New music
Thomas H. Green
Had Devendra Banhart been born between 1940 and 1950, he’d likely be a household name. His output – very loosely – sits between Cat Stevens, Syd Barrett and Richie Havens, studded with a greatness not widely acknowledged. He had a spell around 15-20 years ago when he seemed about to commercially explode. That didn't happen but he’s settled to a solid career and done much gorgeous work since.2013’s Mala album, a career highlight, was followed by two that appeared to dip into the alternative possibilities of 1960s Latin American songwriting (do check the luscious Helado Negro remix of "Love Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Nothing Lasts Forever opens with a drone, a weightless prologue of guitar feedback evoking the initial moments of the Buffalo Springfield’s “Everydays,” written by Stephen Stills and heard on his band’s 1967 second album Again. Teenage Fanclub’s 11th album ends with “I Will Love you,” a similarly gossamer reflection fusing the atmosphere of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe” and the cyclic rhythms of motorik.While an airiness suffuses the mostly low- to mid-tempo Nothing Lasts Forever, it is impossible with Teenage Fanclub not to think of what could have inspired them, what they might be Read more ...
Tim Cumming
It was more than a decade ago when I first saw Rachel Sermanni in concert, in the upstairs room at The Old Queen’s Head in Islington, London, for a Nest Collective night. She had yet to release her debut, 2012’s Under Mountains, but was already making an impact as a stage performer.Her most recent album, 2019’s So It Turns was a self-released set of songs inspired by her time spent at Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist monastery, the first to be established in the west, and which features, too, in the work of the late Genesis P Orridge. Dreamer Awake, meanwhile, is her first release on Navigator Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“In the Light of Time” was the second track on Side One of April 1995’s Further, the third album by Bristol’s Flying Saucer Attack. At the time, Further felt like a hyper-vaporous take on shoegazing infused with touches of British folk. Attitudinally and temporally, Slowdive’s February 1995 third album Pygmalion wasn’t too far.Now, Flying Saucer Attack are co-opted to name In the Light of Time - UK Post-Rock and Leftfield Pop 1992-1998, a ground-breaking 17-track compilation with a self-explanatory subtitle. There may have been previous collections along these lines, but this is the first Read more ...
India Lewis
Less than ten days after (surprise) releasing her new album, trip9love…???, Tirzah took to a small stage in Hackney Wick to play it through (in order), wreathed enigmatically in dry ice. The space itself felt like it matched the music well, a laid-back intimacy enjoyed by a packed, relaxed audience. Warming up beforehand, the floor was filled with smoke (a harbinger of the gig to come), lit with soft, coloured light, and soundtracked with gentle piano. A DJ began mixing glitchy beats over slowed Drake and Bjork-adjacent tracks as more people started filling in towards the main Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Joshua Redman’s latest album, where are we, marks the jazz saxophonist’s debut on the Blue Note label, after a recording career which now spans just over thirty years and has many high points, not least his eponymous debut on Warner in 1993.When announced in May ths year, the label move was, unsurprisingly, described in such a way as to raise expectations. Blue Note President Don Was gushed that Redman was “the living embodiment of the Blue Note ethos”. Redman dutifully responded with his thrill at joining the Blue Note family for a “new phase in my recording journey.”Those announcements left Read more ...
Tom Carr
With 2022’s Laurel Hell and Be The Cowboy from 2018, the Japanese-American solo musician Mitski Mayawaki – better known simply as Mitski to all – had refined a massively Eighties influenced, synthesiser led sound.Having combined the invaluable songwriting experience of her earlier, more frenetic and indie lo-fi albums, her most recent two efforts were creatively elaborate and thematically whole.This has continued to drive her forwards, returning with her seventh album The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We. Once again she employs a wholly different sound, yet retains the crux of her previous Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Northern Irish rockers Ash appeared in the mid-Nineties, channelling The Ramones when the UK was in thrall to either bangin’ club music or Britpop. They had a good commercial run, longer than almost all their contemporaries, mustering 18 Top 40 UK hits, their last in 2007 (although their albums still usually make the grade). Their eighth studio album is their most heavy rock since 2004’s Meltdown, unashamedly embracing epic riffery. The best of it is an enjoyable romp.Which is not to say that it’s all loveable. Their trademark power pop harmonies are in place, but sometimes there’s a polish Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Anyone who is still dismissing Corinne Bailey Rae as a one-hit wonder of easy listening fayre from almost 20 years ago is going to get their preconceptions well and truly shattered by Black Rainbows. Her fine new album is a diverse but coherent collection that jumps from unlikely genre to unlikely genre throughout – even taking in a couple of punky crackers along the way.Bailey Rae has said that her new disc is inspired by a collection in The Stony Island Arts Bank, a museum of Black history in Chicago. All that can be said, is that there must be a truly inspirational group of objects on show Read more ...
Cheri Amour
In a recent interview with The Observer, Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde admitted, “I don’t think of myself as a songwriter or a musician. I feel as if I’m doing my thing, and I’ve got away with it.” With the band’s 12th studio album, Relentless, Hynde’s not only got away with it but become a pioneering figure in the alternative music scene for the following four decades. As the album name suggests, the Pretenders 2023 has been no less animated. They kicked off the New Year performing a handful of intimate shows honouring Independent Venue Week and went on to headline the Great Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Becoming reacquainted with what was originally titled Westlake in 1987 is a pleasure. Yes, at his own measured pace, David Westlake has issued great albums since then and his Eighties and Nineties band The Servants have been the subject of various archive releases. It is not as though he has vanished. But any reminder of his flair as a songwriter is welcome.Originally a mini-LP, Westlake is now retitled D87, resequenced, appended by four tracks recorded for a contemporaneous BBC session and a couple of previously unheard demos. The augmented reissue doesn’t use the original sleeve image but Read more ...
Cheri Amour
Much like her pop predecessor Avril Lavigne, musical snobs over the age of 25 are likely to be suspicious of Olivia Rodrigo. As the 2003 BBC review of seminal angst classic Let Go (every millennial woman’s mirror to her teens) posited, ”She’s only 17. She’s pretty. She’s sold a zillion albums already. She must be rubbish, right?” The difference between those two decades is staggering.While Lavigne might’ve been questioned about her right to the pop-punk throne, high-flying women in music have revived the industry over the last few years. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are expected to generate about Read more ...