CDs/DVDs
Kieron Tyler
Strings waft in, then coalesce like banks of fog. A piano picks out single notes. Space is left between them. With no immediate rhythmic patterns, the minimalist A Winged Victory For The Sullen make music for becalmed oceans. This collaboration between Adam Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran could have come form the deck of the Marie Celeste.There’s quite a lot of this around right now. Ólafur Arnalds, Peter Broderick Nils Frahm, Hauschka, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Nico Muhly and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood complement each other, creating minimalist pieces that draw on modern classicism. Varying degrees Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Harmonies, psychedelia and soul were meant to go together. Chicago’s’ Rotary Connection realised this and pumped out what were later recognised as classics like "Memory Band" and "I am The Black Gold of The Sun". On their debut album, Brooklyn’s The Stepkids step up, taking the sound apart and restitching it patchwork-quilt style. They are, to their inspirations, what Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are to their funk and soul roots.The Stepkids coalesced in 2009 after singer/guitarist Jeff Gitelman and drummer Tim Walsh began building a studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut. They’re completed by Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms composed trios throughout his life - these well-loved pieces contrast with the much rarer works of Hans Gal and the oboist Heinz Holliger, here exposed in his parallel career as a composer.Brahms Piano Trios, Horn Trio, Clarinet Trio Soloists of Villa Musica (Covellio Classics)Brahms’s B Major Piano Trio was originally composed in 1859 but was drastically revised and republished in 1889. Writing to his publisher about the later version, the one generally played today, Brahms felt that “although the old version is bad, I do not maintain that the new one is good!” It’s a fascinating Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Many people think Kasabian are some sort of sub-Oasis lads' band. This is mostly down to gobby lead singer Tom Meighan. Also Q like them which doesn't help - they're on the magazine's current cover being cuddled by two naked ladies. The Leicester band don't fit the bill. Kasabian are no lame indie band, not that anyone is these days, now that it's terminally unhip. Kasabian, however, never were. One listen to their excellent eponymous 2004 debut album tells you that.With their first long-player Kasabian combined Happy Mondays' insouciant baggy drug-funk with something dark, electro and self- Read more ...
howard.male
Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara produces guitar riffs that are like quiet musical mantras from which songs seem to blossom like exquisite orchids. Or at least that’s the effect achieved by a combination of the songs themselves and the exquisitely understated arrangements which one can imagine were a pleasure for Diawara to work on with regular World Circuit producer Nick Gold.Comparisons have already been made between the Côte d’Ivoire-born 29-year-old and the Malian legendary diva she has sung backing vocals for, Oumou Sangare (who Diawara pays tribute to here with “Makoun Oumou Read more ...
bruce.dessau
This was always going to garner heaps of publicity. Tony Bennett is not just a legend, but a legend who has outlived his rivals. With Sinatra long gone Bennett, 85, is the capo di tutti capi of living crooners. It will also attract attention because it is the sequel to his excellent 2006 team effort, Duets: American Classics. Most of all, Duets II, featuring new versions of old Bennett hits, will notch up column feet because it features the final official recording of Amy Winehouse, who accompanied Anthony Dominick Benedetto on “Body and Soul” at Abbey Road in March.With 17 tracks there Read more ...
ash.smyth
The Conservatives have been in power for years, the working man feels disenfranchised, unemployment is rife, and there’s really bad music on the radio. And then Labour’s long-awaited electoral landslide, and all is right in the world! 1997? Not a bit of it. This is 1988 – at least, in author (and former Labour MP) Chris Mullin’s imagination – and leftist radical Harry Perkins sweeps into Number 10 with his agenda of rampant socialism and public accountability. The honourable member from Sheffield wants to nationalise all the goodies, and isn’t shy about taking financial aid from Russian banks Read more ...
stephen.walsh
Pavel Novák is a composer I know something about because he has been much played by the Schubert Ensemble, who were for a time resident at Cardiff University, where I teach. But broadly speaking his music is virtually unknown in the UK. When William Howard played these 24 Preludes and Fugues in St Giles' Cripplegate four years ago, hardly anyone came to hear them – perhaps not surprisingly. Obscure Czech piano music in a chilly City church in December is hardly the most enticing prospect. But now that Howard has made a brilliant, compelling recording of this 75-minute cycle, its composer’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Proximity Effect’s two opening cuts set the stall. Glitchiness gives way to a descending, sad, drifting melody on “The Beginning of the End”. “More Than You” is an upbeat, poppy, Tango in the Night Fleetwood Mac refracted through a chilly Nordic musical sensibility. Lovely.Laki Mera's core members are vocalist/guitarist Laura Donnelly and the Italian composer/instrumentalist/producer Andrea Gobbi. Based in Glasgow, where they met, they formed the band in 2004. Their first album, Clutter, caused a minor stir as it first surfaced as a pay-what-you-fancy download in late 2007. A physical Read more ...
joe.muggs
When I lived in Brighton in the mid-Nineties, a certain type was 10 a penny. Young, stoned, middle-class buskers, acoustic guitar strummers who were au fait with hip hop and able to improvise endless streams of witty wordplay and often to make human beatbox rhythms. They tended to have an innate sense that what they were doing was a novelty act, though, and as if embarrassed about adopting the tropes of rap for their whimsical amusements they rarely pursued it as more than a cabaret act – although you can hear echoes of what they did in certain bands of the time such as Gomez.Ed Sheeran is Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Nick Lowe is truly the Zelig of rock. The erstwhile son-in-law of Johnny Cash, a pivotal figure in the history of punk and pub rock. Recently I was watching a DVD of the David Essex movie Stardust – there are worse guilty pleasures – and up popped the Damned’s one-time producer Basher Lowe doing a blink-and-he's-off cameo. But never mind the past. At the ripe age of 62 he has made a damn fine record, full of simple, plaintive melodies and, most of all, lyrics that slice into the very core of being human and having feelings.I recently reviewed the new album by Bombay Bicycle Club and had no Read more ...
peter.quinn
Rooted in the New Orleans brass band tradition, but updating it for the 21st century with elements of funk, R&B, hip hop, reggae and half-sung, half-rapped lyrics, this disc will blow clean out of the water any preconceptions you might have of what a brass band sounds like.Through a combination of utterly seductive grooves, powerful soloing and über-catchy melodies, the eight-piece Soul Rebels Brass Band possess an unbridled energy that enables Unlock Your Mind to achieve dramatic lift-off from the get-go. Featured in the Season One finale of the acclaimed HBO TV series Treme, the band's Read more ...