New music
theartsdesk
Amy Winehouse, who was found dead at her London home this afternoon, was the greatest female pop singer of her time, in the way that Billie Holiday was of hers, says Peter Culshaw, the first of theartsdesk's writers who tell below what she signified to music and to them. More tributes come from Joe Muggs, Thomas H Green, David Nice and Matilda Battersby.PETER CULSHAWIn just two albums, Amy Winehouse proved she had a rare ability to inhabit her songs, and her sultry contralto voice was unique. It will be noted she is a tragic member of the "27 Club" - the brilliant fireworks who burned out at Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Symphonic pop of the Electric Light Orchestra variety is a hard thing to pull off and even when it succeeds it’s very much an acquired taste. When Max McElligott – AKA Wolf Gang - first appeared a couple of years ago with an EP on the Neon Gold label, he seemed have the balance between opulent and poptastic just about right. It had a blustery chamber-pop charm and was, at the very least, a promising opening shot. His debut album, though, has pushed the boat out too far. It is over-enamoured with its own lusciousness, a precision Crufts-groomed show poodle of an album wearing diamante Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
By the end of the first half an hour, the burly Egyptian journalist next to me was in tears. By the end of the show, the entire Barbican audience was on its feet. It was a memorable evening – even if the august Barbican Hall was nothing like the teeming masses of the Tahrir Square at the height of the protests against Mubarak. One thing was clear though – those who think popular music has lost the power to change things and mutated into mere consumerist spectacle will have to eat their words. Especially if they understand Arabic.Which was a slight problem for half of the audience who didn’t Read more ...
Russ Coffey
They’ve called the tour "The Hits - Stripped Back". But they weren’t all hits. More importantly, they weren’t merely stripped back either. They’d evolved. The band’s ability to write quality anthemic indie rock is undeniable. But so is the fact that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish them from a slew of other bands with awkward names and characterful voices, like Feeder or Embrace. Or Elbow. And Elbow have stolen the market share. So where does this leave Athlete? It leaves them taking a step back from the pop game, and getting excited about the sonic possibilities of making music together. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Nat Baldwin’s alt cred is impeccable. Not only is he a former bassist for Brooklyn’s über-cool Dirty Projectors, he’s also responsible for a string of releases that began with 2003’s free jazz set Solo Contrabass. Also prepared to take a stroll with the less cool, he’s been heard on a TV ad for Orange mobile phones, the one with the barefoot, ladder-descending lady. Although People Changes worms intimately in, it’s hard to detect a singular voice. Formerly in thrall to Anthony Braxton, he’s now trying on Arthur Russell.Opening People Changes with a faithful cover of Russell’s “A Little Lost” Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Ólafur Arnalds used to drum for a hardcore band called Fighting Shit. But since 2007 he’s produced a string of achingly emotive CDs that integrate sparse piano, keening strings and subtle electronic texture. He’s Icelandic and, inevitably, his instrumental music is usually described as evoking empty landscapes and long stretches of darkness. But judging by last night's concert, his sunny outlook, affability and humour cut dead all thoughts of dark nights of the soul feeding his muse.A stately piano piece, based around a series of repeated and building arpeggios titled "Poland" wasn’t a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Why is it that a certain strand of faceless electronic music, currently best represented by outfits such as Caribou and Gold Panda, often achieves such a strong media profile? These acts and their kin have their moments - the odd real cracker, in fact - but the impression is given that their classy, considered bedroom noodling is more valid than something equally faceless that's sweatier and more percussive.It's that old "intelligent electronica" crap that's been lurking around for nigh on two decades like a bad smell wearing designer glasses. In fact, I'm surprised Gold Panda didn't Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The nominations for the 2011 Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize were announced earlier today. Beyond PJ Harvey and Elbow having won before, nothing wildly surprising cropped up.Here they are:
Adele: 21Anna Calvi: Anna CalviJames Blake: James BlakeElbow: Build a Rocket Boys!Everything Everything: Man AliveGhostpoet: Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy JamPJ Harvey: Let England ShakeKaty B: On a MissionKing Creosote & Jon Hopkins: Diamond MineMetronomy: The English RivieraGwilym Simcock: Good Days at Schloss ElmauTinie Tempah: Disc-Overy
The prize will be announced on 6 September
Kieron Tyler
The French national holiday of 14 July might be marked by parades and fly-pasts in Paris, but here on the Atlantic coast it’s the central date for Francofolies, the annual festival dedicated to French music. La Rochelle hosted its first Francofolies in 1985. Twenty-six years on, the festival remains the premier showcase for Francophone music. This year the bill took in David Guetta’s dance-floor cheesiness, Gotan Project's overhauled tango, actress Mélanie Laurent plugging her recent album and all points in between. A window like no other on the French mainstream, it also showcases up-and- Read more ...
joe.muggs
It's always interesting to see how revolutions in music get folded back into the fabric of the culture that fomented them. Dubstep, which changed club culture so dramatically in the mid-2000s, is now an intrinsic part of that culture from mainstream to margins, and the forms it takes as it beds into these various parts of the ecosystem are manifold. And Jazzsteppa – two Israelis named Gal and their trombones – turn their hands to a fair few of those forms.Watch video for "Investment Decision"
Hyper Nomads is on a label run by dance/dub veteran and ex-KLF producer Tony Thorpe. It is a Read more ...
david.cheal
Latitude: this four-day event in the attractive environs of Henham Park, near Southwold, is, as its slogan says, “more than just a music festival”. Quite so. But how to review such a groaning cultural smorgasbord? This year, rather than delivering an indigestible wodge of words, I thought I’d take a slightly different approach; thus my account of my four days in Suffolk is divided into thematic sections which correspond only roughly to the festival’s own creative categorisations. So here we go.
Latitude’s organisers are still struggling with the water thing. Although work has been Read more ...
andy.kershaw
I walked in to find my new Radio 1 producer standing on our secretary’s desk – she was on the phone – wearing a sombrero, a huge rubber ear, and playing the trumpet. Around him, in the third floor typing pool of the Nation’s Favourite – unable, given the din of The Peanut Vendor, to mew to one another comparisons of train journeys to and from East Croydon – secretaries were varnishing their nails or even typing programme running orders.Down the corridor in our office – Room 318 of Egton House, a hideous 1960s office block, next door to Broadcasting House, and the home of Radio 1 – the world’s Read more ...