CDs/DVDs
Guy Oddy
Madmess are a Portuguese power trio who are based in London. Muscular and (mostly) instrumental stoner rock is their thing, which may not be particularly original but with the volume turned up appropriately, their schtick is pretty transcendental stuff that feels like being caught in a wind tunnel with a jet engine.A couple of years ago, Vasco Vasconcelos, Luis Moura and Ricardo Sampaio looked like they might be ready for significant recognition (at least within the world of paisley pattern shirts and black winklepickers), with the release of their self-titled EP and some reasonably high- Read more ...
Barney Harsent
It’s a far cry from his beginnings in a tight, no-frills power-pop-post-punk three piece, that’s for sure. Last May, Paul Weller took to the stage with guitarist Steve Craddock, a smattering of guest vocalists and the BBC Symphony Orchestra to perform a career retrospective with new arrangements by composer-conductor Jules Buckley.Career retrospective might be pushing it a bit, in fairness. The tracks here lean heavily into more recent releases such as True Meanings, On Sunset and Fat Pop, although there are pleasing nods to his time heading up The Jam and The Style Read more ...
joe.muggs
The Californian label Stones Throw has long specialised in inseparably folding together the most profound and most wilfully foolish Black American music. And that is truer than ever on these 17 tracks from Virginian singer / songwriter / producer / multi-instrumentalist DJ Harrison. As the title suggests, this is a politically engaged record, directly addressing the dark history of Harrison’s Deep South home, where Confederate generals’ statues still stand as a reminder that slavery is not only commemorated but celebrated by many. But it’s also full of sonic and lyrical kookiness, with every Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although it’s indirect, the overall feel of In Order To Know You points to where jazz and soul meet – a space analogous to that occupied by The Rotary Connection, Seventies Curtis Mayfield, Neneh Cherry, the early Camille and the warmer end of trip-hop. It’s an impression fostered by shuffling drums, interlacing brass and undulating strings. Nonetheless Deep Throat Choir's second album is explicitly – as their handle acknowledges – about the voice, the merging of voices. Eleven voices. Sometimes in unison behind a soloist, at other times weaving in and out of each other.On the title Read more ...
Saskia Baron
In an era when toxic masculinity has become a clichéd accusation to throw at any portrait of men behaving macho, it’s fascinating to revisit Dennis Hopper’s 1980 movie Out of the Blue.Years before his performance as the sinister Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, Hopper created Don Barnes, a truck driver with an extremely unhealthy relationship with his daughter and wife. After ploughing his rig into the school bus, Don does five years in jail. Daughter Cebe (Linda Manz) is left in the same small town and goes to the same school as the victims while her waitress mother Kathy (Sharon Read more ...
joe.muggs
Alejandra Ghersi – Arca – is one of the most influential musicians on the planet in the last decade. Even aside from working with huge names like Björk and Kanye West, her ultra-detailed, high drama, electronic abstractions have set the pace for a legion of artists from very underground to ultra-pop. And the combination of mind-bending textural shifting in her sound, outré performance and collaborations with visual artists like the master mutants Jesse Kanda has created an archetype (Arca-type?) for a generation of queer and gender non-conforming artists who find analogies for transformation Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Adams has long been Robert Plant’s guitarist in bands including the Sensational Space Shifters, as well as working with fellow Space Shifter Juldeh Camara in the band JuJu. He is steeped in American Blues as well as its West African and Desert Blues roots, having worked as a producer for Rachid Taha and on some of Tinariwen’s finest albums. More recently, he has produced and performed with the outrageously energetic southern Italian Taranta band, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, and it’s from that collaboration that this new set with CGS’s violinist and percussionist, Mauro Durante, stems.They Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Jason Isbell is a bigger noise on the other side of the Atlantic than he is in the UK but his last three albums have, nonetheless, bothered the middle-regions of the British album charts. He’s built a critically lauded career with his band The 400 Unit since leaving Drive-By Truckers a decade-and-a-half ago, merging country with rock and various southern US styles. His latest is a covers album benefit for three non-profit social justice organizations, including Black Lives Matter, and is, he says, a celebration of Georgia “turning blue” (voting Democrat) in last year’s US election. Happily it Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Initially, it’s about the voice. Thirteen seconds into the first track, it arrives: close-to disembodied, delivering lyrics as if they were a psalm, yet still melodic. Just over a minute in, there’s a shift into an ascending-descending chorus. The instrumentation is a gauzy wash, adroitly balancing the impressionistic with an understated rhythmic bed. Apart from its tougher seventh cut – evoking PJ Harvey if she were collaborating with Mazzy Star – this opener establishes the tone of Where The Viaduct Looms, a collaborative album by Nell Smith and The Flaming Lips. It’s her first LP.All nine Read more ...
graham.rickson
Why Les Triplettes de Belleville was rechristened Belleville Rendevous in the UK is one of several questions left unanswered by this reissue. Along with what happened to French director Sylvain Chomet’s animation career, which seems to have fizzled out after his 2010 Jacques Tati adaptation The Illusionist.The latter, while beautiful to look at, lacks bite, but 2003’s Belleville Rendevous is a masterpiece, one of the 21st century's greatest animated features. Tati’s influence is discernible throughout this near-silent film, and Chomet’s idiosyncratic use of sound will amuse anyone who’s Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Like most of the best things in life, it cannot be denied that the music of Sunn O))) is an acquired taste – and most certainly not for the faint hearted. Crushing and apocalyptic soundscapes dominate their largely instrumental drone metal, which is soaked in reverb, feedback and dissonant guitar sounds that focus fully on atmosphere rather than tunes and melodies.Metta, Benevolence, a set recorded at the BBC Maida Vale studios for Mary Anne Hobbs’ Radio 6 show, during their October 2019 tour, sticks very much to Sunn O)))’s beatless, yet heavier-than-heavy template. However, with additional Read more ...
Katie Colombus
For those of you who didn’t think it was possible for Adele to up her stakes in the game of soul-baring, think again. Her first album in six years is here and it is as raw as it is rowdy, as searing as it is silk, as relatable as it is enjoyably escapist.30 begins with warm-up song “Strangers By Nature”, a retro kitsch drift with dreamy strings and the melancholic caress of Karen Carpenter, ending with a spoken word line in that distinct Tottenham accent, “Alright then I'm ready”. Deep breath.The first single, as you will know given the abundance of radio play in the feverish anticipation of Read more ...