fri 26/09/2025

New Music Reviews

theartsdesk on Vinyl 69: Andrew Weatherall, Courtney Barnett, Wings, Los Bitchos, Popol Vuh and more

Thomas H Green

As the year starts to rev up, theartsdesk on Vinyl returns with over 7000 words on new music on plastic, a smörgåsbord of the kind you will find nowhere else. This month we also have a competition for the dance music lovers among you, a chance to win a £50 gift card for the new app Recycle Vinyl (online stock of 10,000 records + 25,000 in their warehouse + 500 more added every week).

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Album: Loop - Sonancy

Barney Harsent

Seven and a half years ago, Loop frontman Robert Hampson retired the band's back catalogue in front of a live audience. “You won’t hear these old songs again,” he told the audience at Islington’s Garage.

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Melt Yourself Down, Patterns, Brighton review - ballistic double sax punk attack

Thomas H Green

“As you’ve noticed, I’m really terrible at talking between the songs,” announces Melt Yourself Down singer Kushal Gaya, two-thirds of the way through the gig. He is. But it really doesn’t matter; the genre-uncategorizable London six-piece smash through their hour-and-15-minute set with a lean, giddy forward propulsion that brooks no pause.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Bernard Butler - People Move On

Kieron Tyler

This new edition of People Move On, Bernard Butler’s April 1998 debut solo album, takes what was issued then to up to four CDs. Nothing unusual in that. Box set-isations of a single album customarily add alternate versions, outtakes, non-album tracks from singles, demos, live tracks, recordings from tracking sessions.

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Music Reissues Weekly: U-Roy - Version Galore

Kieron Tyler

The death of U-Roy was announced on 17 February 2021. A year on, the reappearance of his oft-reissued 1971 debut album Version Galore brings the opportunity to celebrate the music which brought him his earliest success; the music which propelled him into Jamaica’s top ranks.

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Album: Basia Bulat - The Garden

Kieron Tyler

On her sixth album, Basia Bulat re-records 16 of her own songs with specially created string arrangements. The Garden isn’t a best-of, more a recalibration of how the Canadian singer-songwriter sees herself through her music and how the meanings of the songs have changed.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Dick Raaijmakers aka Kid Baltan, and Tom Dissevelt

Kieron Tyler

In 1957, popular music was given a jolt when the first electronic pop record was recorded. “Song of the Second Moon” was created and composed by the Dutch musician Dick Raaijmakers who was working at NatLab, the research laboratory of the electronics company Philips.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Sammi Smith - Looks Like Stormy Weather

Kieron Tyler

For America’s oldies radio stations Sammi Smith will forever be about “Help me Make it Through the Night”. In 1970, she was the first singer to pick up on the Kris Kristofferson song. Her version took it into the US Top Ten.

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Music Reissues Weekly: The Electric Prunes - Then Came The Dawn Complete Recordings 1966-1969

Kieron Tyler

The Electric Prunes could feel happy at the end of January 1968. Since landing in London in late November 1967, they’d hung out with Jimi Hendrix and had a photo session with Rolling Stones-favoured photographer Gered Mankowitz. They also met The Beatles at Abbey Road as Magical Mystery Tour was being mixed.

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Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal, Roundhouse review - kora and cello combined

Tim Cumming

Malian kora master Ballake Sissoko is a griot steeped in the musical and cultural traditions of West Africa, whose duets with his cousin Toumani Diabate on the world music classic, 1999’s New Ancient Strings, are rightly celebrated.

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