New music
caspar.gomez
“This wasn’t the day to wear white suede boots,” says Django Django’s singer Vincent Neff, midway through the band’s Friday evening set.He’s not kidding.Mud can be worse (Glastonbury ’97, ’98, ‘07 & ’16). Wet weather can wreck the vibe (Nova ’12, Bestival ’08). Or even close festivals down (Camp Bestival ’18). But, in 33 years of partying in fields, Bluedot ’23 takes first prize for Most Rain-Sodden.Never mind. We held the line. And consistently saw some of the most characterful and accomplished live performances of the summer.THURSDAY 20th JULYAfter a six-hour journey from the south Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Blackbox Life Recorder 21f may have been originally touted as a mini-album but, in reality, it’s an EP with four tunes spread over just under a quarter of an hour and one of those is a remix of the title track. However, it is also the first new material released by Richard James, under his Aphex Twin moniker in five years.James has been skulking around in the darklands of electronic experimental music since the early 90s, often popping his head above the parapet with flashes of brilliance, such as “Digeridoo” in 1992 and later, “Come to Daddy” and “Windowlicker”. However, in his Aphex Twin Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After his death in 1867, it didn’t take long for Charles Baudelaire’s poems to be set to music. Composer Henri Duparc did so in 1870, but Claude Debussy’s late 1880s framing of five of the Symbolist pioneer’s verses confirmed this as more than a one-off fascination for the musical world.Subsequently, Baudelaire’s words have stimulated myriads of performers: Celtic Frost, The Cure, Serge Gainsbourg, Diamanda Galas and Tyler the Creator amongst them. In France, chanson legend Léo Férre devoted three albums to Baudelaire.Now, with the explicitly titled Baudelaire & Orchestra, Norway’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Two producers named Martin worked with Buzzcocks and Joy Division. Martin Hannett was in the studio for Buzzcocks’ debut release, the Spiral Scratch EP, issued in January 1977, and also for the bulk of the tracks spread across their last three United Artists singles in 1980. He also shaped every studio recording Joy Division made for Factory Records.Martin Rushent (1948–2011) was teamed with Buzzcocks after they signed with United Artists in August 1977 and continued the relationship with the band’s Pete Shelley following the band's split in 1981. In March 1979, he recorded four tracks with Read more ...
Cheri Amour
For someone predominantly poised at her kit, the mononymous music producer’s return is surprisingly devoid of live drums. Daughter of Leftfield cofounder Neil Barnes, Georgia has made a name for herself as the drummer for artists such as Kwes and Kae Tempest. Her 2019 release Seeking Thrills was “a hymn to British hedonism” with a hefty slice of Robyn-esque pop panache. Last year saw Georgia embrace these stadium-sized singalongs as tour support for LA sister trio Haim. While her lively rendition of Kate Bush’s iconic “Running Up That Hill” received a new wave of mass appreciation after the Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Mali’s Tinariwen have been a serious powerhouse in non-Western music since the 2001 release of their first major label album, The Radio Tisdas Sessions. Their sound certainly hasn’t stood still in the last twenty years though. Female backing singers have come and gone, and pedal steel, banjo and fiddles have also made appearances on several of their albums, as Ibrahim Ag Alhabib and his crew have explored the shared sounds of West African desert blues and the rural music of the USA.This week, however, Birmingham was treated to a back-to-basics line-up of the band, that dropped all external Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Some country music cosies up as close as possible to pop, in hopes of dragging more listeners in, smoothing away the raw backwoods feel. The most famed exemplar of this route is, of course, Taylor Swift, at least in her early career. Other country music resonates with American folk history, emanating the vastness of the American south, its roots sounds and narratives. Molly Tuttle falls into the latter category and her latest album, her fourth, whips the listener off on a journey that’s as effective as a book of short stories, but with the added benefit of being a toe-tappin’ hoodang.Tuttle Read more ...
joe.muggs
The broken beat movement, centred on West London around the turn of the millennium, wasn’t super press friendly. Its complex rhythms were eclipsed in the populism stakes by its close cousin UK garage, and serious commentators didn’t really know what to do with a broadly working class, multicultural scene that was aspirational and privileged virtuosic production and musicianship. Indeed there was a distinct inverted snobbery in the refusal refusal to treat it with the respect afforded other electronic music which fit into a scholarly vs “street” dichotomy.The movement itself, which could Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Full disclosure. I actively dislike Blur and always have. Don’t get me started on why. That would last seven times as long as this review.In this game, though, at theartsdesk, if no-one will review an album, and it’s one we absolutely should review, either Joe Muggs or I will end up with it. In my defence, I gave Blur’s Think Tank a fair-minded review two decades ago. Even quite liked it for about three months. That’s the best I can muster. If you’re a devoted Blur fan, then, I’m definitely not the most reliable source. For the rest reading, I’ll do my best.Their ninth album, and first in Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHPere Ubu Trouble on Big Beat Street (Cherry Red)Respect to Pere Ubu. Most bands of this tenure (they’ve been around since 1975) with a leader, David Thomas, who’s 70-years-old, might fancy a triumphal tour playing their greatest (non-)hits or celebrating their seminal 1978 album The Modern Dance. Far from it, Trouble on Big Beat Street, is as forward-pushing and faintly unhinged as anything they’ve ever done. Or anyone else this month. Like the late, lamented Fall, age only prods Thomas to revel in possibility. The PR sheet quotes him, stating that the album is based on the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The atmosphere is foggy. What can be discerned through the murk is either out of focus or translucent. Words drift in from somewhere which can’t be pinpointed. “I’m tuning you in,” “I’ve picked up the loaded dice,” “Everything you know is everything that you let go.” Control is just out of reach. The songs are mid paced, with nods to Crazy Horse and Television. There are odd snatches of backwards guitar.All of this applies to Rain Parade now. It also applies to the Rain Parade of 1983, when their first LP, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, was issued. It’s an enduring musical outlook. The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Keeping Control” were the watchwords adopted by The Manchester Musicians’ Collective, an organisation founded in April 1977 to bring local musicians together and give them platforms. On 23 May 1977, it put on its first show – also the first live show by The Fall. Instantly integral to Manchester and its music, the Collective went on to put out two compilation albums, 1979’s A Manchester Collection and 1980’s Unzipping The Abstract.“Where Were You” was originally the title of December 1978’s second single by The Mekons, a Leeds-based band formed the year earlier by students attending the Fine Read more ...