tue 19/03/2024

New Music reviews, news & interviews

Album: Elbow - Audio Vertigo

Kathryn Reilly

On this, their 10th album, the melodious Mancunians started at the drum kit and built from there. This is no bad thing.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Mystic Tide - Frustration

Kieron Tyler

Crashing chords are followed by a spindly, untrammelled solo guitar. After this subsides, the singer lays out the issue: “I try, I cry, I just can't see why. It's clear, she's near, the sights and sounds I hear.” He’s distressed, his anguish palpable, All the while, slabs of guitar squall get ever-more edgy, increasingly wigged out. There are more solos which aren’t far from those of The Velvet Underground’s “I Heard Her Call my Name.”

Album: Julia Holter - Something in the Room She...

Mark Kidel

Julia Holter has created a long line of albums that trade on sophisticated poetry, both lyrical and musical, and her latest, perhaps the most...

Album: Kim Gordon - The Collective

Thomas H Green

Some icons sit back and bask. Kim Gordon does not. She has occasionally intimated that her New York cool and relentless work rate may be down to a...

theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Karl Wallinger

Graeme Thomson

In February 2001 a brain aneurysm nearly killed Karl Wallinger. It didn’t do World Party many favours either. The aftermath of devastating illness...

Album: The Dandy Warhols - Rockmaker

Guy Oddy

Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s mob return with a power pop monster

Music Reissues Weekly: Groove Machine - The Earl Young Drum Sessions

Kieron Tyler

A deep dig into the studio musician integral to creating disco music

Album: Sarah Jane Morris - The Sisterhood

Peter Quinn

A brilliant ode to female torchbearers

Say She She, Koko review - flawless, pizazz-filled show from rising stars

Kieron Tyler

The Paul Weller-approved soul sensations set Camden Town ablaze

Album: Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine

Thomas H Green

Efficiently calibrated pop from the global megastar brand

Album: Bolis Pupul - Letter to Yu

Joe Muggs

A deep, strange, lovely electropop exploration of intersecting cultures

Album: Norah Jones - Visions

Sebastian Scotney

The 'musical signature' is there, but the songs are insubstantial

theartsdesk on Vinyl 82: Human League, Hawkwind, Roberta Flack, Kid Acne, Photek, Rudimentary Peni and more

Thomas H Green

The most extensive regular record reviews in the known cosmos

Album: Loreena McKennitt - The Road Back Home

Liz Thomson

The craic is good in Ontario

Music Reissues Weekly: Mark Eric - A Midsummer’s Day Dream

Kieron Tyler

Flawless but belatedly lauded Beach Boys-style California pop from 1969

Album: Squarepusher - Dostrotime

Joe Muggs

Chelmsfordian prog-jazz-acid-rave mania showing no signs of dimming

Album: Kaiser Chiefs - Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album

Ellie Roberts

The slump continues for Ricky Wilson’s gang

Album: Liam Gallagher John Squire - Liam Gallagher John Squire

Guy Oddy

Uninspiring Dad Rock that sounds pretty much as expected

Album: Yard Act - Where's My Utopia?

Mark Kidel

An ironic take on our brave new world

Album: The Bevis Frond - Focus on Nature

Kieron Tyler

Further confirmation that Nick Saloman is one of the UK’s great musical stylists

Music Reissues Weekly: Blank Generation, Just Want To Be Myself

Kieron Tyler

Fresh looks at North American and UK punk

Album: Everything Everything - Mountainhead

Tom Carr

The visionary art-rock group return with dystopian, yet creative and well-earned follow-up

Album: Aziza Brahim - Mawja

Tim Cumming

Afro-Iberian blues and grooves from the activist Sahrawi songwriter

Album: Laetitia Sadier - Rooting for Love

Joe Muggs

Strange and beautiful dream transmissions from the weird world of Stereolab

Album: MGMT - Loss of Life

Kieron Tyler

US art-rock duo see the lighter side of pessimism

Music Reissues Weekly: Lou Christie - Gypsy Bells

Kieron Tyler

First-time exploration of the ‘Lightnin’ Strikes’ hit-maker’s 1967 spell with Columbia Records

Tom Webber, The Hope and Anchor review - a fresh nod to the past

Mark Kidel

Catchy power pop in London's temple of pub rock

Album: Nadine Shah - Filthy Underneath

Kathryn Reilly

Bravely confessional, cleverly composed

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, Tate Modern review - a fitting celebration of the early years

Sarah Kent

Acknowledgement as a major avant garde artist comes at 90

Footnote: a brief history of new music in Britain

New music has swung fruitfully between US and UK influences for half a century. The British charts began in 1952, initially populated by crooners and light jazz. American rock'n'roll livened things up, followed by British imitators such as Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard. However, it wasn't until The Beatles combined rock'n'roll's energy with folk melodies and Motown sweetness that British pop found a modern identity outside light entertainment. The Rolling Stones, amping up US blues, weren't far behind, with The Who and The Kinks also adding a unique Englishness. In the mid-Sixties the drugs hit - LSD sent pop looking for meaning. Pastoral psychedelia bloomed. Such utopianism couldn't last and prog rock alongside Led Zeppelin's steroid riffing defined the early Seventies. Those who wanted it less blokey turned to glam, from T Rex to androgynous alien David Bowie.

sex_pistolsA sea change arrived with punk and its totemic band, The Sex Pistols, a reaction to pop's blandness and much else. Punk encouraged inventiveness and imagination on the cheap but, while reggae made inroads, the most notable beneficiary was synth pop, The Human League et al. This, when combined with glam styling, produced the New Romantic scene and bands such as Duran Duran sold multi-millions and conquered the US.

By the mid-Eighties, despite U2's rise, the British charts were sterile until acid house/ rave culture kicked the doors down for electronica, launching acts such as the Chemical Brothers. The media, however, latched onto indie bands with big tunes and bigger mouths, notably Oasis and Blur – Britpop was born.

By the millennium, both scenes had fizzled, replaced by level-headed pop-rockers who abhorred ostentation in favour of homogenous emotionality. Coldplay were the biggest. Big news, however, lurked in underground UK hip hop where artists adapted styles such as grime, dubstep and drum & bass into new pop forms, creating breakout stars Dizzee Rascal and, more recently, Tinie Tempah. The Arts Desk's wide-ranging new music critics bring you overnight reviews of every kind of music, from pop to unusual world sounds, daily reviews of new releases and downloads, and unique in-depth interviews with celebrated musicians and DJs, plus the quickest ticket booking links. Our writers include Peter Culshaw, Joe Muggs, Howard Male, Thomas H Green, Graeme Thomson, Kieron Tyler, Russ Coffey, Bruce Dessau, David Cheal & Peter Quinn

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