sat 02/08/2025

New Music Reviews

Music Reissues Weekly: Barry Ryan - The Albums 1969-1979

Kieron Tyler

In April 1985, The Damned’s Dave Vanian was speaking with Janice Long on her BBC Radio 1 show. He said “Barry Ryan and Paul Ryan have been sadly forgotten. Everyone waxes lyrical about Scott Walker which is marvellous but this is absolutely superb. There’s a tension in there, it starts off pretty but it grabs you after a while.”

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Music Reissues Weekly: Atlanta - Hotbed of 70s Soul

Kieron Tyler

Michael Thevis made his money from pornography. In the Seventies, his Atlanta warehouses were stuffed with most of America’s porn. Nationally, Thevis was the main distributor. Looking for something less edgy to fund with his profits, he turned to the music business and bankrolled the GRC label and its sister imprints Aware and Hotlanta. In time, they became three of America's most lauded soul labels. In parallel, Thevis sealed his reputation as a notorious criminal.

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Album: Chris Cohen - Paint a Room

Kieron Tyler

Paint a Room is idiosyncratic, but it is an absolute joy. Accessible too. Permeated with a summery vibe, its 10 songs glisten like the surface of lake catching the setting sun’s rays. There’s a lightness, a buoyancy which instantly fascinates.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Angelic Upstarts - Teenage Warning

Kieron Tyler

NME’s Paul Morley reviewed Angelic Upstarts’ debut album, the newly reissued Teenage Warning, in August 1979. He pointed out that they were “seen as the successors to Sham 69.”

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Paul Alexander: Bitter Crop - The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year review - setting the record straight

John Carvill

It’s often said that nobody mythologised Billie Holiday like Billie Holiday. I’m not so sure.

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Album: Kiiōtō - As Dust we Rise

Kieron Tyler

As Dust we Rise ends with “Quilt,” a percussion-driven lamentation bringing to mind the New Orleans stylings of Dr. John. The album begins with “Hem,” where stabbing piano and strings interweave with a pulsing, wordless chorale. After a while, a muted trumpet and pattering wood blocks fill it out.

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Glastonbury Festival 2024: A Sunlit Epic of Music, Madness, Chaos and Culture

Caspar Gomez

SUNDAY 30th June 2024

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Sza, BST Hyde Park review - R&B superstar gives apocalyptic bug vibes

Katie Colombus

If the holiday season has been lacking in sun so far in the UK, Sza bought the heat to the first Saturday of the iconic London summerfest in Hyde Park, set up by a strong afternoon of support acts from Sampha, Snoh Aalegra, Elmiene and No Guidnce.

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P!nk, Hampden Park, Glasgow review - a high-wire act with bravado and bombast

Jonathan Geddes

There was a point in this stadium spectacular when P!nk gave her fans two choices. They could either “make out with their partners or go queue for a beer” she suggested, prior to one of the first slow-paced numbers of the evening, but the latter choice was a dangerous one. Few shows, even among big pop jamborees, feature as much going on as Alecia Moore’s current Summer Carnival jaunt.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Cluster - Zuckerzeit

Kieron Tyler

In 1974, two albums by German kosmiche musicians working with electronics became the first from the seedbed of what’d been dubbed Krautrock to explicitly embrace – and merge – melody and rhythmic structure. One was Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. The other was Cluster’s Zuckerzeit. Once on the record player, each LP instantly made its presence felt more directly than anything either had released previously.

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