New music
peter.quinn
A celebration of that most extraordinary instrument, the human voice, this year’s edition of Jazz Voice – which gladly welcomed back a live audience and a full-strength EFG London Jazz Festival Orchestra – ranged from music of intimate delicacy to stunning virtuosity. Across two separate sets, eight singularly gifted artists showcased their distinctive storytelling gifts, enveloped by Guy Barker’s richly detailed arrangements.Georgia Cécile kickstarted proceedings in impressive style with “The Month Of May” from her all-original debut album – recently nominated in this year’s Scottish Jazz Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
One of the most interesting tracks on Essiebons Special 1973–1984 Ghana Music Power House is Joe Meah’s mysterious "Dee Mmaa Pe". It’s not mentioned in the compilation’s accompanying booklet, and Joe Meah doesn’t figure in any of the standard discographies littering the world-wide web.Despite this inscrutability, Essiebons Special’s second cut has a surprisingly familiar touchstone. Mainly instrumental with stabbing brass, a sax solo and odd vocal interjections it has a shuffling soul vibe. But the keyboard part dominates. What’s played nods so overtly to The Doors’s “Light my Fire” that it’s Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
There’s no doubting that New Zealand hit-maker Ladyhawke can write a perfect pop song – “Paris is Burning”, “My Delirium” and the joyous “Dusk till Dawn” prove that. And this, her first album in five years, starts out promisingly. Both poppy, peppy “My Love” and catchy single “Think About You” serve as a much-needed injection of almost hedonistic, upbeat fun. “Time Flies” follows and this is a different beast – anthemic power pop that will have the audiences swaying with phone torches aloft.“Mixed Emotions” was written with Jono Sloan and Nick Littlemore of Empire of the Sun fame, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Amid the spume of insults at the close of the song “The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle” by Malcolm McLaren’s Rotten-less, end-game version of the Sex Pistols, Rod Stewart is a prime target. Sandwiched between abuse for David Bowie and Elton John, Rod is accused of having “a luggage label tied to his tonsils”. It’s hardly a cutting verbal blow but the point is he’s amongst those the Pistols were supposedly rendering irrelevant. Over four decades later, though, his musical output remains relatively prolific and his albums massive hits. This new one will be. A terrifying thought as it contains many Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
Having been founded only in 2017 by singer/songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada, Black Pumas have been rapidly rising to fame, with a Grammy award nomination in 2020 and the majority of their current European tour dates sold out. Though Tuesday’s Birmingham show, in Digbeth’s O2 Institute, was not among that number, the venue was still teaming with an eager and enthusiastic crowd. An impressive frontman, Burton displayed larger than life stage presence from the get go, oozing an infectious energy with punchy dance moves and full fat, no holds barred soulful vocals. Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Damon Albarn’s second solo album in a career otherwise defined by open-hearted collaboration confirms he sees operating under his own name as a chance for melancholic introspection. The deliberate austerity of its predecessor, Everyday Robots (2014), was shown when accompanying, full-band gigs revealed the bright pop song finery beneath the album’s bleak camouflage. Where others go solo to satisfy band-cramped egos, solo Damon is a place of anticlimax and indirection, where his gift for melody is befogged and hazy.The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows began as an orchestral Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Perhaps surprisingly for a band famed for the raw, tightly wrought, balled-up fury of their music, the most affecting moments of Idles’ fourth album are slower numbers. Chief among these is “Progress”, whose looping, repeated lyrics may reflect singer Joe Talbot’s ongoing reflections on putting drug addiction behind him. Lines such as “I don’t wanna feel myself come down” are given added potency by a threatening shroud of tunefully warped, loping band underpinning. While the album’s words sometimes – and enigmatically – offer hope, the tone of the music often sounds doomed.This is Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Back in the mid-'80s, in a time before acid house and Bez’s freaky dancing, there was a type of audience that seemed endemic at indie gigs and that just didn’t want to dance. Hordes of blokes (and it was mainly blokes) would stand facing the stage with their feet firmly planted on the floor, moving only to raise pints of lager to their lips and maybe to clap between songs. Playing to those kinds of crowds must have been soul-destroying, especially for musicians whose tunes were particularly aimed at getting hips swaying.Jane Weaver’s show at Birmingham’s Hare and Hounds felt like a trip Read more ...
mark.kidel
Music and therapy have always been closely connected – it is indeed possible that music grew out of a quest for a kind of medicine for the body and soul. Jon Hopkins’s latest adventure explores the possibilities of not only quietening the mind, but opening the heart.This is not the lulling (and irritating) New Age Muzak that accompanies massage and relaxation sessions, but something that goes much deeper. Hopkins recommends that this long "suite" in which each section floats from one track to the next should be listened to in one go, preferably in darkness. I would add that the impact Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Any compilation with a track credited to “Unknown Artist” is always going to entice, especially when it’s one which goes the full way by digging into original master tapes to find the best audio sources and previously unearthed nuggets. In this case, it’s not known who recorded “To Make a Lie”, a dark, menacing cut where a disembodied voice intones about the threat of a giant willow tree (“it’s coming!”), evil, pain and walking into eternity over a doomy organ, spiralling guitar and draggy drums. As it ends – a female scream. Bad trip vibes.“To Make a Lie” was found in the archives associated Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Peter Culshaw’s occasional global music radio show returns with a two-hour conversation with one of the most innovative and enduring post-punk artists.TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW CLICK THIS LINKMatt Johnson, under his nom de guerre The The emerged into the shiny 1980s with some music that has lasted more than most, notably with the album Soul Mining with its classic songs and mix of despair and euphoria.With its warm lyrics and unusual-for-the-time sounds like accordion and melodica, his work was opposite to the ”Cold Wave” of the time with its Numanesque synths and automaton chic. Other Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s been almost 10 years since Bangles’ front woman Susanna Hoffs has released any original tunes, preferring instead to go for unexpected songs by reasonably well-known artists.This is a pity, as she’s had a hand in writing more than a few cracking tracks over the years – “Hero Takes a Fall” and “Dover Beach” from the Bangles’ first album All Over the Place being particularly notable examples. Still, if the muse isn’t giving up the goods, improbable cover versions is as good a way to go as any.So it is with her latest solo album, Bright Lights, which features reinterpretations of songs by ( Read more ...