New music
joe.muggs
There's something about the partnership of Vince Clarke and Andy Bell that seems to automatically generate sweetness. This collection of half originals and half Christmas classics is really quite dark, quite a bitter look at winter and the Christmas spirit – but somehow, Clarke's fizzing synth work and Bell's ever-distinctive voice give it all a sugar frosting, just like pretty much all of their work.But then that's been their strength and downfall throughout their existence. The longest running of Clarke's musical partnerships, Erasure never seemed to ever quite get the critical kudos of Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s now twenty five years since the release of the Waterboys’ most popular album, Fisherman’s Blues. To mark this auspicious occasion, Mike Scott has persuaded EMI to release a six-CD expanded version, Fisherman’s Box, which has 120-odd tracks of the type of music that, let’s not forget, did not receive universal acclaim in 1988 but has significantly grown in stature since then. He’s also called in the guys who recorded these folk, gospel, country and bluegrass flavoured tunes and has hit the road for a proper celebration of their “raggle-taggle gypsy” years.The Birmingham leg of the tour Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The words “breathe, breathe, pray, breathe” were written in 10-inch letters at her feet. She wore sunglasses to help with her shyness. But if O’Connor was struggling with the pressure of being up on stage it didn’t show in her performance. Off-stage she may continue to suffer with her emotional well-being, but, on stage, she’s on the form of her life. Last night, her dense, swirling thoughts were projected through a combination of intensity, humour and vulnerability. It made for a superb evening.O'Connor arrived on stage in combat trousers, a green army top and bobble hat. The tattoos on her Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Few were surprised this week, when Susan Boyle revealed she had been diagnosed with Asperger’s. Some used this knowledge as an opportunity to have another go at Simon Cowell's and his role in putting her in the spotlight. But the brittleness so apparent in Boyle’s inter-personal interactions also reflects the problems many perceive in her style of music. For instance why, instead of making you feel fuzzy and warm, Home for Christmas simply leaves you feeling a little uncomfortable.Christmas songs should make you want to invite the artist over for the holidays. That's true of Mariah Carey, Read more ...
fisun.guner
I can’t say I ever tune into More4, so I confess that I don’t know whether its arts strand is any good, or even if it has one. But I suspect that Get Folked might have made a better three-parter on BBC Four, and not just for dedicated folk-heads. As it was, it tried to pack a lot into its 50 minutes (though allowing only 10 seconds for Mumford and Sons might be seen as a blessing by some) and it did so with a lot of seasoned hyperbole. According to the voice-over in Sam Bridger’s mish-mash of a film, “Something unbelievable has been unfolding over the last few years,” and that something is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Neil Young: Live at the Cellar DoorCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young had fallen apart in summer 1970 and Neil Young was left to promote After the Gold Rush, his third solo album from August that year. He hit the road on his own after "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" had nudged the singles’s chart. As 1971 unfolded, the tour would be billed Journey Through the Past – he was playing recent songs alongside material from his earlier albums, including those made with The Buffalo Springfield.Live at the Cellar Door catches Young in Washington D.C during a series of dates over 30 November to 2 Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Nebraskan singer-songwriter Conor Oberst – AKA Bright Eyes - was a famously contrary soul when he first broke through. This greatly benefited his music, if not his commercial potential. Rather than become your typical indie-acoustic whiner, he embraced a multiplicity of styles, an obtuse, upset, punk-electronic filtering of American roots music. I dismissed him initially as yet more NME-endorsed guitar crap but, after seeing him at Glastonbury a few years ago, I realised he was the real deal, an unpredictable, intriguing artist worth watching.Thus I was pleased to see he had a Christmas album Read more ...
theartsdesk
OK, R Kelly is gross. We knew that. The number of deeply creepy and abusive acts he's been accused of beggars belief (just Google if you want grotty details, it's all on Wikipedia). The fact that he continues happily along his way with wealth and public adoration fully intact must make him feel invincibleEven so, he still maintains an ability to shock and gross out. A lot of people are probably taking this sleeve as a très hilaire arch joke, just as they did with Kelly's preposterous and (go on, you can admit it) deepy rubbish Trapped in the Closet films. But look: it's a bunch Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
This year, even legendary punk rockers Bad Religion released a Christmas-themed album - as if to underline that, for just about any recording artist, it’s not a matter of "if" but of "when". Christmas Songs only shares one track with Kelly Clarkson’s Wrapped in Red - two if you’re counting the bonus tracks - but I can imagine them nestled comfortably together in some completist’s iTunes folder, alongside every other version of “White Christmas” committed to tape.With a Greatest Hits collection now under her belt, it’s probably as good a time as any for the American Idol-winning Texan to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It took two minutes for Jonathan Wilson to launch into the first of the evening’s extended guitar solos. “Love Strong” began like much of his two-hours-ten-minutes on stage. The song opened with him singing a verse and then flying off to guitar heaven. His playing is classic, evoking but not mimicking John Cipollina, Jerry Garcia, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. But it raises a conundrum: is Wilson about the songs or the craft? The former are fabulous, melodic and memorable. The latter fluid and phenomenal. Judging by the in-song applause as solos subsided, much of the audience had decided it Read more ...
paul.mcgee
There's been a quiet but nevertheless palpable sense of anticipation surrounding psych-folk enigma Linda Perhacs' first-ever European tour. Comparatively low-key advance publicity certainly proved no impediment to a sold-out house for the recent opening date at Berlin's Kantine am Berghain, a somewhat drab and unprepossessing bunker in the shadow of the city's notorious techno temple.The late bloomer/Indian summer narrative has become ever more familiar to music fans in recent years. Vashti Bunyan and Terry Callier were both rescued from obscurity via a combination of serendipity and a devout Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Do people really find this sensual? R Kelly’s rise to the very top of the R&B tree cannot, surely, be based on multi-million sales caused by a gigantic ironic in-joke. His Trapped in the Closet series of films showed a knowing wink but, no, the truth is that, like Barry White once was, he’s become the emperor of bedroom music.The album is called Black Panties. Given its content he should have called it Moist Black Panties, just to ram the point home. Listening to it is like biting into a doughnut filled with another man’s day-old spunk. We can speak about the production, which is a Read more ...