pop music
Thomas H. Green
The latest album from Marina Diamandis, her fifth, is a startling explosion of vim and attitude. It mingles speeding, wordy, indie-tinted dance-pop bangers, tilting at all manner of contemporary ills, with sudden moments of broken-hearted piano-led contemplation. When she last appeared two years ago, it was with the lengthy Love + Fear album, Paloma Faith-ish songs whose tastefulness masked real character. Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, on the other hand, is packed with plenty of juice and surprises.It opens with the title track, an electro-glam-pop stomper midway between Britney Spears’ “ Read more ...
Nick Hasted
James, and Tim Booth in particular, have always been too genuinely, gauchely odd to be hip – outsiders at the Madchester rave yet responsible for one of its biggest anthems, “Sit Down”, then shedding their skin for suppler, sexual territory with Laid, an Eno collaboration which opened their sound and self-image into something both gauzier and raw, but trailed behind his stadium-ambient U2 smashes. Being a mighty festival band has sustained them, alongside a drive for new material reliably bearing comparison with their past.Sixteenth album All the Colours of You is produced by Jacknife Lee ( Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Early last month, Donovan issued his extraordinary new single “I am the Shaman”. Recorded at David Lynch’s Los Angeles studio, it was produced by the polymath director and fellow transcendental meditation devotee. The accompanying video was also directed by Lynch. The powerful “I am the Shaman” haunts. It also confirms that Donovan remains an active force.He first entered the public consciousness on 22 January 1965. On that date, Donovan Leitch wasn’t yet signed to a record label but the producers of the weekly pop show Ready, Steady, Go! put him in front of the cameras in the first of three Read more ...
peter.quinn
This second full-length album from South Korean quintet TXT scrambles musical genres in rich and fascinating ways. From the fizzing hi-hats and dreamy chords of opener “Anti-Romantic” to the harmonic stasis and minimalist groove of “Frost” which brings the eight-track collection to an impressive close, textures, timbres and tempos are impressively varied throughout.Beginning with the merest hint of vinyl crackle before bass and drums kick in, “Magic” is a bona fide summer banger which packs an enormous amount of detail into just a shade over two and a half minutes – a killing vocal Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
When Wolf Alice appeared a decade ago, you’d have to have been a soothsayer of Merlin-like proportions to predict the career trajectory they’ve had since. Certainly, prior to their debut album, this writer took them for just another female-fronted London indie guitar band, following the same old formula. Instead, they blossomed into imaginative alt-rock/pop ones-to-watch who can sell out Alexandra Palace, a Mercury Music Prize under their belt, now on the verge of big-festival-headlining proper fame.They deserve it. It’s an overused word (by music journalists, at least) but eclecticism is Read more ...
joe.muggs
Greentea Peng is a south Londoner, heavily tattooed, heavily spiritual, heavily anti-establishment, and very, very heavily into basslines. She cuts a singular figure in many ways, but her rebel dub soul style also makes her a particularly British archetype: the next iteration in a lineage starting with Poly Styrene and Ari Up, and running through Neneh Cherry, Tricky and MIA. (Yes, OK, Ari Up was German and MIA is Sri Lankan, but their sound and their cultural fusions could only have happened on this island.) Like each of those artists, she is unmistakeable in sound. One of the most Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Pop music, like Hollywood, is a dream factory: a place where you can be anything you like, as long as that’s not a middle-aged woman. I’ll hit the last year of my 30s next week, with the number one spot in the country held by a woman who has her driving licence but isn’t old enough to drink. Cannot relate. In either respect. Thank god, then, for the return of Liz Phair.Coming more than a decade since her last album, Soberish is a record with plenty to say. The woman who wrote “Divorce Song” when she was 23 has, in her 50s, written what may be the greatest ever song about divorce: “Spanish Read more ...
peter.quinn
More than three decades after their acclaimed, self-titled debut, Crowded House has grown from a trio to a quintet. In addition to the group’s lead singer, main songwriter and founding member, Neil Finn, the current incarnation of the band includes co-founder and bassist Nick Seymour, keyboardist (and former Crowded House producer) Mitchell Froom, plus Finn’s sons Liam on guitar/vocals and Elroy on drums.The band’s seventh studio album – their first since 2010's Intriguer – is aptly titled. Whether it’s the nearly orchestral scope of some of the writing, the circuitous nature Read more ...
caspar.gomez
INTERLUDE 1: INVALID CODE-AGEDDON6.45 PM on Saturday 22nd May and all is well. Like tens of thousands of others across the UK (or maybe even more?) my wall flatscreen is tuned to Glastonbury’s livestream. Prior to the event itself promos for Water Aid and the like roll by, the kind usually on the huge screens beside the Pyramid Stage at the festival.One of my usual Glastonbury compadres, Finetime, is round, the fridge is loaded with beers, posh bottles of Bordeaux breathe by the radiator. Finetime has made his patent fiery quesadillas, timed for the 7.00 PM start. We’re going to make a right Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Back in the mid-Eighties, BBC television started broadcasting The Rock'n' Roll Years, one of the first rock music retrospectives. Each half-hour episode focused on a year, with news reports and music intermixed to give a revealing look at the development of rock culture against the context of current affairs.That is more or less the basic template employed by the makers of Apple TV+’s new eight-parter, 1971 - The Year that Music Changed Everything, ballooning that half-hour to around about six hours of great music, incredible footage, and more great music. It’s loosely based on David Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Things got out of hand at theartsdesk on Vinyl this month and these reviews run to 10,000 words. That's around a fifth of The Great Gatsby. It's because there's so much good music that deserves the words, from jazz to metal to pure electronic strangeness. That said, this is the last time theartsdesk on Vinyl will reach this kind of ludicrous length. So enjoy it. Dig deep. There's something for everyone. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHThe Fratellis Half Drunk Under a Full Moon (Cooking Vinyl)Look, I’m the first one to gleefully, mercilessly dance on the grave of so-called landfill indie (the wave Read more ...
Harry Thorfinn-George
With all eyes on her in 2018, Jorja Smith’s debut was surprisingly level-headed and mature, filled with the introspection and storytelling of someone twice her age. This new, slender eight-track project feels like a stepping stone in her career rather than a follow up to her acclaimed debut. That being said, it’s a fine collection of songs which finds Jorja in a more world-weary and sombre head space than ever before.The second single “Gone” is an example of Jorja’s evolving storytelling. Backdropped by an elegant beat by Rahki, it’s a song about loss which makes use of narrative positions in Read more ...