New music
Liz Thomson
Named after the duo’s Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, badly damaged in a 2020 tornado and restored by them, Woodland Studios is Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ first album in four years, when All the Good Times won the Grammy for Best Folk Album. It’s their first album of all-original material since Poor David’s Almanack in 2017, and the second to be credited to them as a duo.Its mix of the very traditional-sounding and the strikingly contemporary, evident from the outset as the opener, “Empty Trainload of Sky”, pedal steel making its presence felt before the vocals enter, gives Read more ...
mark.kidel
We’re in deepest Dorset, on the edge of the village of Cranborne. The sun has just set. A cluster of thatched rooves, ancient looking barns and outhouses.It could be a set for Game of Thrones, a reconstruction of pre-industrial times. Groups of people huddle together, in festive mood. At the heart of this cluster of age-old looking structures, there’s a large round house, with an earth and turf roof, covered in grass and weeds. This is one of the most weird and wonderful performance venues in the UK, as iconic in its small way as the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.Twice a year, the Earth House Read more ...
joe.muggs
Trip hop is everywhere these days. From Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey on down, some of the biggest artists in the world channel a smoky, bluesy, late 90s mood – and in the UK something even more interesting is happening that taps into a longer, deeper continuum.In the burgeoning soul/jazz underground (and mainstream!) the likes of Jorja Smith, Dave Okumu, Yazmin Lacey are all tapping into a wellspring of uniquely British introspective groove that runs not just through Massive Attack and Nightmares On Wax but back through Sade, Soul II Soul to the years of lovers rock and Cymande.Squarely in Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Aside from their musical output, the fame – or notoriety – of Californian rockers Osees derives from two main factors. First, their consistently changing the spelling of their name on different releases (eg, Thee Oh Sees, OCS, etc). Second, their gushing prolificness of output. They’ve been releasing music for 21 years and Sorcs 80 is their 29th album. That’s going some.The short version of this review is that it’s a spirited electro-garage splurge but its sameyness occasionally grows annoying. Although Osees is a band it mostly represents the artistic vision of one person, frontman John Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The musical equivalent of a firework display, the third album from Norwegian art-poppers Pom Poko is bright, energised and unstoppable. It is also considered; clearly the culmination of a careful creative process. Fusing the spontaneous and the structured can be tricky, but this is what the nimble Champion accomplishes.Heard without knowing anything about Pom Poko, Champion comes across as a new wave-influenced take on math rock were those responsible cocking an ear to Imperial-era Beyoncé. Pop, but pop which has been deconstructed and then reassembled.Opening cut “Growing Story” is along the Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Those with long memories will remember Sean Dickson (as Hi FI Sean is known to his Mum) as the vocalist and driving force of 80s indie guitar types the Soup Dragons, and David McAlmont from his Brit Pop era hit with Bernard Buttler, “Yes”. That all happened a long time ago but, unlike many of their contemporaries, neither of these two can be accused of being stuck in a creative rut since their glory days.Daylight is actually the duo’s second album and it couldn’t feel more different to the sounds that first brought them to public prominence. In fact, 90s house music, synth pop, gospel and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
An Electric Storm opens with “Love Without Sound.” Once heard, it’s unforgettable. A disembodied voice which could be either female or male sings about making love without sound. There are female-sounding squawks and yelps. Revolving percussion sounds like drain pipes being hit by toffee hammers. The other instrumentation is clearly electronically generated. And, it has a tune.It also sounds remarkably similar to what US musical experimentalists The United States of America had come up with on their self-titled March 1968 album. An Electric Storm, credited to White Noise, was British, and was Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHMike Lindsay Supershapes: Volume 1 (Moshi Moshi)Solo debut from Mike Lindsay, a founder member of tunng and also half of psychedelic duo LUMP. It’s a good thing when music is hard to describe. Opener “Lie Down” sets up the stall, a catchy but weird slice of poet-pop, wherein wonky dance rhythms, abstract jazz, lyrics about mundanity and shouts of the title phrase, including contributions from singer-songwriter Anna B Savage, add up to a wild frolic. With plenty of woodwind, lyrics about toast and Sunday roast, an inability to musically settle down anywhere “normal”, the Read more ...
joe.muggs
Beatrice “beabadoobee” Laus provides strong backup for the common argument that, particularly in the mainstream, genre is no longer particularly important. From the outset, she has consistently dissolved the mainstream/indie binary, and pulled from a grab-bag of big time and obscure influences across decades while maintaining a distinct songwriting personality of her own.In this regard she resembles The 1975 (whose label she is signed to, and who have previously lent songwriting and production to her work) and Taylor Swift (who she has supported on tour), although one might argue that she’s Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Whether or not the lyrics Stuart Stawman writes and sings are autobiographical, the persona he’s created for himself as the leader of his neo-prog project SJS is that of a dutiful lover thwarted by the pressing of the self-destruct button no affair is without. That love is a game is a recurrent theme in Stawman’s songs and, of course, it means someone has to lose. Stawman’s plaintive English voice, sometimes a husky warble, sometimes a falsetto cry, is the ideal medium for the romantic disillusion he expresses on the Australia-based combo’s third album. But here’s a thought – Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Brighton’s Preston Park came alive this weekend in the most magnificently colourful, sparkling and diverse celebration of love in all its forms for the UK's most famous LGBTQ+ community fundraiser.Saturday was the more hedonistic affair, seeing the finest (and smallest) costumes, rainbow paint and general indulgence, with all the glamour and glitter to rival a spectacular line up including The House Gospel Choir and disco Queen Sophie Ellis Bextor. American actor and singer Billy Porter showcased some fabulous moves and music, including hit “Children” and debuting “Black Mona Lisa”, a funky Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Ryuichi Sakamoto can be heard here, on Opus, surrounded by silence, shuffling at the keyboard, off-mic rustles and tells, recorded in the last year of his life, in September 2022 – he died early in the following year – as he sat to make his final performances.Not in public – there's not even the ghost of an audience here – but at Tokyo's NHK Broadcast Center's 509 Studio, in a solo performance filmed by his son Neo Sora, for which this is the soundtrack. Five decades of film and Yellow Magic music are spread between the two hands of one performer across 88 keys, and it feels like he's playing Read more ...