New music
Kieron Tyler
Just under two weeks ago, Fleet Foxes finished their US tour at the 13,000-capacity Forest Hills Stadium. Now, here they are kicking off their European dates in an auditorium attached to a North London town hall. Capacity 890. Unsurprisingly, it’s sold out. And very hot. After he comments on the heat, someone shouts at head fox Robin Pecknold to take his hat off. “Never” is his response.Although the continents and venues contrast, this leg of what’s dubbed the Shore Tour 2022 after their September 2020 fourth album cleaves to what American audiences have seen. Bar a few solo Pecknold Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
It is a testament to Coldplay’s capacity for reinvention that a good portion of this stadium crowd were not even born when the band first broke through over two decades ago. Such an age range in the audience clearly caught the eye of Chris Martin, who, in a rare moment of standing still, dryly noted that he owns trousers older than some of the people singing along.That admission preceded one of the night’s deepest cuts with “Sparks”, a fragile piece of indie from their debut album Parachutes, and a track that seemed unrecognizable next to the gargantuan pop that populated the majority of this Read more ...
Guy Oddy
When I first started going to music festivals in the late 80s and early 90s, they were all wild celebrations of bacchanalian excess. Children were nowhere to be seen and there was always a crustie on hand, openly plying a wide array of brain spanglers, if that was what you wanted.These days, however, kids’ entertainment is viewed as an essential part of any such knees up – and even Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival has a kids’ gig and activities each year. Top of the family-friendly music festivals, without doubt, is Camp Bestival and this year saw Rob Da Bank’s musical empire expand beyond Read more ...
Tom Carr
From three young lads making music to escape adolescent boredom, inspired by heavy doses of Nirvana and Deftones, Muse now regularly make stadiums around the world their own with seas of thousands adoring fans their home. Since 2006’s Black Holes and Revelations they have also continuously refined their larger-than-life brand of stadium rock. Taking straight up alt-rock and arming it with an extravagant presence, somewhat reminiscent of Queen, they never shy of regularly dipping in and out with distorted, fuzz-laden riffs.On 2018’s Simulation Theory they toyed with a synthesised sound Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
The clarinet-player, clarinet-owner or clarinet-lover in your life is going to want and need this record. The combination of a glorious sound, lyricism that is lived and (okay, obviously) breathed, contrasted with insane finger-busting at crazy speed is irresistible. There is a less-is-more lightness about the whole enterprise, and there are some ear-wormish tunes too.Perugia-born clarinettist Gabriele Mirabassi (b. 1967) is known in jazz circles. He has in the past made albums with jazz greats such as trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and pianist John Taylor. The harmonic language he develops on Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The third track of All Of Us Flames is titled “Dressed in Black.” Its protagonist “come[s] to me by night beneath my window sill…you leave before the sun comes up. Haunted eyes, you’ve got those haunted eyes.” Though tortured, this relationship doesn’t seemed to be doomed despite a mention of weapons.Ezra Furman’s “Dressed in Black” shares it title with a March 1966 Shangri-Las B-side telling the tale of a forcibly sundered love. “They said he was much too wild for me,” wails a broken Mary Weiss. “They thought we were too young to be in love… I climb the stairs, I shut the door, I turn the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Lou Reed went to the Baldwin, New York post office on 11 May 1965 to mail himself a five-inch reel-to-reel tape with 11 recording of songs he had written. The sealed package was registered and stamped, and also signed with that date by a local Notary Public, Harry Lichtiger – a partner at Baldwin’s Nassau Chemists.The 11 titles were “Buttercup Song,” “Buzz Buzz Buzz,” “Heroin,” two versions of “I'm Waiting for the Man,” “Men of Good Fortune,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Stockpile,” “Too Late,” “Walk Alone” and “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams.” The package, addressed to Reed’s parent’s house in Freeport Read more ...
Liz Thomson
A decade or so ago, I imagine if I’d run in to Fisherman’s Friends while enjoying a beer and a nice fat crab sandwich in a Port Isaac pub I’d have passed a happy evening and possibly returned the next night.Sea shanties – indeed, any good close-harmony singing – is very appealing, our reaction to it physiological, an endorphin boost. The sound is irresistible, no matter if you’re drunk or sober. A great part of Fisherman’s Friends' appeal would be their authenticity – a bunch of nice guys with decent voices getting together to have fun and make music.A decade or so of marketing has Read more ...
mark.kidel
Demi Lovato doesn’t do things by halves. She has one of the most powerful voices around, as suited to the yang of punchy hard rock as it is to the sensual yin of R&B or or the contagious sweetness of girly pop.Self-professed gender fluid, her latest album showcases a perennial love of metal: pumping rhythms, hard-edged guitars and a heavy dose of aggro – but her brand of anger is tinged with an appealing touch of vulnerability. The material is as provocative as ever, with a showers of the F Word, used as an adjective as well as a call to arms. The album is not called Holy Fvck for Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Very good things have come to pass as a result the Mingus Centennial in April this year. A light has been shone not just on the jazz bassist and bandleader’s uniquely defiant spirit, but also on the astonishing extent of his emotional range and depth as a composer. The anniversary has, in essence, given an excuse for a re-evaluation of an indispensable and unique figure in 20th century music.There have been great one-off projects this year, such as the “Celebrating Mingus 100” concert at the Philharmonie in Berlin, mainly based on that fully-formed masterpiece, Mingus Ah Um from 1959; a Read more ...
joe.muggs
22 is a pretty young age to be jaded. But this album starts out with Mancunian rapper Aitch detailing how tough it is at the top, and how traumatised he is by life: "sitting on my throne with an open stare / 'cause to me it's just a broken chair". Alright, through the rest of the record there’s lots of rambunctious narratives of sex, wealth and partying, in which he seems to be having the time of his life. But that nagging sense of loneliness, mistrust and self questioning does remain a theme throughout too.It usually takes artists a couple of albums before this price-of-fame stuff starts Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
You know those people who claim to literally only like the very first music a band does at the start of their career, then kind “Meh” decades-worth of solid later stuff? Ridiculous, right?That’s me and Hot Chip. 16 years ago I fell in love with “Over and Over” from the moment I heard it. Still love it. A brilliantly catchy, shrewdly observed Ecstasy anthem. A classic. While I’ve liked other Hot Chip songs since, that same absolute rush never happened again. Until now. There’s a few on Freakout/Release that bullseye the sweet spot.This eighth album from the consistently successful pop-tronic Read more ...