New Music Reviews
theartsdesk in Montreal - delights and discoveries at the 42nd International Jazz FestivalMonday, 11 July 2022
For most Montrealers, their 10-day jazz festival (30 June - 9 July) is, as the new head of programming Maurin Auxéméry described it to me, a “free, all-you-can-eat musical buffet every night”. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Judex - Cult of JudexSunday, 10 July 2022
A compilation album titled Pennsylvania Unknowns was issued in 1982. Its 17 tracks chronicled the US state’s Sixties garage rock and psychedelic scenes. Amongst the bands included were Pat Farrell & The Believers, The Flowerz, The Loose Enz and The Shandells. About the best known were Allentown’s The Kings Ransom, whose moody 1968 single “Shadows of Dawn” was a collector’s staple. Read more... |
Love Supreme Festival, Sunday review - eclectic jazz on the Sussex DownsWednesday, 06 July 2022
By day three of any festival things are usually winding down. But there was a sense that Love Supreme have saved the best for last this year with a strong offering of funk and soul, R&B and experimental jazz. Read more... |
Album: Laura Veirs - Found LightMonday, 04 July 2022
The last minute of Found Light’s third track “Seaside Haiku” is defined by the repetition of a single phrase: “give but don’t give too much of yourself away.” Before this is the line “I’ve learned a lot from pain.” Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Ferkat Al Ard - OghneyaSunday, 03 July 2022
Oghneya opens with the extraordinary “Matar Al Sabah.” Jazzy, with an overt Brazilian feel it gently swings and swoons. Wordless backing vocals and pulsing but gentle strings add atmosphere. Milton Nascimento comes to mind but the intimate lead voice also feels French, a little bit Julien Clerc. It’s instantly impactful. Read more... |
The Bobby Lees, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - rock’n’roll like it should beFriday, 01 July 2022
In a week when all kinds of people were going bonkers over an octogenarian playing songs from over 50 years ago to tens of thousands of people in a field in Somerset, it’s nice to know that rock’n’roll has not yet rolled over completely to become family friendly entertainment. In fact, if an evening with the Bobby Lees is anything to go by, it’s positively thriving – as long as you know where to look. Read more... |
Glastonbury Festival 2022: an unexpurgated odyssey around the best party on the planetThursday, 30 June 2022
Last days of June 2022, I sit in my writing hut. My liver is radioactive jelly, my nose reinforced concrete, my leg muscles marathon-cramped, and poisoned perspiration rolls down my forehead, stinging my eyeballs. Read more... |
The Rolling Stones, BST Hyde Park review - let it rock!Monday, 27 June 2022
A few spots of rain greeted the arrival of the Rolling Stones on BST Hyde Park’s stage on Saturday night, and after “Street Fighting Man”, as Mick Jagger dedicated the show to the much-loved and lamented drummer Charlie Watts, a rainbow appeared over the stage. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Whatever You Want - Bob Crewe's 60s Soul SoundsSunday, 26 June 2022
In 1965, Bob Crewe was living alongside Central Park in New York’s Dakota building. At various times, the block’s other residents included Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. For work, Crewe’s 6th-floor offices on West 60th Street were in a complex overlooking Columbia Circle and South Central Park. Atlantic Records was also based there, as was Roulette Records. He was flying high. Read more... |
Blk Jks, Moth Club review - Johannesburg’s art-rockers are more straightforward live than on albumThursday, 23 June 2022
Figuratively, “Tselane” is Blk Jks’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Both songs begin quietly and move through passages of turbulence suggesting an impending tempest. Each has a command of dynamics which pulls the listener in, generating anticipation for what comes next. On stage, “Tselane” is introduced as a “lullaby.” Read more... |
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