New music
graeme.thomson
It may not be a particularly popular statement, but the financial black hole rapidly consuming the music industry undoubtedly has its fringe benefits. Five years ago Shelby Lynne would have toured the UK with a session band and played for perhaps 70 minutes. Last night, in the draughty deconsecrated church she immediately transformed into an intimate supper club, Lynne played for two hours with just a guitarist for company – and was spellbinding. Long may the pennies pinch.It’s over a decade since Lynne released I am Shelby Lynne, less a conventional album and more a delta where all the great Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
This is Earle's first collection of new material since 2007's Washington Square Serenade, since when he has made a disappointing tribute album to Townes van Zandt, taken a role as a street musician in HBO's New Orleans series Treme, and written a novel, also called I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive. Signs are he may be spreading himself too thin, because this new disc is best described as patchy, and is unlikely to end up as anybody's favourite-ever Earle album.Washington Square Serenade succeeded because it had some gripping songs, a unifying theme (Earle's move from Tennessee to New Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Dan Kelly is rapidly becoming a big noise Down Under. His uncle, Paul Kelly, is a star of long standing in Australia, but Kelly junior's profile is also now rising fast. Judging from his fifth album, the only thing I've heard by him, such attention is well deserved. In truth, it's his second solo album as he usually works with a group called the Alpha Males. Details aside, though, he's a joy to listen to because he combines the whacked-out madcap lyricism of Julian Cope with a musical sensibility that falls between the Beach Boys and Seventies glam dons The Sweet. In other words, his way with Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Two cult singers on the same bill. A stirring prospect in itself, but last night they were both also at watersheds in their careers. The headliner, Ron Sexsmith, was looking to cultivate a more mainstream audience. He’s had his moments over the years, such as when he was covered by Chris Martin, Rod Stewart and Curtis Stigers. But last night he seemed to want the fans to have another look at him. On one song he styled himself as a “late bloomer”, but he didn’t need to convince this crowd.Even though producer Bob Rock has done a good job putting some AOR sheen on the new record, the songs are Read more ...
joe.muggs
One of the most powerful things about the dubstep movement – aside from the monumental sound itself – is how its rootedness has provided a platform for a generation of artists to launch out into other things from. The spaciousness, drama and flexibility of the template has allowed maverick producers like Mala, Shackleton and Kode 9 to create their own unique sound worlds that bridge the gap between clubland and the avant-garde, far more than, say, drum'n'bass ever did. And now Bristol-based producer David Corney can be added to that list.At first listen to Broadcast, you might not even Read more ...
joe.muggs
While rumours of the album's demise may well have been premature, the digital age certainly does present increasing challenges when it comes to getting punters to keep and treasure music. Of course, really it all went wrong with the CD: those irritating plastic cases with hinges and catches guaranteed to snap off and get hoovered up, the booklets you have to squint to read, the discs that slide under car seats or behind radiators. Even “deluxe collectors' editions” were never going to be all that glorious compared to a big slab of vinyl or two and a lavish gatefold record sleeve. MP3s might Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The self-titled debut album by London-based three-piece Rayographs is one of those surprises you hope for - a virtually unknown band referencing little that’s going on right now and capturing it in long-playing form with panache and a compelling vision. On this evidence, Rayographs are the spooked-out, somewhat cross third-generation offspring of early ballroom-era Jefferson Airplane.Opening cut “In Her Light” lays it out. The atmosphere is psychedelic, the mood vexed, the rhythm taught, the whole ragged. Throbbing out from under an oil-wheel light show, Rayographs would have inspired plenty Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
N-Dubz's music is throwaway post-grime cheese-pop aimed at fans aged between 10 and 20, max. I've been writing a rearguard action for electronic pop in the pompously self-assured court of rock for more than a decade so I arrived at the Brighton Centre ready to sponge it up.Almost everyone present was a teenager or in loco parentis. Despite an expected sell-out the place was two-thirds to three-quarters full. This may be because N-Dubz peaked about two years ago, or it may be that Boho old Brighton is just not N-Dubz's core territory. Either way, much of their target audience has, perhaps, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The death of Poly Styrene (Marianne Elliot-Said) is more than another reminder that the ever-influential punk era is further and further away. It is also genuinely sad as she was always helpful, always approachable and – simply put – a nice person. Her vision was a singular counterpoint to the period’s often simplistic political stance and macho outlook. Her death comes soon after the release of Generation Indigo, her latest album. It has become her final word.Concerned with the issues in society that formed personalities and affected outlook, songs like X-Ray Spex’s “Identity” - Read more ...
bruce.dessau
The question used to be: “Can white men rap?” A more apt variant today is, “Can white men in their middle forties with juvenile nicknames rap?” Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA recorded Hot Sauce Committee Part Two in 2009, but then put the release on ice when MCA, aka Adam Yauch, was diagnosed with parotid gland cancer. Two years on he is on the mend and the album has been tweaked for our discerning 2011 ears.Any changes made since 2009 have hardly been to bring the style bang up to date. From the opening Starsky soundtrack wah-wah guitar and cowbells on “Make Some Noise”, this is an album that Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“I thought I was creating metaphysical history by running Creation,” says the label’s Alan McGee in Upside Down. Seconds later the meat-and-potatoes rock of Oasis blasts from the soundtrack. The drug-assisted disconnect between such lofty aspiration and the grounded music of Oasis was never going to be bridged. Even by the man billed as “the president of pop”.Creation Records was destined to go down the tubes at some point, and the success of Oasis hastened that fate (Noel Gallagher of Oasis, pictured below). Luckily, unlike great British failures like Eddie “The Eagle“ Edwards, Creation Read more ...
howard.male
Even the cover artwork refuses to conform, breaking the first rule of graphic design by utilising a dozen different typefaces and alternating upper and lower-case lettering for maximum optical anarchy. In fact, the inference is that we should play by Merril Garbus’s rules by typing “tUnE-YaRdS” rather than “Tune-Yards”. Such wilful solipsism could be interpreted as pretentiousness, but after several listens to this New England lass’s second album I’d be more than happy to write her band’s name in raspberry jam with my finger, if that was her wish.Once in a bright blue moon some new music Read more ...