hip hop
Guy Oddy
There’ve been more than a few cold and wet days in Birmingham just recently, as winter has been making its presence properly felt. On Tuesday, temperatures were sent soaring in an over-full O2 Academy however, as heavy metal and hip-hop heads from all over the West Midlands descended on the place to witness the return of South Cali weed ambassadors Cypress Hill. In fact, so full was the Academy that getting served at the bar proved to be a 40-minute odyssey that almost meant missing B-Real, Sen Dog, Mixmaster Mike and Eric Bobo hit the stage and break into “Band Of Gypsies”, the stand out Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Recent years have seen a boom in music documentaries. They are, after all, relatively cheap to make and have a readymade audience. Their narratives are usually similar, and so it is with The Man From Mo’Wax: fame and glory, followed by a fall from grace, followed by self-reflection, absolution and a glimmer of fresh success. What many of them also offer is a sense of wild passion, of the raw, unfettered power of music. This film has little of that. It’s a tale of too-cool-for-school hipsters (at least, that’s how we’d term them now), with the too-cool-for-school-est of them all, Mo’Wax boss Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Rob Smith & Ray Mighty are truly the unsung heroes of British bass music. Coming out of the same cultural melting pot in Bristol that gave us Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and mega-producer Nellee Hooper, they looked to be among the city's big successes when they first emerged in 1987. Their debut single, a cover of the Bacharach / David classic "Anyone who had a Heart" on their own Three Stripe label was a club success, they produced Massive Attack's debut single "Any Love", and Fresh 4's 1989 rave and chart hit cover of "Wishin' on a Star".However an uncomfortable major label deal Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“That’s what we fucking do!” So says Maxim at the concert’s very end, surveying the sweating, raving carnage of 4,500 souls before him. One of The Prodigy’s two frontman, he stands still finally, after spending the rest of the gig pacing and rushing up and down the lip of the stage like a caged panther. We all know what he means. He means that his band have wrung us out, taken us to a fervour of devil-may-care limb-swinging derangement. The Prodigy always bring the party and, yet again, 28 years into their career, they wreak havoc in a way very few bands of any age or era can.The stage Read more ...
Guy Oddy
One of the major abiding musical memories of the late 1990s for many wasn’t so much five Mancunians ripping off Beatles’ songs, but Keith Flint of The Prodigy, growling “I’m a Firestarter/Twisted Firestarter” while all kinds of electronic battery was let loose. The Essex Crew may no longer be the media folk devils of “Firestarter” and “Smack My Bitch Up” but they still pack a mighty punch and No Tourists, their first album since 2015’s The Day Is My Enemy and their seventh in all, is ample proof that Liam, Keith and Maxim have no intentions of sitting on their laurels anytime yet.Rocking a Read more ...
theartsdesk
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why. Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small but perfectly sleazy work of sweary, cynical brillianceBob Dylan - More Blood, More Tracks ★★★★★ The fourteenth volume in the Bootleg Series is a keeperBrad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution! ★★★★★ Prolific improvising pianist creates the apotheosis of the piano trioThe Breeders - All Nerve ★★★★★ Kim and Kelly Deal - plus Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Ex Mykah is a multi-instrumentalist and producer on the LA music scene who’s worked with the names such as Mark Ronson and Miike Snow. His own debut album sounds very far from either of those. Instead it comes from the warped, alt-hip hop end of the pop spectrum, while also recalling that brief Noughties blog flourish “chillwave” (the likes of Neon Indian and Washed Out). This is music dipped deep in a woozy, druggy feel, but which also never wanders far from an actual tune.Ex Mykah is Colombian-Cuban-American Bryan Senti who deeply resents the direction his country has taken and the PR Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Collaboration clearly suits Neneh Cherry. From co-writing with husband Cameron McVey, to projects with Youssou N’Dour, her band cirKus, The Thing and RocketNumberNine, the give-and-take of partnership has produced some stunning work that has always seen the singer give as much as she has taken. Cherry is an honest, open performer and that translates to her vocal style. Much attention has been focused on the involvement of Keiron “Four Tet” Hebden as producer on this project, and his trademark sparkle is much in evidence with carefully controlled clatter and subtle rewinds sitting behind Read more ...
Ellie Porter
Tom Morello is an angry man – and he has a lot to be angry about in these "interesting times". From the righteous rap, metal and rock of Rage Against the Machine and supergroup Audioslave to folk protest songs in the guise of The Nightwatchman (and more of the same, with Bruce Springsteen) and more supergroup action with Prophets of Rage, Morello has barely paused for breath as he commits his fury to record. The Atlas Underground is Morello's first official solo project, which sees him collaborate with rappers, DJs, guitarists, and singers including K.Flay, Rise Against’s Tim Read more ...
Joe Muggs
This may be tempting fate, and minutes after publication of this she'll probably be arrested for stabbing a dog or something, but Ariana Grande seems like an abnormally benevolent presence in the superstar stratosphere. Even leaving aside her dignified and genuine-seeming reactions in the aftermath of the bombing at her Manchester concert, she generally has an air of unstarry, unforced enjoyment of what she does, which stands in stark contrast to the gimlet-eyed faux-sincerity of the Drakes, Taylor Swifts and Ed Sheerans of this world.She can also really, really sing. And not just in the way Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
One of the banes of music culture is over-categorisation. It always has been. The statement that there are only two types of music, good and bad, has been apocryphally attributed to a wide range of figureheads – most especially Louis Armstrong – but whoever said it first, the reason it keeps popping back up is there’s a truth to it. The music nominees for this year’s Hospital Club h 100 Awards reflect a satisfying public swerve away from niche listening, away from those who would isolate via genre and background, a move towards opening all out to all, which can only be a healthy development. Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Death Grips are a self-proclaimed “conceptual art exhibition anchored by sound and vision” who are forever threatening to split up, but don’t let that put you off. Year of the Snitch, their sixth album in as many years, is an experimental hip hop diamond in a world that really doesn’t need any more fake macho rappers or self-obsessed multi-millionaires, propped up by auto-tuned backing singers. With a sound that frequently suggests My Bloody Valentine going toe to toe with Run the Jewels, Death Grips are throwing out anything but smooth and mainstream grooves backed by gangster-fantasy rhymes Read more ...