American South , raised in the Pentecostal church, and the tortured soul of Akhmatova, who lived through Lenin and Stalin’s terror, refused to go into Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
A person with any sense of outdoor adventure can enjoy a camping trip with friends, especially when the skies are clear blue and blazing, the booze is decent and flowing, and the barbecue is tasty and sauced. Thus was the case with my trip to Eridge Park, in the northern reaches of Sussex, for a new festival from the team behind the Lake District’s successful, decade-old Kendal Calling. How much the festival itself contributed to the good times, however, is debatable.On Sunday, before leaving the site, I took a verbal poll of tens of attendees, asking them to score the festival on the usual Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Company could have been recorded any time in the past 25 years. Although Slime’s debut feels fresh, affinities with the familiar tag Company as a retro-nodding debut which will have a broad appeal. Chin-stroking collectors will love its references. Hipsters dwelling in the edgy zones of cities will love the comedown, late-night, reflective atmosphere. The Newcastle-born, Hackney resident electronicist Will Archer – who assumes the name Slime – has created an album with the potential to cross boundaries.The chief attribute of Company is the ease with which it brings together the disparate as a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
America: The Warner Bros. Years 1971–1977Prime amongst the many ironies associated with Seventies soft-rock trio America is that when they reached number one in America in March 1972 with “A Horse With No Name”, the single they knocked off the top spot was Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold". “A Horse With No Name” sounds so like Young, it might as well be him. Young’s thoughts on the ousting are not a matter of record.It went further. America’s fine, eponymous debut album is so much a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young knock-off that frequent double takes are unavoidable. CSNY's distinctive, Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Joss Stone is one of our most popular and successful soul singers, with a rich bronze voice and supple delivery that’s already earned her two Brit Awards and a Grammy, and made her Britain’s richest woman under 30. She burst onto the scene at the age of 16 with Soul Sessions, an acclaimed album of soul classics from artists including Arethra Franklin and Carla Thomas. She has also had some high-profile acting roles, and her choice of musical collaborators is refreshingly eclectic, from Damian Marley and virtuosi of the Indian tabla to English hard-man footballer Vinnie Jones.She has always Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Bullet For My Valentine retain their fury. Last time round, on 2013’s aptly named Temper Temper, frontman Matt Tuck was snarling about substance abuse affecting his band. This time, on their fifth studio album, he claims his enraged microphone onslaught results from pondering his dead-end origins in Bridgend, Wales, and the way he was dismissed at school for being a metaller. Be that as it may, the album also reeks of torment, indignation and pure fury at a love affair turned sour.Since splitting with bass-player Jay James earlier this year, Bullet For My Valentine’s sound is, if anything, Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Producer Ruf Dug has released a slew of singles and remixes, both on his own label, Ruf Kutz, and other independent imprints, including Porn Wax and Banoffee Pies, that have made the UK such an exciting prospect for new music for the past few years. For this, his debut LP, he decamped to Guadeloupe, a location that has clearly influenced the very bones of the work. After a vinyl release earlier this year, it’s now getting the full treatment later this month, and deservedly so.This is an album that will undoubtedly be hailed as a Balearic classic. No surprise there, the genre is so wide, it’s Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Camp Bestival 2015 was bathed in four days of glorious sun, a rare window of idyllic weather in this most cantankerous of summers. It took place, as it has since it began in 2008, amid the hilly, verdant and well-kept grounds of Lulworth Castle in Dorset. Run by DJ Rob da Bank, his wife Josie and their team, it remains the country’s premier family festival, attended by some 30,000. Those are the facts, yet Camp Bestival is a curious creature, tricky to encapsulate. I went with my girlfriend and two daughters and, like most families there, much of our time was spent as if on a camping holiday Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Eno Williams is lead singer and composer of the band Ibibio Sound Machine, an eclectic fusion in which contemporary dance and synth are laid over classic Nigerian highlife rhythm and vocals. The full line-up consists of eight musicians working with a range of influences, including Brazilian percussionist Anselmo Netto, Ghanaian guitarist Alfred Bannerman, and producer and saxophonist Max Grunhard. The band’s debut album, Ibibio Sound Machine, was released on the West African specialist label Soundway, to widespread acclaim last year, and they are already busy performing across the festival Read more ...
Barney Harsent
There used to be a time when albums would regularly come in at around the 45-minute mark. It was pretty much the perfect length for fitting on to one side of a C90 (disclaimer: Home Taping Is Killing Music) and made the most of the vinyl format’s sonic limitations. Now, with the endless digital stream imposing no such restrictions, Four Tet’s latest offering – two tracks spread over 40 minutes – feels almost like a novella by comparison. That’s fine though, I like novellas: good ones scale back the grand plan, trim the fat and focus on what’s important.The first of the tracks, “Morning”, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The term "beloved entertainer" might have been coined with Cilla Black in mind. Her career trajectory, from a working-class Irish Catholic background in Liverpool's Scotland Road through pop stardom under the auspices of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, and thence to mainstream TV and nearly 20 years as hostess of LWT's Blind Date and Surprise Surprise, was a classic fable of determined self-betterment. When it came to casting the lead role for ITV's bio-miniseries Cilla last year, it must have taken only seconds to decide that this had to be a job for the almost equally adored Sheridan Smith. Read more ...