New music
joe.muggs
I have to admit I was That Hipster with Underworld: loved them circa 1991, stopped being intensely interested around the first album, diverged almost completely after “Born Slippy” went supernova circa 1995. It was wonderful the way that Karl Hyde bodged together torn up fragments of overheard conversations into his rave-dada lyrics to express the delirium of the rave era, but as the band's instrumental film soundtracks started to become the most interesting thing about them, perhaps foolishly I wrote him off as a one-trick pony, never again to repeat the inspiration of “Mmm Skyscraper I Love Read more ...
theartsdesk
The historians of punk are in full flow. Jon Savage's book England's Dreaming and the BBC Four's documentary series Punk Britannia have documented much of what needs to be said. But punk was as much a visual statement of intent as a musical one, which is why a new book of photographs by Sheila Rock is such a welcome addition to the punk library. Rock was there at the start, taking pictures for NME, Smash Hits and, most importantly, The Face, where her images did much to establish its commitment to style. Nick Logan worked with Rock on all of those publications. In his introduction to Read more ...
Russ Coffey
On Monday, Pink shocked Twitter followers by announcing she was pulling out of a gig at Birmingham’s LG Arena. A lung infection had confined her to the hotel. “She better get well soon,” said one fan. “I’d die if she cancelled at the O2.” She didn’t, of course. Whether due to an awful lot of oranges or sheer guts she arrived on stage last night, catapulted by giant bungee cords.The high-octane pace lasted all night long. At the end she was flying again – this time suspended on wires and being fired from one end of the arena to the other. In the intervening two hours, the 33-year old mother Read more ...
peter.quinn
The CD booklet note by NASA astrobiologist Daniella Scalice is just the first of many striking features on this third Basho CD by the Mercury Prize-nominated pianist Kit Downes. Joined by his core trio of bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer James Maddren (both fellow alumni of the Royal Academy of Music), plus reeds player James Allsopp and cellist Lucy Railton, Light From Old Stars sees Downes really getting into his compositional stride.With rippling arpeggiations on the piano strings and icy harmonics in the cello, album opener “Wander and Colossus” ushers you into the album's singular sound Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
While it’s impossible to recreate the impact of their astounding first Sixties sally, it’s still a thrill when a new album appears bearing the name “Stooges”. Punk’s ragged-arsed Detroit progenitors first popped up again in 2007 with visceral live shows but a lacklustre album, The Weirdness. Since then original guitarist Ron Asheton has died and, in a strange mirror to history, James Williamson, guitarist on 1973's classic Raw Power, has returned to the fold (following a 30 year career in engineering management!)For fans who dared to hope, it’s good rather than great news. This isn’t an Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Orpheus, set in an imaginary Paris in the 1930s, delivers an unashamedly escapist and a quite delightful evening's entertainment. The Orpheus myth is often a pretext for fantasy or fun. Maybe the original, tragic tale is just too unremittingly dark and poignant. But while Offenbach, for example, camped and cancanned it up, and Cocteau found poetry in his vintage cars and his motorbikes, the Little Bulb company's twist on the story – in a co-production with Battersea Arts Centre - has been to make Orpheus into a suave guitarist - Django Reinhardt (Dominic Conway) - and Eurydice (doubling as Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The choir sing off stage at first, under the wide arch to the side before filling the platform and singing the praises of Cuba’s Orisha spirits. Those Orisha guys must be shining like beads on a necklace. Lucumi were finalists in the 2008 BBC Choir of the Year, and they’re a multicultural London choir putting their voices at the service of Afro-Cuban music traditions, where it all begins with the hands and mouth. Percussion, lead voice, chorus, and the call-and-response pattern-making of chants that swim us to the deeper end of the pool. They sound grand in the Union Chapel’s acoustics for Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Gainsbourg-Birkin dynasty is akin to a gift that keeps on giving. Just when it appears to be dormant, another member of the extended family reveals a new role. Lou Doillon, daughter of Jane Birkin and film director Jacques Doillon, is best known as a model and actress. Last September her debut album, Places, was released in France and its belated arrival over here is sure to make a few waves. Hopefully not because of who she is, but due to it being first-rate.With Places, Doillon is some way ahead of half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose albums are written by others. All the songs are Read more ...
James Williams
It was a full house in Kentish Town for a homecoming show for grime pioneers Wiley, Skepta and JME. A far cry from the Sidewinder and Eskimo Dance parties that spawned so many of the scene’s main players, instead this was a night that carried an air of triumph, a "we made it" moment that inspired explosive performances and a fantastically receptive audience.Featuring a plethora of grime scene talent, from the up and comers, represented by the Azonto fixated Fuse ODG, who made the most of the stage space to whip the crowd into a skanking maelstrom, to appearances from scene veterans and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Art Ensemble of Chicago: A Jackson in Your House/Message to Our Folks/Reese and the Smooth OnesA New Orleans brass band plays a death march. What sounds like a saucepan is tapped steadily. The music suddenly dives into swing. A bicycle horn parps. A group of muttering voices are agitated. Reed instruments parp like angry parrots. Someone grunts and hollers. A trumpet signals a fanfare. Bells tinkle. Sonny Rollins appears to wander in and out. So does Ornette Coleman. The whole is arrhythmic, but bedded by percussion. Melodies come and go in the same piece, but are never repeated.The Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Frank Turner has been setting his life to music ever since he re-emerged as a heart-on-the-sleeve singer-songwriter type some time in 2005, and so it’s hard to avoid the temptation to play therapist when considering his most personal collection of songs to date. Tape Deck Heart, his fifth album since then, is more love and loss than love and ire.It’s been billed as a breakup album so it’s not surprising that loss of the romantic kind features right from the opening track. On first listen, “Recovery” comes across as upbeat indie-rock-by-numbers but its jaunty chorus and effervescent wordplay Read more ...
Russ Coffey
If one thing unites James and last night's support act, Echo & the Bunnymen, it’s that they both tend to be underrated. James’s big college rock songs can overshadow the true splendour of their weird, poetic and off-kilter worldview. The Bunnymen’s problem is that, outside their fanbase, too many simply know them for their song “The Killing Moon”, which featured in the film Donnie Darko. Last night, they didn't seem to want to do much to change that.It was only partly their fault. They came on in front of a half-empty Academy with an atmosphere more soundcheck than gig. The way they'd lit Read more ...