New Music Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: Trees - 50th Anniversary box setSunday, 29 November 2020
Fifty years after their first album The Garden Of Jane Delawney was issued in April 1970, Trees seem to be better known than when they were active. Despite Françoise Hardy’s cover version of the title track a couple of years after it hit shops, the UK band’s debut album was a poor seller. Original pressings fetch upwards of £200. It’s the same with its follow-up, January 1971’s On The Shore... Read more... |
Dua Lipa's Studio 2054 online - pop sensation locked into the spectacleSunday, 29 November 2020
As with so much in these unprecedented times, online performance is evolving, and fast: different approaches are becoming established formats. Some go ultra intimate – raw acoustic performances, live chats with fans – as if trying to strip away the digital divide. Big, serious rock bands with like Metallica and Radiohead try to keep their established fanbases sated with sheer volume of professionally recorded archive performance. Read more... |
Arena - Fela Kuti: Father of Afrobeat, BBC Two review - the music that never diesSunday, 22 November 2020
There have been Felabrations, stage musicals, bands featuring his sons Seun and Femi that have continued the legacy. There has been the slew of re-releases from his massive catalogue, and a number of films, including Alex Gibney’s Finding Fela, and the 1982 classic, Music is the Weapon. In his afterlife, the legendary Fela Kuti and his music feels more alive than ever. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Do You Have The Force - Jon Savage’s Alternate History Of ElectronicaSunday, 22 November 2020
“During 1975, 1976 and the first half of 1977 punk was the future but, after the highpoint of ‘God Save the Queen’, London punk already seemed spent. By the time that the Sex Pistols ‘Pretty Vacant’ was tumbling out of the charts in early September, there had been two huge hits that changed the way I heard music. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Slaughter and the Dogs - Do It Dog StyleSunday, 15 November 2020
Manchester’s Slaughter and the Dogs were perfect for 1977. In May, their debut single “Cranked up Really High” sported bee-in-a-jar guitar, a hoarse vocal and an unstoppable forward motion. Read more... |
Jazz Voice, Cadogan Hall online - from rambunctious to bittersweetSaturday, 14 November 2020
Oh to have been in the beautiful surrounds of Cadogan Hall last night – not just to have experienced the gorgeous wall of sound, heartfelt artistry and musical camaraderie at first hand, but also to have been able to show our appreciation for a concert which takes months of preparation. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Apple, Jason CrestSunday, 08 November 2020
After their final records were released in 1969, that seemed to be it for Apple and Jason Crest. Releases by both psychedelic-leaning British bands had first hit shops the previous year, and neither oufit made any waves commercially. Of course, that wasn’t the end of the story. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Kenny Carter - ShowdownSunday, 01 November 2020
Half-way through the 22 tracks of Showdown – The Complete 1966 RCA Recordings, what’s been increasingly apparent from the opening cut is confirmed: this is an extraordinary archive release, as much so as the live Stooges album looked at by this column in early September. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 60: Acid Pauli, Mercury Rev, Cabbage, Kraftwerk, Oasis, Working Men's Club and moreThursday, 29 October 2020
Due to COVID-related nonsense too tedious to relate, this month’s theartsdesk on Vinyl was delayed. But here it is, over 7500 words on new music on plastic, covering a greater breadth of genres and styles than most major festivals. From reissues of some of the biggest bands that ever lived, to limited edition micro-releases from tiny independents, it’s all here. Dive in! Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Kraftwerk - in colour, from Autobahn to The MixSunday, 25 October 2020
After Florian Schneider left Kraftwerk in 2008, Ralf Hütter was left in the driving seat. The pair had first been heard on record in 1970 as members of Organisation, and their first album as Kraftwerk followed later in the year. Read more... |
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Reissue CDs Weekly: Trees - 50th Anniversary box set
Fifty years after their first album The Garden Of Jane Delawney was issued in April...
Dua Lipa's Studio 2054 online - pop sensation locked in...
As with so much in these unprecedented times, online performance is evolving, and fast: different approaches are becoming established formats....
Blu-Ray: La Haine
The BFI has done an excellent job of giving La Haine the 4k restoration treatment under the vigilant eye of the film’s...
Uncle Frank review - well-acted but painfully contrived
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First Person: Avi Avital on 'Art of the Mandolin'
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Album: Tankus the Henge - Luna Park!
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Clayton, Frank-Gemmill, SCO, Kuusisto online review – small...
After a brief interlude of concerts with a...
Another Round review - delight and despair
You can practically smell the fumes coming off Thomas Vinterberg’s latest...