New Music Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: Peephole In My Brain - British Progressive Pop Sounds Of 1971Sunday, 04 October 2020
The title comes from the lyrics of “Andy Warhol”: track two, side two of David Bowie’s late 1971 album Hunky Dory: ”Put a peephole in my brain, Two new pence to have a go, I'd like to be a gallery, Put you all inside my show.” The new pence reference recognised Britain’s recent adoption of decimalised currency. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Helen Shapiro - Face The Music The Complete Singles 1967-1984Sunday, 27 September 2020
What happens when the hits dry up? And what happens a little further down the line, as the years of being on the charts recede into the past? For Helen Shapiro, the questions are answered by the intriguing Face The Music: The Complete Singles 1967–1984, a 25-track compilation collecting all her pop singles from the period covered by the title. Her work in jazz is not heard. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: John Coltrane - Giant StepsSunday, 20 September 2020
Giant Steps doesn’t suffer from a lack of availability. A couple of weeks ago, two editions of John Coltrane’s 1960 landmark set were available in a central London music store. Read more... |
GogolFest:Dream review - the best music festival of the summer?Thursday, 17 September 2020
GogolFest:Dream in Kherson, somewhere near the Crimea in Ukraine was the music festival of the summer. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The London Pub Rock Scene, The Year The UK Turned Day-GloSunday, 13 September 2020
The standard recitation goes like this. In the early Seventies a London scene evolved, centring on bands playing in pubs. Music was taken back to the grassroots. Finesse was unnecessary. What happened was dubbed pub rock and it laid the ground for an even more basic style: punk rock. Read more... |
BBC Proms live online: Anoushka Shankar/Laura Marling - scintillating sitar and fortified folkMonday, 07 September 2020
In what would have been the year her father, the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar turned 100, sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar pays tribute to him and builds on his legacy in this online Prom. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Stooges - Live At Goose LakeSunday, 06 September 2020
So far this year, Live at Goose Lake August 8th, 1970 is 2020’s most exciting archive release. The album is a previously unknown soundboard recording of The Stooges playing at Jackson, Michigan’s Goose Lake Festival. The event was formally billed as Goose Lake Park – International Music Festival. Read more... |
South West Four Live, Electric Brixton online review - the dance goes on?Tuesday, 01 September 2020
If two dozen DJs spin tunes and no one’s there, did a rave really happen? There is plenty of time for such questions during the 25 hours of livestreams substituting for SW4’s annual bank holiday party on Clapham Common. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: This Is Our Music - Jazz Out Of NorwaySunday, 30 August 2020
The Turnamat is a type of washing machine made by AEG. In the composition titled “Turnamat”, Seventies-type synths, wobbly keyboard lines and hard-grooving drums give way to a brass-led interlude suggesting an acquaintance with the compositions of Lalo Schifrin. It’s as if a jazz-inflected soundtrack from 45 years ago has been shoved into a blender rather than a washing machine, then reconstituted and given a major buff-up. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Ready Or Not - Thom Bell's Philly Soul Arrangements & ProductionsSunday, 23 August 2020
A skim though the track listing confirms that this is no typical soul compilation. Actress and some-time pop singer Connie Stevens crops up. So does Johnny Mathis. Such seeming quirks are fitting as Thom Bell was never a typical arranger, producer or songwriter. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Churchill in Moscow, Orange Tree Theatre review - thought-pr...
Playwrights who work for decades often acquire a moniker. In the case of Howard Brenton, who began his career as a left-winger in the turbulent...
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy review - older, sadder Brid...
Bridget Jones has grown up: v.v.g. Our heroine is still prone to daft pratfalls and gaffes and bursts of sensational idiot dancing....
Album: Fantastic Twins - Suite of Rooms
This album is SHORT. At 27 minutes and just five tracks, one might wonder why Julienne Dessagne (this is a solo act) didn’t call it an EP. But...
Festen, Royal Opera review - firing on every front
So the Royal Opera had assembled a dream cast, conductor (Edward Gardner) and director (Richard Jones). The only question until last night was...
Northern Winter Beat 2025, Aalborg review - The Courettes, D...
The exhortations don’t seem necessary as the audience is already letting off the steam which has built up in anticipation of a full-bore show....
theartsdesk Q&A: Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof on...
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is now an...
Album: Manic Street Preachers - Critical Thinking
Manic Street Preachers’ earnest and literate pretentiousness is both their Achilles Heel and their superpower. Their greatest songs are amped by...
Gilliver, Liverman, Rangwanasha, LSO, Pappano, Barbican revi...
For all its passing British sea shanties and folksongs, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony does Walt Whitman’s determinedly global-oriented...
Bowling For Soup, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton review - nostalg...
Bowling For Soup are celebrating their iconic album, A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, on a fun-filled, energetic tour for its 20th...