rock
Joe Muggs
I have thus far been a bit wary of the Janelle Monáe hype. It's only natural: when an attractive young performer is taken under the wing of megastars like Outkast and P Diddy, and drenched with media acclaim that pronounces them an artist on the level of Prince, all on the basis of a few download tracks and one album, one bristles. And when that album is heavily conceptualised and crisply produced but more full of overt retro references than it is instant tunes, the suspicion only grows. Live reviews, meanwhile, suggested that there might be something more stage school than old school about Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
What's weird about the reams of commentaries that have already sprouted around The King of Limbs is the way they try to tell you what it resembles, but not what it actually is. Apparently it's like Miles Davis, Foals, Autechre, dubstep, Talk Talk, Philip Glass and Charles Mingus, among others. But is there an essential Radioheadness at its core?Perhaps what says most about its authors is its method of delivery - by digital download now, followed by a plush multi-format "newspaper" version in May. Audio-wise, its unifying characteristic is Thom Yorke's voice, a baleful and fragile Read more ...
Joe Muggs
As acting challenges go it borders on the foolhardy: impersonate not just in looks and mannerisms but in musical skill too some of the most truly iconic figures of the 20th century. And do it up close and personal with an audience who know the subjects' work inside out to boot. It seems almost impossible that a cast could manage to convincingly portray the (real) musical meeting of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins at Sam Phillips's Sun Studios in 1956, but Million Dollar Quartet has managed successful and continuing runs in Chicago and on Broadway, so they must be Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Since breaking through with her 1992 debut album Dry, PJ Harvey has constantly been on the move, changing and evolving, both musically and sartorially. Last night at the Troxy in East London was no exception. As she walked onstage dressed in a long black frock with a riot of matching feathers exploding from her head, she resembled Lady Gaga's bonkers West Country Edwardian ancestor.The music, on the other hand, was less harebrained, but frequently breathtaking, as Harvey worked her way through her new album. Let England Shake explores the nature of war, concluding that we do not seem capable Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The White Stripes may have just announced their retirement but theartsdesk can report that the boy/girl two piece is still alive and well in the form of She Keeps Bees, a Brooklyn-based band currently on a mini-tour around Britain and Europe. Here it’s the girl, Jess Larrabee on guitar, and boy, Andy LaPlant on drums. The sound is superficially similar to The White Stripes with Larrabee delivering gutsy blues rock guitar, but vocally she sounds more like PJ Harvey stranded in Tennessee during a full moon. The soon-to-be-released sophomore album, Dig On, was self-recorded in a log cabin in Read more ...
Joe Muggs
This isn't an awful album. It even starts really well. The opener, “Four Letter Word”, comes pounding in with the sort of jackbooted psychedelic rock attitude that Oasis always promised and so rarely delivered. Add a swooshy noise and it could almost be early Hawkwind, so fried-synapse rock'n'roll is it. Then comes “Millionaire”, which if you heard it blind you might accept as a lost track by The La's, so timelessly, northernly tuneful is it. But sadly, inevitably, comes “The Roller”, with all its excruciating Lennonisms leaking all over the place: a track that slams the face of creativity Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Rock-folkies can sure be snobs. Even though New Hampshire-born Ray LaMontagne is still relatively unknown over here, there are still purists who view his records with suspicion. They feel the voice is just too huge, the sound too commercial. The irony is that no-one courts attention less than LaMontagne. Last night he delivered the entire concert from a static spot just to the left of the band. And apparently he’s as withdrawn offstage as he is on. But the RFH saw him focussed. Focussed on finding the right way to channel that part-bluebird, part-bear he has for a voice.And on the strength of Read more ...
howard.male
No, not “trance” in the sense of galloping four-to-the-floor electronic music made by people on Ecstasy for people on Ecstasy. This trance is the original ritualised half-conscious state produced by fast, intensely repetitive, rhythmic tribal music… OK, now I’m thinking about it, we are kind of on the same page here, you just have to appreciate that what this French/Italian/Algerian/Kabyle singer-songwriter is interested in is the spiritual origins of the braindead quantised noise favoured today by the average clubber.She is aided and abetted on this, her third album, by sometime Robert Plant Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There's been a lot of waffle lately about rock'n'roll being dead. This is down to mainstream radio turning its back on guitar music in favour of a stew of electro-pop and R&B, and the fact that just three spots in the Top 100 UK bestselling singles (ie downloads) of 2010 were held by rock songs (for the record, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing", Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" and "Dog Days are Over" by Florence + the Machine). Whenever this sort of media babble starts, it's time to run for cover because there's undoubtedly another tedious wave of guitar bands waiting gleefully in the wings. Read more ...
Russ Coffey
To mark the release of their new single "Dilly" theartsdesk has limited-edition box sets of Band of Horses album Infinite Arms to give away. The box sets have a CD version, a vinyl version and artwork unique to the set. All potential winners have to do is to answer the four questions below, and just to make it easy the answers will be found by following the embedded links.
Band of Horses' latest album is called Infinite Arms, but what is the first song on the album?
Band of Horses' lead singer Ben Bridwell is sometimes compared to Neil Young. What was the title of the last Neil Young album? Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
BBC Four's Britannia series keeps it simple - it tells the story in a straight line, illustrates it with as much archive material as the budget will allow, and interviews as many key protagonists as it can find. If the subject is strong enough, you'll get a good film out of it.And so it was with the reggae edition (part of the Reggae Britannia season), which took a brisk 90-minute march from reggae's arrival in Britain from Jamaica in the Sixties to the point where it disappeared into Soul II Soul's dub/soul/R&B mixture. They'd rounded up pretty well everybody who ever had a stake in Brit Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
I didn't realise how much I liked dirt. Especially New York dirt. I was going to do a rant about boutique designer hotels, which seem ubiquitous in Manhattan. Major case in point: the Gramercy Park Hotel, where I used to stay in the Nineties and Noughties. It was independent, a bit scruffy, with a great bar full of artists and rock'n'roll types and other degenerates, a perfect location and cost about a hundred dollars a night. Last time I looked it had been ponced up – fish tank in the reception, a Buddha, fancy doorknobs and good-looking but no doubt useless staff. Clean as a whistle. This Read more ...