New music
graeme.thomson
Towards the end of a ridiculously easy and enjoyable hour spent in their company, Flap!’s singer and ukulele player Jess Guille described “Rock in Space” as “jazz-folk-disco” – and, you know, it kind of was. A bawdy, slap-happy five-piece from Melbourne, their root note is pre-war American jazz, but to that foundation they add ska, gypsy music, blues, folk and flickers of more contemporary styles, mixing them all together with deceptive ease. And although their defining aim is to get the audience to laugh, dance (and drink), they can really play, too.Guille alternated lead vocals with Eamon Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
This was an odd duck of a concert for the final night of the Olympics. Elsewhere in London were the reformed Spice Girls and Blur and general partying, whereas this was at times a sombre show, curated by Hal Willner as part of Antony’s Meltdown Festival. It was inspired by the Freedom Rides, a turning point in the American Civil Rights movement.The Freedom Rides were in 1961 when, deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives - and many endured brutal beatings and imprisonment - for simply travelling together on buses and trains as they Read more ...
Dylan Moore
Even as London partied, the talk was already about legacy. And as Blur took the stage on a Best of British bill that impressively included New Order and The Specials, the open secret that this may have been their last ever gig – “certainly in this country, for a long, long time” – gave a chance to assess the question of what the legacy might be of the band that unquestionably inspired a generation.Unlike the band’s reunion tour of 2009, which climaxed with a similar Hyde Park homecoming show, there was little talk between songs nor room for sentiment. Damon Albarn admirably stayed true to his Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Ry Cooder is an unpredictable quantity. He’s a prickly, opinionated old coot who doesn’t seem the type to pass a night in the pub with. He’d probably not get your jokes and moan about the Rolling Stones nicking his songs. His musical output is equally tricksy. For every fab film soundtrack (Paris, Texas, Southern Comfort, The Long Riders) or Buena Vista Social Club, there’s some less loveable tangential whim, such as his Buddy concept album, about a cat and a toad.However, there’s little doubt Keith Richards did find a golden seam of new songwriting via Cooder in the early Seventies, or that Read more ...
graeme.thomson
Rosie Wilby: How (Not) to Make it in Britpop, Bongo Club *** In the 1990s Rosie Wilby was lurking on the outer edges of Britpop with her band Wilby, whose giddy career highlights included opening for Tony Hadley (he evacuated the entire room for the soundcheck), being clamped outside the venue while supporting Bob Geldof, and getting their own plastic name tag in the racks of Virgin Megastore.Her band were rated “enjoyable” in a 2000 Guardian review – Wilby back-projects the proof in case we don't believe her – and the same adjective applies to this hour-long show. It’s a bit of a curate Read more ...
mark.kidel
James Yorkston, the very able singer-songwriter from Fife, is now on his fifth album for Domino. This comes hot on the heels of the reissue of his first and excellent release, Moving Up Country, which established him as one of the most talented artists in the crowded field of nu-folkies, musicians who have drawn inspiration from British folk traditions but worked the forms up in an imaginative and risk-taking way. James Yorkston’s well-crafted songs, swathed in atmospheric strings, and tinged with melancholy and mystery, are never far from “this strange country, with its strange old gods Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Kinks: The Kinks at the BBCKieron Tyler“Meet a group that recently came from nowhere to the top of the hit parade. A rhythm and blues outfit with long, shoulder-length hair and the strange name of The Kinks.” With that, Brian Matthew introduced The Kinks to BBC listeners on 19 September 1964. Two months later, Matthew declares the band “members of the shaggy set”. On being asked why they grow their hair so long, Ray Davies says that “girls go for it”. His brother Dave offers that girls are going kinky.Almost 50 years on, these off-the-cuff remarks are amongst the wealth of fabulous Read more ...
Russ Coffey
“I would cut my legs and tits off/ When I think of Boris Karloff." Those were Lou Reed’s opening lines at the RFH, taken from Lulu, his recent collaboration with Metallica and his most poorly received record since 1975’s Metal Machine Music. One critic called it a “contender for the worst album ever". Reed’s reply was that he does as he pleases. Last night that meant making it a third of his set .It was a good call. Lulu has been terribly misunderstood, and just gets better with time. It didn't matter that Metallica were absent for this Meltdown show. Only a light readjustment was required Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Electronic dance music is notorious for its multiple sub-genres and niche categorizations. One of the more obscure is a style known as "dark ambient" (or "darkwave"). Its micro-interest status is unsurprising since it combines lethargic downtempo with unsettling moodiness, hence it’s best suited to depressed darkened Winter bedrooms and bleak art-film soundtracks. That said, the best of it has a modern classical flourish that can be sonically exciting.Before the term “dark ambient” existed, Dead Can Dance were making it and, along the way, consolidating the reputation of 4AD Records. In the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Britain’s New Towns – constructed to address post-World War II housing shortages – were meant to be places of dreams. Modern amenities abounded. The clean lines of post-Le Corbusier architecture screamed “this is the future”. Yet there was no sense of community, more a sense of alienation for residents. That wasn’t an issue for on-message government agency the Central Office of Information, whose 1974 film New Towns painted them as places of wonder. Retitled A Dark Social Template, this ad for the miracles of concrete, bathrooms and a bank on your doorstep has been recast with a new Read more ...
howard.male
The North African desert blues, as played by Tuareg musicians like Tinariwen, may well be the most popular kind of “world music” amongst mainstream rock fans since South African township jive post-Paul Simon’s Graceland. However, this presents a problem in that it’s intrinsically a rather limited form and so there’s a risk that its audience may soon grow tired of those circling, intertwining guitars, that mid-tempo lope and those understated almost-spoken vocals that make up a typical song. So does this debut solo album from the one-time Etran Finatawa member bring anything new to the Tuareg Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Considering how over-stuffed Brooklyn is with music, south London’s Dignan Porch being issued by that locale’s super-hip Captured Tracks imprint smacks of coals to Newcastle. But they fit in a treat, sharing an outlook with Brooklynites Crystal Stilts and Frankie Rose, or label mates Wild Nothing and Holograms (who are Swedish). What this means is that Dignan Porch have taken a raft of Eighties indie rock - when it meant independent – influences from the pre-Grunge era, whizzed them up together to remake them afresh.The Chills, first album Dinosaur (before they added the Jr.), Sonic Youth ( Read more ...