New Music Reviews
Album: Mari Kvien Brunvoll & Stein Urheim with Moskus - Barefoot in BryophyteMonday, 05 August 2024
Barefoot in Bryophyte is a collaboration between musicians embedded in Norway’s jazz and experimental music scenes. Some of it, though, sounds nothing like what might be expected. Take the fourth track, “Paper Fox.” Figuratively, it lies at the centre of a Venn Diagram bringing together Mazzy Star, 4AD’s 1984 This Mortal Coil album It'll End in Tears and the more minimal aspects of Baltimore’s Beach House. It’s quite something. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Sex Pistols - Looking For a Kiss in KristinehamnSunday, 04 August 2024
After Sex Pistols have played “New York,” the fourth song in their set, someone from the audience shouts “Anarchy in the U.K.” "We've already played it, you fucking idiot" responds Sid Vicious. They have. It was the first song they did at Kristinehamn’s Club Zebra. Read more... |
Future Islands, Summer Nights at the Bandstand, Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow review - soulful and synth-driven soundsFriday, 02 August 2024
Attending an outdoor event anywhere in the UK – especially given the summer we’ve not been having this year – is always a bit of a gamble. Read more... |
WOMAD Festival 2024 review - exuberant global roots sounds, hippies young and old, and blissful weatherWednesday, 31 July 2024
The weather is perfect. Rare at a festival in this country. The sun shines. Occasional clouds pass. There’s a light breeze. Flamingods are on the Charlie Gillett stage. They are a London-based unit of primarily Bahraini origin who make psychedelic-electronic rock tinged with exotica and Middle Eastern flavour. Very WOMAD, in other words. Read more... |
Camp Bestival, Dorset 2024 - magical memories from an enchanting festivalTuesday, 30 July 2024
I sometimes think I’ve done the festival thing the wrong way round. When my babies were at their littlest, we did the big ‘uns – Latitude, Wilderness, Blue Dot, and the like – all family "friendly", but with slightly wilder, bigger, more adulty vibes. I figured if I was going to be up all night with babes in arms I may as well be in a field, on the fringes of some great music and colourful experiences. Read more... |
Album: Personal Trainer - Still WillingMonday, 29 July 2024
Still Willing opens with “Upper Ferntree Gully,” a seven and three-quarter minute workout twice as long as most of the other nine tracks on Personal Trainer’s second album. A portmanteau piece, its most direct sections have the chug of vintage Pavement, some stabbing early Tame Impala guitar and chunks of Sonic Youth-like squall. Yo La Tengo also aren’t far. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Tomorrow's Fashions - Library Electronica 1972-1987Sunday, 28 July 2024
The conundrum central to library music is that it was not meant to be listened to in any normal way. Yet, in time, this is what happened. What ended up on the albums pressed by companies like Bruton, Chappell, De Wolfe and others was heard by subscribers – the records did not end up for sale in shops or on the record players sitting in the nation’s homes. Read more... |
Madeleine Peyroux, Barbican review - a transport of delightTuesday, 23 July 2024
You can take the woman out of the Left Bank, but you can’t take the Left Bank out of the woman. Madeleine Peyroux would be perfectly at home in a boîte in the Latin Quarter, or perhaps Montparnasse. Alas, we were in the sadly unromantic surrounds of London’s Barbican, where the lighting crew had done a good job of creating a smoky vibe before curtain-up. Read more... |
Album: Kevin Fowley - À Feu DouxMonday, 22 July 2024
“Ne pleure pas, Jeannette” is a version of the 15th-century French song "La pernette se lève." It tells the story of Jeannette, whose parents want her to marry into the gentry or royalty. She, however, is in love with Pierre. He is in prison. She vows to be hanged at the same time he is. In France, “Ne pleure pas, Jeannette” is a nursery rhyme. Versions have been recorded by Les Compagnons De La Chanson and French children’s TV favourite Dorothée. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Barry Ryan - The Albums 1969-1979Sunday, 21 July 2024
In April 1985, The Damned’s Dave Vanian was speaking with Janice Long on her BBC Radio 1 show. He said “Barry Ryan and Paul Ryan have been sadly forgotten. Everyone waxes lyrical about Scott Walker which is marvellous but this is absolutely superb. There’s a tension in there, it starts off pretty but it grabs you after a while.” Read more... |
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