New music
Album: Dr Robert & Matt Deighton - The Instant GardenSaturday, 26 April 2025
There’s this mod milieu, harking back to the Eighties. Weller at the forefront; Dr Robert and his Blow Monkeys; all righteously hate Thatcher; then the electronically groovy 1990s arrive; Acid Jazz Records; boss mod Eddie Piller; his collection of... Read more... |
Album: Self Esteem - A Complicated WomanFriday, 25 April 2025
Given that Prioritise Pleasure was Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s (RLT) Back to Black, and that there’s been a lengthy wait for this new release, it’s no wonder that there’s so much anticipation around A Complicated Woman. Add to the mix... Read more... |
Album: Jenny Hval - Iris Silver MistThursday, 24 April 2025
Had I read the contextual blurb about Jenny Hval's latest album first, I might have assumed it was a perfume company collaboration. The album is named after a fragrance created by renowned perfumer Maurice Roucel for French house Serge Lutens, a... Read more... |
Album: Billy Idol - Dream Into ItWednesday, 23 April 2025
There’s always been a goofy charm about Billy Idol. As an implausibly chiselled Adonis shining out from the deliberate ugliness of the original London punk scene, he was a misfit among misfits. As a pop star through the ‘80s, he was visibly so... Read more... |
Album: Viagra Boys - Viagr AboysMonday, 21 April 2025
Sweden’s most gloriously unhinged export is back, and Viagr Aboys might just be Viagra Boys at their most fun, feral and fully realised. This album doesn’t try to out-clever the world; it grabs it by the collar, shakes it around, and laughs in its... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: 1001 Est CrémazieSunday, 20 April 2025
It would have been hard to pick up a copy of the album credited to and titled 1001 Est Crémazie in 1975. Just 500 copies were pressed. It didn’t reach shops but was circulated amongst the musicians playing on it, their friends, families and fellow... Read more... |
Album: Maria Somerville - LusterSaturday, 19 April 2025
Luster’s fifth track “Halo” has the lyric “mystical creatures… of Éirne,” referencing the Irish river and lough of the same name – both of which are associated with a mother goddess. Earlier, the album’s opener is a short, ambient-styled, scene-... Read more... |
Album: Ronny Graupe's Szelest - Newfoundland TristesseFriday, 18 April 2025
In this new album, three top-flight musicians based in Berlin, guitarist Ronny Graupe, Lucia Cadotsch (voice) and Kit Downes (piano) work collaboratively, superbly, as a real team. The music, some well-known tunes which Cadotsch sings hauntingly,... Read more... |
Album: Gigspanner Big Band - TurnstoneThursday, 17 April 2025
For lovers of British folk from the 1970s on, Peter Knight is a potent force – renowned for his years with Steeleye Span, in their 1970s heyday and from 1980 through to 2013’s classic set written with Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith.The first iteration... Read more... |
Album: Mark Morton - Without the PainWednesday, 16 April 2025
Mark Morton is best known as a guitarist with US metallers Lamb of God. They’ve been going for three decades, established and successful, at the more extreme, thrashier end of the spectrum, but still achieving Top Five albums on the Billboard charts... Read more... |
Manic Street Preachers, Barrowland, Glasgow review - elder statesmen deliver melody and sing-a-longsTuesday, 15 April 2025
As you might expect from a Manic Street Preachers gig, literary influences were never far away. A DH Lawrence quote was prominently displayed on the video wall before the group took the stage, and band lyrics would randomly flash up throughout the... Read more... |
Album: Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson - What Did the Blackbird Say to the CrowMonday, 14 April 2025
At a time when the powers that sadly be in America are trying their damnedest to erase and rewrite history, the latest release from Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson is a welcome reminder of the rich culture of the Black community and how much it... Read more... |
