New music
peter.quinn
In jazz, 2013 belonged to Wayne Shorter. In recognition of a remarkable six-decade career as a saxophonist, educator and composer, Shorter, who turned 80 in August last year, received a lifetime achievement award from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz – only the second time in the Institute’s history that it has bestowed such an honour (Quincy Jones being the first recipient in 1996). There were yet more awards from the Jazz Journalists Association: Lifetime Achievement in Jazz, Soprano Saxophonist of the Year, and Small Ensemble of the Year. Then there were the numerous headline Read more ...
graeme.thomson
It was almost exactly a year ago (January 8, 2013, to be precise) that we awoke to the news that David Bowie, far from dying, retiring, or living the half-life of a rock and roll renunciant in his Riverside apartment, had blindsided us all by sneak-releasing his first new work in a decade on the morning of his 66th birthday.The weary reflection of "Where Are We Now?” was so perfectly measured, and its nil-by-mouth marketing strategem – in which absence, to paraphrase James Joyce, became the most potent form of presence – so perfect that one wondered whether Bowie shouldn’t just quit while he Read more ...
James Williams
It's been an exceptional year for electronic music worldwide, and while the UK has mostly always afforded it the respect and admiration it deserves, it is more surprising to find that the United States has finally allowed dance music a pass into the mainstream. One outcome of this is that the disparate sub-genres that have quietly been thriving in its inner cities for the last few decades are now receiving global recognition, and one such movement is footwork.Originally created to accompany the frenetic breakdance-esque dancers of south and west-side Chicago in the late Nineties, the focus in Read more ...
theartsdesk
2013 was the year that Thom Yorke, somewhat tautologically, referred to the music business as “a dying corpse”, and Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun claimed that same business “doesn't exist any more.” This was slightly odd, given that it was one of the liveliest years in recent memory, with mainstream and underground pulsating with debate over big issues and big releases, and – for all the technological and multimedia proliferation which prompted Yorke and Braun's hyperbole – the actual music itself being higher on the cultural agenda than for a long time.The most visible example of Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Not a year in which big names came through, and many on the list below are actually quite introverted and low-key, but none the worse for that. Among numerous global musical gems this year were the following:The Fes Festival of World Sacred Music retained its high quality with scores of top notch acts, notably the wonderful Lebanese singer Abeer Nehme singing Aramaic music with incredible sweetness and purity. The video below gives some idea:The most extraordinary act of this year’s WOMAD was a modern folk group from Italy with the unwieldy name of Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, whose rootsy Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There aren't a lot of harpists in pop. Transatlantic migrations took all sorts of instruments away from their European place of origin to become the building blocks of American music. But there was no sizeable Welsh diaspora so the harp stayed at home with its most diligent exponents. That places singer-songwriter-harpist Georgia Ruth in a musical tradition with deep roots but a less than broad reach.One of the many pleasures of her enchanting debut album Week of Pines is the way she ushers an old instrument into lush new pastures. In "In Luna" the harp has a lovely eager lilt as a kind of Read more ...
Russ Coffey
“Maybe I needed to grow up a little first/ Well it looks like I hit a growth spurt”. So goes MMLP2’s opening track and over the course of the next hour it becomes apparent this is no idle brag. The album’s dizzying mix of melody, syllables-per-minute, heart and hurt means, despite the endless plaudits being given to rival "deadly fucking serious” Kanye West, it was really the nutcase from Detroit who demonstrated the greater artistic maturity in 2013.Some may consider the term “mature” ironic given Marshall Mathers' love of adolescent word play. But that would be to misunderstand how Em’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Despite his nickname and habit of doing a bunk, George “Shadow” Morton was one of America’s highest-profile and most distinctive producers and songwriters. He was responsible for shaping the sound and style of The Shangri-Las, Janis Ian, Vanilla Fudge and The New York Dolls. Until the release of Sophisticated Boom Boom!! – The Shadow Morton Story, the musical side of his story had not been told. A consummate collection, this significant release was pulled off with style. The packaging was superb, as was the annotation. Its music was amazing too.Morton’s vision brought filmic drama to pop. Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Queer as Pop (****) was as much about social as musical history, and Nick Vaughan-Smith’s film told its story with a combination of outstanding archive material and some incisive interviewees, the archive taking fractionally more of the weight. Subtitled “From the Gay Scene to the Mainstream”, it started loosely in the Sixties, then jumped back and forth across the Atlantic until the present day as the story demanded.It started from the premise that gay clubs were the places that played the best music, and that it was gay artists who were pushing the stylistic boundaries, which were then duly Read more ...
bruce.dessau
2013 was yet another year when hip hop added a bit of punch to old rockers. Elvis Costello had a crack at his own distinctive version of rap on Wise Up Ghost, while Arctic Monkeys' fifth album successfully fused Alex Turner's recent fondness for Dr Dre with his enduring affection for homegrown turns of phrase and in particular northern words such as "shite".At its heart though, AM is still very much a rock record. Just as you think every permutation of guitar music has been done and dusted AM comes up with the molten blues of “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” complete Read more ...
mark.kidel
Mali has been in the news this year: music was under serious threat from the fundamentalism that spread through the north of the country and ransacked parts of the ancient city of Timbuktu. The jihadists are hardly music-lovers and Mali’s creative community, one of the most productive in Africa, stood firm while feeling the cold winds of Islamist repression, and reacted with characteristic vigour. The griots or jalis of West Africa have always sung alongside the just warriors, giving them courage with their heart-warming musicBassekou Kouyate, the great ngoni player from Ségou, known for his Read more ...
theartsdesk
We at The Arts Desk are as fond as the next person of swans-a-swimming, partridges and pear-trees, not to mention gold rings, but be honest: 'tis already the season to be jolly sick and tired of all those knee-jerk compilations of Slade, sleighbells and Celine Dion's "O Holy Night". Without wishing to audition for the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, it’s time to admit that not everything made in the name of Christmas is of the highest artistic merit. But, it turns out, there’s gold in them there hills – snow-capp'd, natch.Tireless champions of excellence that we are, we’ve raided our memory banks Read more ...