sat 12/07/2025

New Music Reviews

Album: Pom Poko - Champion

Kieron Tyler

The musical equivalent of a firework display, the third album from Norwegian art-poppers Pom Poko is bright, energised and unstoppable. It is also considered; clearly the culmination of a careful creative process. Fusing the spontaneous and the structured can be tricky, but this is what the nimble Champion accomplishes.

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Music Reissues Weekly: White Noise - An Electric Storm

Kieron Tyler

An Electric Storm opens with “Love Without Sound.” Once heard, it’s unforgettable. A disembodied voice which could be either female or male sings about making love without sound. There are female-sounding squawks and yelps. Revolving percussion sounds like drain pipes being hit by toffee hammers. The other instrumentation is clearly electronically generated. And, it has a tune.

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 85: Julian Cope, Art Brut, Heaven 17, The Mysterines, Sleaford Mods, The Wombles and more

Thomas H Green

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Mike Lindsay Supershapes: Volume 1 (Moshi Moshi)

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Brighton Pride 2024 review - the UK's most fabulous festival

Katie Colombus

Brighton’s Preston Park came alive this weekend in the most magnificently colourful, sparkling and diverse celebration of love in all its forms for the UK's most famous LGBTQ+ community fundraiser.

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Album: Mari Kvien Brunvoll & Stein Urheim with Moskus - Barefoot in Bryophyte

Kieron Tyler

Barefoot in Bryophyte is a collaboration between musicians embedded in Norway’s jazz and experimental music scenes. Some of it, though, sounds nothing like what might be expected. Take the fourth track, “Paper Fox.” Figuratively, it lies at the centre of a Venn Diagram bringing together Mazzy Star, 4AD’s 1984 This Mortal Coil album It'll End in Tears and the more minimal aspects of Baltimore’s Beach House. It’s quite something.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Sex Pistols - Looking For a Kiss in Kristinehamn

Kieron Tyler

After Sex Pistols have played “New York,” the fourth song in their set, someone from the audience shouts “Anarchy in the U.K.” "We've already played it, you fucking idiot" responds Sid Vicious. They have. It was the first song they did at Kristinehamn’s Club Zebra.

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Future Islands, Summer Nights at the Bandstand, Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow review - soulful and synth-driven sounds

Miranda Heggie

Attending an outdoor event anywhere in the UK – especially given the summer we’ve not been having this year – is always a bit of a gamble.

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WOMAD Festival 2024 review - exuberant global roots sounds, hippies young and old, and blissful weather

theartsdesk

The weather is perfect. Rare at a festival in this country. The sun shines. Occasional clouds pass. There’s a light breeze. Flamingods are on the Charlie Gillett stage. They are a London-based unit of primarily Bahraini origin who make psychedelic-electronic rock tinged with exotica and Middle Eastern flavour. Very WOMAD, in other words.

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Camp Bestival, Dorset 2024 - magical memories from an enchanting festival

Katie Colombus

I sometimes think I’ve done the festival thing the wrong way round. When my babies were at their littlest, we did the big ‘uns – Latitude, Wilderness, Blue Dot, and the like – all family "friendly", but with slightly wilder, bigger, more adulty vibes. I figured if I was going to be up all night with babes in arms I may as well be in a field, on the fringes of some great music and colourful experiences.

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Album: Personal Trainer - Still Willing

Kieron Tyler

Still Willing opens with “Upper Ferntree Gully,” a seven and three-quarter minute workout twice as long as most of the other nine tracks on Personal Trainer’s second album. A portmanteau piece, its most direct sections have the chug of vintage Pavement, some stabbing early Tame Impala guitar and chunks of Sonic Youth-like squall. Yo La Tengo also aren’t far.

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