New music
david.cheal
Is Guy Garvey really as lovely as he seems? I hope so. Last night, on the first of two nights for the Bury band at the O2 Arena, their lead singer, this big bearded bear of a man, came across as clever, funny, confident, warm, positive and inspirational. He can sing a bit, too, possessing a voice of uncommon sweetness and purity and unerring accuracy, slipping effortlessly into falsetto and back when required. Really, unless you happen to be the kind of person who likes to swim through seas of cynicism, what’s not to like?And blowing away cynicism was what this gig was all about: shamelessly Read more ...
joe.muggs
At its best, and most preposterous, John Cage's work can be a mind-cleanser. The overwhelmingly silly randomised conjunctions and ontological punning of the great Zen master of the 20th-century avant-garde can coax and trick you into letting go of categories and judgments, scale and expectation, and just letting yourself get swept along with the gloriously complex and profoundly nonsensical multidimensional parlour games. Where some artworks might make you feel like you're on drugs, or like you want to be on drugs, very occasionally, Cage can make you feel the startling clarity of the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Katy B has something of the everygirl about her. Part of her appeal is that, unlike Ke$ha, The Saturdays and so many other female pop stars, she hasn't embraced pole-dancer chic, nor does she appear to be gagging to be spread over the pages of Heat pondering her love life, her diet or her cleavage. Katy B is a 21-year-old from Peckham who looks like a 21-year-old from Peckham.With girl-next-door features and a penchant for unobtrusive casual wear, she presents herself as the young woman perched by the bassbins in your local dubstep hotspot, nodding along with a satisfied smile.
As with Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s an important year for Estonia. The Baltic nation celebrates 20 years of independence from Russia. Capital city Tallinn is European Capital of Culture for 2011. It’s also 10 years since their Eurovision win. theartsdesk is here for Tallinn Music Week, the third annual celebration of the country’s music. Integral to the national fabric, music was fundamental to the independence movement: the move to split from Russia was dubbed “The Singing Revolution”. Tallinn Music Week is more than bands playing and DJs DJing – this festival is laden with meaning.There’s no doubt that Estonia’s music – Read more ...
marcus.odair
Forget Lady Gaga – Mica Levi, aka Micachu, is modern pop’s true maverick. More likely to sport jeans and T-shirt than frock of flesh, she’s a skinny, scruffy tomboy who can hold her own in a game of keepie-uppie. Her take on music is similarly unassuming, but it’s also, genuinely, extraordinary. Debut album Jewellery, originally recorded for Matthew Herbert’s Accidental label but then snapped up by Rough Trade, deserved to be classed as pop, in her own eyes, because it comprised “short songs, with choruses and verses”. But its wonky and defiantly lo-fi tunes, hammered out on a tiny, charity- Read more ...
Russ Coffey
If you just knew him from the pop and world-music part of his career you might struggle to believe that Peter Gabriel was once considered to be synonymous with everything that was white and stiff in music. His Genesis work, all public-school poetry and am-dram costumes, not only practically invented prog rock, but also spawned its most infamous practitioner, Marillion. By “Sledgehammer” and “Steam”, however, Gabriel had fully switched sides of his brain. That was, however, until last year when he revisited prog by replacing his touring band with an orchestra. Not everyone was impressed.The Read more ...
joe.muggs
This is the most gorgeous Finnish Krautrock album I've heard in ages. Yeah, I know, how wacky, how alternative, how off-piste – but bear with me. If you associate Krautrock with over-serious record collectors it might sound like damning with faint praise, but yes, this mostly instrumental record is made by a trio of demented Finns; yes, it is rooted in the psychedelic repetitions of mid-1970s German hairies; and yes, it is really, really gorgeous.Or, OK, parts of it are gorgeous: there are rather darker tracks too, like “New World” which sounds pretty much like a lost Joy Division Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The name King Creosote conjures up an image of an old jazz player, lips cracked from cigarettes smoked and horns played. In actual fact it’s the stage name of Kenny Anderson, a prolific Scottish folk and indie singer with more than a passing resemblance to Bill Oddie. On recent form there’s every chance that he may be about to become best known for his work with indie supergroup The Burns Unit. But he’s also made more than 40 albums over 20 years, and Diamond Mine is a project where he’s looked back over and re-imagined some of the less obvious moments of his back catalogue.It’s the Read more ...
mark.kidel
Concerts are not what they used to be: in an attempt to break the mould of conventional performance styles, promoters and artists are increasingly turning to explanatory introductions, visual aids and other means of drawing the audience in, as if music alone could not work the crowd. The Senegalese singing star Baaba Maal is touring with the journalist and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, and their show combines relaxed but clearly scripted conversation with stunning songs from Maal’s Fulani repertoire.Advertised as Tales from the Sahel, and an exploration of “how such mythological tales Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
We all know people who listen to their music from iTunes, aren’t fussed with CDs and use their computer as the sole source for their listening. They’re listening to MP3s, the file format developed for portable players. But MP3s are compressed files with less data than those on a CD. Why listen to this fast-food version of music at home? Do so and it’s a nail in the coffin of sound quality.This isn’t about the pros and cons of downloading or any of the surrounding issues. It’s not about streaming via Spotify – that’s just an advanced form of radio. This is about the creep which is leading to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Anyone expecting the 1977-style foghorn-voiced Poly Styrene from Generation Indigo is going to be disappointed. Instead, this album is sweetly delivered, melodic and driving modern pop with a Euro electro-dance sheen. She’s not bellowing “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” over bee-in-a-jar guitar and caterwauling sax, but embracing something much more friendly.Of course, this review is tempered by the recent news that Poly has been diagnosed with cancer. Produced by Youth, Generation Indigo isn’t for those sporting punk blinkers, although she’ll always be defined by having fronted X-Ray Spex between Read more ...
joe.muggs
The Sónar festival occupies a very special place in the New Music calendar – and is this year expanding outwards temporally and geographically, with new franchises in Tokyo and A Coruña, Galicia. Now into its 17th year, the parent festival in Barcelona serves as a vital meeting point for those of all stripes who refuse to acknowledge the polarisation of avant-garde and populism, or of club culture and the mainstream music industry. With 10 or more main stages and untold off-piste club events around the city, it would be impossible to condense even a single day and night of Sónar Barcelona Read more ...