New Music Features
Joe Boyd's Recording HeavenWednesday, 08 April 2020
When it comes to making records, I love deadlines. Embarking on an open-ended project, particularly with the infinite number of overdubs made possible by ProTools, is my idea of hell. Back in the Nineties, I once spent an afternoon combining vocal takes line-by-line into a master track for one song. That’s when I started to think writing books might be a better way to make a living. Read more... |
Jazz musicians adapt to the lockdown - 'Welcome to our world!'Wednesday, 01 April 2020
“Jazz people,” one commentator has written this week “are amongst the most adaptable of our species as life mirrors art and we improvise our way through – we're uniquely qualified to weather the storm.” Read more... |
A simple twist of fate - how a chance encounter with 'Joan Baez, Vol 2' 50 years ago led to a festival in Downtown ManhattanMonday, 30 March 2020
We’ve all spent time considering our desert island discs, which is of course why the programme Roy Plomley devised one winter’s night in 1942 is still thriving. The choices are perhaps less favourites than music that takes you back to a specific moment in time, that reminds you of someone, or something, special. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Brussels - jazz, openness and youth at the start of the cultural yearTuesday, 14 January 2020
“Brussels – The Cultural Guide” for 2020 is a very substantial book. It consists of 212 tightly-packed pages in a quite small font. The message is that there is indeed a lot going on culturally in Belgium’s capital city. Read more... |
10 Questions for Techno Musician Carl CraigSaturday, 23 November 2019
In the eight years since theartsdesk last spoke to Carl Craig, a lot has happened. He moved from his native Detroit for a sojourn in Barcelona (partly for ease of access to his summer DJ residencies in Ibiza), then recently returned. Read more... |
Is this Jimi Hendrix’s greatest posthumous release? Producer Eddie Kramer talks about a legendary live albumFriday, 22 November 2019
This week, one of the finest gems in the entire Hendrix catalogue finally sees the light of day in its full unedited glory – Songs for Groovy Children comprises all four sets from the Band of Gypsys New Year’s Eve 1969-70 residency at the Fillmore East in New York City. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Hamburg: Reeperbahn Festival 2019 reviewSunday, 22 September 2019
Hatari’s 10th placing in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest hasn’t done them any harm. Neither did ruffling the feathers of the European Broadcasting Union and host nation Israel with their stance on Palestine. Read more... |
Bob Dylan Special - Rolling Thunder Revue, NetflixTuesday, 11 June 2019
Tomorrow, Martin Scorsese delivers, via Netflix, two hours and 22 minutes of screen time devoted to Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, following on from the release last week of the latest Bootleg Series boxed set, 14... Read more... |
Bob Dylan Special - theartsdesk Q&A: Scarlet RiveraTuesday, 11 June 2019
As Martin Scorsese’s new feature film, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, hits Netflix and cinemas, and a new 14 CD boxed set enters the official Bootleg Series, ... Read more... |
First Person: Sam Lee on singing with endangered nightingalesFriday, 03 May 2019
Every spring for the last five years, we have gathered around a camp fire in hidden locations in a wood in Sussex, to join the nightingales and to “re-wild” ancient folk ballads. We walk in silence through the forest at night, with no torches, reawakening our aural senses. These meditative pilgrimages give people permission to be in a state of communion with nature, to be silent to hear the birds. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Earthrise, the 1968 Apollo 8 photograph of our small island of a planet, taken from the Moon’s surface, transformed our vision of our...
The thing with Annie Clark, better known as the triple-Grammy-winning iconoclast St Vincent, is that much like an actual saint the multi...
With a troubled gaze and a lived-in face, the portrait of artist Alberto Giacometti on a withdrawn...
The French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca confesses that – like so many classical musicians...
In director Pat Collins’s lyrical adaptation of John McGahern’s last novel, with cinematography by Richard Kendrick, the landscape is perhaps the...
This album came with an absolutely enormous promo campaign. As well as actual advertising there were “Audience With…” events, and specials on BBC...
Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/...
Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s ...
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of...
The first season of Blue Nights was so close to ...