New music
Matthew Wright
The emergence of artists’ collectives, bristling with idealism and wacky manifestoes, is usually a sign of a vigorous cultural scene. London’s new improvised music scene enjoys several successful examples, of which Loop is perhaps the most prominent. Last night’s Loop club night at the Vortex showed the idea at its best, combining new and established acts across a range of genres.There was - in homage to Valentine’s Day? - something old, something new, plenty that was borrowed, and even something blue. The new act was the band of percussionist Bex Burch, who plays the gyilli, a Ghanaian Read more ...
Guy Oddy
On seeing that new Tinariwen album, Emmaar, had been recorded at Joshua Tree (due to ongoing security problems in their native Mali) with a number of American guest musicians, my heart sank. I imagined some special guest-heavy yet artistically bankrupt effort, and this was reinforced with the somewhat loaded phrase “including Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ guitarist...”.However, while Emmaar takes the band’s guitar-driven, assouf groove to new places, it will also sound familiar to any who were bitten by the Tinariwen bug in 2000, with their The Radio Tisdas Sessions debut. For while all five albums Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Kathleen Brien's party spirit is contagious. She can rock a festival and tear up a rave. This is partly because she's the sort of person you might actually meet at a real life party or rave (as opposed to the mass of lollipop-headed, wannabe-Beverley Hills chart fodder out there). She came up via London’s pirate radio network and her catchy but ruthlessly punchy "Katy On A Mission", created with Benga and Geeneus, is one of the best slices of crossover dance-pop of the last decade. Her debut album delivered on her promise. Her second one does too… some of the time.It’s hard to argue with the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Where is the Queen? doesn’t hide where it’s coming from. Drawing so gracefully from disparate strains of Nineties rock while augmenting them with a literate sensibility, it immediately sets itself up as an album which stands apart.The soft-loud dynamic which The Pixies pretty much invented – probably heard most widely on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” – is here. So is the rave-rock rhythmic collision heard when My Bloody Valentine began venturing inwards immediately before their lengthy hiatus. “Country Bliss” confesses “I can’t remember what my butt looks like in a dress, I’ve built a Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Bach, Duke Ellington and free jazz improvisation met at Cafe OTO last night, and joyously warped some minds. Composer Alexander Hawkins’ BBC Radio 3 commission, the nonet piece "One Tree Found", was part of last year’s Baroque Spring season. It takes the three-part structures of Bach’s trio sonatas for organ, adds echoes of Duke Ellington’s (known, Hawkins notes, as "The Hot Bach" at the height of his fame) numerous three-way orchestrations, and completes the creation with improvisations both contemporary and baroque in style.Last night’s was only its second London performance, but thanks to Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Suzanne Vega clearly likes her new album, Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles. Either that or she’s got this promotional lark down to a fine art. Tonight we were treated to seven of its ten tracks, which is not something you might expect of someone who began their recording career in 1985 and has since released seven other albums and a fair few hit singlesPlacing a black top-hat on her head to complement her bohemian head mistress attire, Suzanne kicked things off with debut single “Marlene on the Wall” and the wonderfully rich “Caramel”, from 1996’s Nine Objects of Desire . Then Read more ...
Aimee Cliff
When the red curtain opens - or drops with delicious melodrama - on the second night of Taylor Swift’s residency at the O2 Arena, the first thing you notice is her eyes. We’re a crowd of thousands, packed into the second largest stadium in the UK, and with our monumental collective gaze directed at one person you wouldn’t expect such intimate details to translate. But Swift need move only her eyes to elicit screams like you’ve never heard in your life. She swoops them oh-so-slowly to the right, pauses, then to the left, pauses, smiles. She is choreographed down to the retinas, and she is Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The new album by Sunn O))) and Ulver isn’t what you'd expect. American band, Sunn O))) (pronounced as “sun”) generally play an ambient take on pagan sludge rock, suggesting the spirit of Black Sabbath, condensed into binary numbers. Ulver from Norway have dabbled in black metal, minimalist and ambient but over the last 10 years they’ve concentrated on a more symphonic style. This had me anticipating an apocalyptic variant of “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana but with loud and droning electric guitars.Sunn O))) and Ulver have form in collaboration. They previously produced the 15- Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Kitty Lux is one of the founders of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Her performance of Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" sums up their wonderful act. Sat strumming stonily stationary, clad in black with a red scarf around her short dark hair and an expression of seen-it-all hangdog boredom on her face, she delivers the song beautifully, her compadres adding the sweetest harmonies. There is, however, an injection of silliness when the orginal's memorable backing vocal, a descending trio of notes, becomes a ridiculously emphatic "Bing! Bang! Bong!" in the cheesiest barber shop style. The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Seeds: Raw & Alive / The Dream Syndicate: The Day Before Wine and RosesTwo live albums. Both by bands rooted in psychedelia and based in Los Angeles. Each recorded in a studio rather than on stage. One, by The Seeds, from 1968. The other, by The Dream Syndicate, from 1982. The links between these two releases – coincidentally issued a week apart – are about more than the circumstances of their creation, geography and musical style. Both bands had brushes with the mainstream and in the form captured here both proved too raw, too unstable and too wilful to last the course.As 1968 Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s a good thing After the Disco turned up in the post last November. Initial listens suggested it as a slight follow up to 2010’s eponymous debut. Living with the new album and allowing it to bed in was obviously the way to go. Unfortunately, repeated revisits haven’t revealed any depth or much to grab onto. The thin gruel that is After the Disco isn’t a worthy successor to Broken Bells and is nothing its creators Danger Mouse and James Mercer should be proud of. Yet more listens raise the questions of what this is for and why did they bother?After the Disco is propelled by either chugging Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Last night Lloyd Cole arrived on stage with a similar suede-and-corduroy air to that of his Eighties college-rock hits. Yet something was different. Over the last few years he has developed a real gravitas. It showed in the lines on his face and gunmetal hair; and it's this depth that critics have perceived on his recent album, Standards. Yet despite the critical acclaim the old troubadour is still not happy with how he’s “ disappearing into a niche”. In fact, he says, if this tour is a flop, he might give up music altogether.Whatever concerns Cole might have about his career, he didn’t bring Read more ...