New Music Features
theartsdesk in Mozambique: Maputo StoriesSunday, 21 July 2013
The capital of Mozambique pulls no punches. Parked at the old airport among sheaves of wild grass are old MiG fighter planes, as sculpturally beautiful as the massive monument made from decommissioned weapons a few hundred metres away. The new airport, a multi-million pound effort completed last year with significant Chinese help, has Dom Perignon champagne for $230 a bottle. That’s twice the national annual wage. Read more...
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Listed: International pop-disco hitsSaturday, 20 July 2013
As someone detached from pop music (more a world, classical, jazz kind of guy) I conducted an unscientific experiment during the past few months to try and discover what the really big tunes out there were. Travelling in Paris, Mumbai, Morocco and elsewhere, I found songs that have gone global in a massive way. I kept hearing them everywhere – in clubs, by the hotel pool, in bars and taxis, blaring out of shops. Read more... |
Listed: Pop tributes to pop iconsSunday, 14 July 2013
Leonard Cohen sang, somewhat indiscreetly, about Janis Joplin “giving head” on his unmade bed, Bob Dylan penned a song to his hero Woody Guthrie, and Don McLean famously sang “the day the music died” about Buddy Holly. The list of pop tributes to pop icons – whether the subject is a distant hero, a dead lover or a good friend – is long. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Saint Louis, Missouri: A Boxing OperaSunday, 14 July 2013
The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has been sometimes dubbed the "Glyndebourne of America" due to the charming garden picnics enjoyed by patrons during the sizzling Missouri summer season. But that title also suggests the company's daring international programming. Since 1976 Opera Theatre has hosted 22 world premieres and 23 American premieres, almost certainly the highest percentage of new work of any American company. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Røros, Norway: Fiddles and Slag HeapsSunday, 07 July 2013
It’s just before midnight on Friday. A few hundred couples circle the floor of a school gym. On stage, violinists play a rhythmic music which cycles repetitively. Coloured with sad, minor notes, it sounds like a stately ancestor to bluegrass. Hands joined, the couples raise their arms above their heads. The woman spins. Breaking the link, the man suddenly bobs downwards, hops up and spreads his arms apart in a come-hither gesture. His partner’s raised hands say no. Read more... |
'The Rolling Stones of Morocco' - Nass El Ghiwane's music of protestSunday, 30 June 2013
Fly into Morocco on Royal Air Maroc, and as in-flight entertainment on the overhead screens you’re treated to Charlie Chaplin shorts from the 1910s, still sharp as a tack, the little guy goosing authority, the law, the rich, the powerful. The Little Tramp must remain a figure with resonance in Morocco: the base of operations for legendary band Nass El Ghiwane was the back room of a tailor’s shop in Casablanca dominated by a poster of Chaplin. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Fes: Patti Smith and the SufisSunday, 30 June 2013
“The boy looked at Johnny – he was surrounded by white and blue tiles, in the medina.” Patti Smith was improvising on her classic album Horses in her first, compelling, gig in Morocco. Smith has a history of Moroccan connections: she knew the Tangier-based writer Paul Bowles and plugged into that pre-punk Beat generation, but there were some raised eyebrows as to what exactly she was doing at a “sacred” music festival. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Agadir: Berbers RisingSunday, 30 June 2013
“It’s a good way of letting of steam,” said Reda Allali, the lead signer from Morocco’s leading rock band Hoba Hoba Spirit, referring to the the Timitar Festival. Read more... |
10 Questions for The Duckworth Lewis MethodSaturday, 29 June 2013
It's four years almost to the day since The Duckworth Lewis Method released their first album, a whimsical batch of songs about the myths and mysteries of cricket. It earned them a kind of nichey notoriety among cricket fans and was an eccentric treat for devotees of the duo behind the project, The Divine Comedy's mastermind Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh of Dublin-based pop band Pugwash. Read more... |
The Orb Exclusive: Thomas Fehlmann DJ mix and Alex Paterson interviewWednesday, 12 June 2013
If anyone in British music still deserves that rinsed-to-death term "maverick" it is Battersea-born "Dr" Alex Paterson. From roadie for postpunk industrialists Killing Joke in the early Eighties, he went on to work as an A&R then - originally collaborating with The KLF's Jimmy Cauty - formed The Orb in the heat of the acid house explosion to bring the world "ambient house". Read more... |
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