New music
Guy Oddy
The Jesus and Mary Chain may have been around for some 40 years (albeit on and off), but the Reid brothers clearly have no intention of setting up camp in the heritage music industry just yet. This was emphatically stressed this week, as they hit the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Institute and ploughed straight into a fierce “JAMCOD”, the lead single off their recent Glasgow Eyes album – and proclaiming “the monkey’s organ grinder isn’t grinding anymore”.Wrapped in a storm of back-lit dry ice, the shadowy five-piece then fired out hits like the hip-swinging power pop of “April Skies” and the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Death of Music was created in Estonia. Despite the English lyrics, directness is absent. Take the title track. “Drop the music” exhorts Mart Avi over its pulsing five minutes. “Fight the music” he declares. The word “execution” crops up. There is reference to a “rope ladder.” The specific meaning of this torrent of imagery is unclear. Nonetheless, it is certain the untrammelled outpouring confirms Avi’s total surrender to the music.This duo album is partially about its impact. However, as it unfurls over its 66 minutes it is increasingly clear that – whatever the lyrical opacity – Death of Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The Christmas album is an American phenomenon that doesn’t really exist in British music. Dating back to Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley in the late 50s, it has long been a regular part of the business – with even Bob Dylan having a go in 2009.Ben Folds hasn’t done one before and, not surprisingly for this most inventive and wry of songwriters, his first is not a straightforward celebration of the clichés of the season, but a collection of songs now bittersweet, now sardonic, always with his poignant storytelling eye. It’s also something of a game of two halves, the understated ambiguity of Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
When Vampire Weekend arrived onstage they numbered only three and were bunched together at the front with a large curtain draped behind them, obscuring their backdrop. By the time this marathon set ended two and a half hours later, they’d more than doubled in number and had made full use of their surroundings, a shift which summed up a constantly changing, often contradictory show.One of those paradoxes was the setting itself. Vampire Weekend are an expansive band, but they still seem a strange fit in large arenas, and going by the amount of sections tarped off they’re not the easiest sell to Read more ...
India Lewis
On a wet, dreary, winter evening in north London, at Islington Assembly Hall, a crowd gathered for an ethereal although not always engaging set by Julia Holter.The opener was Nyokabi Kariüki, an experimental musician who played with loops, found sound, and a haunting, keening voice. She introduced her newer album by discussing her interest in language and the complexities of it, of her knowledge of English and Swahili, something that was explored well in the pieces that she played, solo onstage.Julia Holter came in without preamble and without introduction, standing behind her keyboard in a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
For John Leyton, it was third time lucky as far as his singles were concerned. The actor’s manager Robert Stigwood teamed him with producer Joe Meek, but Leyton's first two 45s – August 1960’s “Tell Laura I Love Her” and October 1960's “The Girl on the Floor Above” – didn’t made waves. The next one – July 1961’s “Johnny Remember Me” – was it, the hit, the chart topper.While its predecessors were underpowered and, in the case of “Tell Laura I Love Her,” a cursory cover of a US hit, “Johnny Remember Me” was something else. Recorded at Meek’s home studio in north London’s Holloway rather than Read more ...
Guy Oddy
By and large, most Christmas albums seem to fall into one of two camps. There’s either the lively poptastic soundtracks favoured at family or work celebrations, which generally feature plenty of sleighbells and a cover of something by either Slade or Wizzard, or the choral and rather more religious affairs of Aled Jones and his ilk.Northumbrian folkies, the Unthanks, however, have decided to try a third way: a dreamlike collection of woozy tunes that might accompany the feeling of having over-indulged on mulled wine while being slumped comfortably by a warm and cosey fireplace. It’s an Read more ...
joe.muggs
There’s a lot of anger at algorithm-driven music discovery around – a lot of it justified, as the big platforms push the already-big acts and lowest common demoninator slop is aided in rising to the top. But we can’t talk about the topic without also acknowledging that it has provided some surprising opportunities for unorthodox music. One such is Santa Cruz, California 90s “slowcore” indie rock band Duster, who not long after they’d reformed found a two-minute sketch of theirs from 1998 called “Inside Out” going supernova on TikTok, eventually clocking up over 17 billion plays. Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
'Tis the season for all manner of bugs, colds and illnesses. One had befallen Katy J Pearson, who struck an apologetic note after the night’s first number to say she had been unwell all day and was going to do her best to get through the gig. That added an unexpected element to proceedings, namely by creating the potential for the whole show to come to a sudden halt at any point.Yet Pearson was otherwise unaffected, save for a jokey remark she made about her bodily functions that she just as rapidly quipped she regretted making. She was helped certainly, by a three-piece backing band of heft Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Amid the electro-rock crunch of “Sorry, Etc”, Lauren Mayberry spits out, “I killed myself to be one of the boys/I lost my head to be one of the boys/I bit my tongue to be one of the boys/I sold my soul to be one of the boys”. The singer for successful Scottish indie-tronic trio CHVRCHES says her debut solo album explicitly expresses her feminine/feminist aspect, while also embracing pop. Lyrically, she nails it, but the music is not always as convincing.Promoting for the album, Mayberry has namechecked a who’s who of female singers, including Sugababes, Lily Allen, Fiona Apple, Annie Lennox, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
White Denim’s literally titled 12th album opens with the fidgety “Light on.” Drawing a line between electronica and Tropicália, it exudes sunniness. “Econolining” and “Flash Bare Ass,” up next, are equally peppy, as bright and similarly accord with the idea of pop as a mix-and-match grab bag – albeit from an off-centre perspective.After this, 12 is about left turns. No one style is embraced. Each track has its own character, distinct from what has come before. “Flash Bare Ass” – a wry commentary on forming relationships in the mobile-phone era – is followed by “Cat City #2”, a 40-ish seconds Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHBlood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)When death metal takes LSD it’s quite a thing. Whether this band have done acid or not, the output of Colorado's Blood Incantation feels that way on their fourth album. Each side is one long suite. “The Stargate” and “The Message”, 20 minutes and 23 minutes respectively, both three-part odysseys that take in Floydian guitar solos, ambient Gregorian-style chanting, Seventies synth-wizarding, lilting reggae rhythms and much else, occasionally and suddenly exploding into galloping guitar squalls underpinned by frenetic blast Read more ...