New Music Reviews
Album: Taylor Swift - folkloreSaturday, 25 July 2020
When she announced her “surprise” 8th album on social media this week, Taylor Swift described its subject matter as a combination of “fantasy, history and memory” told with “love, wonder and whimsy”. For the listener, this hits home around track three. Read more... |
Nick Cave, Alone at Alexandra Palace review - mournful beauty from the king of miseryFriday, 24 July 2020
"Alone at Alexandra Palace" is a gift of this time, no compensation but some sort of balm to a world that is still so interior, with a long time to wait until any concerts can resume. The film begins with an emphasis on aloneness that is sustained throughout, Cave reading a fairytale-like story as the soundtrack to his walk through the black and gold of the empty Alexandra Palace. Read more... |
Album: Maria Schneider Orchestra – Data LordsFriday, 24 July 2020
It is five years since Maria Schneider’s The Thompson Fields was released – and hailed as a masterpiece – so this new two-disc set has been eagerly awaited. It doesn’t disappoint. Data Lords is a major piece of work. This “story of two worlds” as the album’s strap-line has it, is two contrasting albums which inhabit very different emotional territory. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Super Sonics - Martin Green Presents 40 Junkshop Britpop GreatsSunday, 19 July 2020
The gentleman pictured above is Martin Green. In 1995 he was a prime mover behind The Sound Gallery, a double-album compiling groovy British easy listening and library music from around 25 years earlier which until then had been (mostly) overlooked. It was as trailblazing a compilation as Lenny Kaye’s 1972 garage-psych set Nuggets. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Dennis HerroldSunday, 12 July 2020
It’s been a long strange trip for Dennis Herrold. The Virginia-born rocker’s sole single, December 1957’s “Hip Hip Baby” / “Make With the Lovin’”, was a full-bore rockabilly two-sider. Yet it made no waves despite being reviewed glowingly by music biz journal Billboard. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 58: Joy Division, Alma, Prince, African Head Charge, Wargirl and much moreFriday, 10 July 2020
Lockdown’s easing and the record shops are opening here and there. So, to help vinyl junkies on their way, here’s 7000 words of reviews, capturing the best of the last couple of months’ releases on plastic. As ever, the sounds go everywhere, from hip hop to post-punk to Moroccan trance music. Dive in! Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Philip Rambow - The Rebel KindSunday, 05 July 2020
“Strange Destinies” is the first track. “Take your eyes off me Svengali” is its memorable opening phrase. Conjuring up Van Morrison, Tom Petty, Mike Scott, Bruce Springsteen and even The Boomtown Rats when they were aping the first and fourth of those, the song clangs along with a powerpop chug and sports a hook-filled melody. Great. Read more... |
Glastonbury Festival 2020: Beyoncé, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., marijuana and time travelWednesday, 01 July 2020
Coronavirus blah blah blah. Glastonbury cancelled. What to do? Didn’t go to the 2010 festival for reasons too tedious to go into. Suffered the worst FOMO of my life. This is different. There is no Glastonbury. But sitting around at home… we’ve all been doing that for months… Read more... |
Romeo and Michele Stodart Present… The Thank-You Green Note Fundraiser, YouTube review - saving Camden's go-to music venueMonday, 29 June 2020
It’s 15 years since two schoolfriends with a passion for acoustic music opened Green Note in London’s Camden Town, their goal to create “somewhere friendly, comfortable, intimate, and with the best music on offer every night of the week”. It quickly established itself as the go-to club for talented musicians at the outset of their careers – Amy Winehouse and Ed Sheeran played early gigs, and Diana Jones made her UK debut on the Green Note stage. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Razorcuts - Storyteller, The World Keeps TurningSunday, 28 June 2020
Razorcuts formed after Tim Vass discovered Alan McGee’s Living Room club. In the booklet accompanying the reissue of his band’s first album Storyteller, Vass says of the weekly London promotion that “The headline act would often be someone like The Membranes or Alternative TV, but it was the unknown support acts that blew me away: The Jasmine Minks, The June Brides, The Loft.” Read more... |
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