New music
Album: Toria Wooff - Toria WooffMonday, 24 March 2025
On the cover of her eponymous debut album, the Bolton-raised Toria Wooff reclines on a church pew located in Stanley Palace, a 16th-century mansion in her adopted city of Chester. In her hand, a Celtic Cross. Such imagery implies that what will be... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Too Far Out - Beat, Mod & R&B From 304 Holloway Road 1963-1966Sunday, 23 March 2025
The thrill of hearing “Crawdaddy Simone” never wears off. As the September 1965 B-side of the third single by North London R&B band The Syndicats, it attracted next-to no attention when it came out. The top side of the flop 45 was “On the... Read more... |
Album: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco - I Said I Love You FirstSaturday, 22 March 2025
Selena Gomez is the enormously successful Disney child star who grew up to be a Hollywood actor and global pop sensation. As notably, she’s the third most followed person on Instagram, the most popular woman, with 421 million followers. Benny Blanco... Read more... |
Album: The Horrors - Night LifeFriday, 21 March 2025
For fans of The Horrors, the headline here is that, 20 years into the career, for their sixth album, the band have lost two of their founding members. Original keyboard player Tom Furse has gone, as has drummer “Coffin” Joe Spurgeon, to be replaced... Read more... |
Mercury Rev, Islington Assembly Hall review - the august US psychedelic explorers cover all basesThursday, 20 March 2025
The body language fascinates. Mercury Rev’s frontman Jonathan Donahue could be playing a theramin. The arm movements fit the bill, yet the putative instrument is absent. At other points, his arms are outstretched, palms down. He might be projecting... Read more... |
Lizz Wright, Barbican review - sweet inspirationThursday, 20 March 2025
Lizz Wright’s exquisite singing breaks all boundaries between soul, gospel and jazz. In so doing she channels many interwoven strands of the African-American experience. Wright thrives on singing to an audience: her recorded output is wonderful... Read more... |
Wardruna, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - Einar Selvik's Norsemen return to Mercia in triumphThursday, 20 March 2025
Wardruna are something of a modern musical phenomenon. Part Scandinavian folk revival, part prog rock epic and part pagan ritual, their wide-screen performances are a beautiful and mesmerising celebration of repurposed ancient traditions, the... Read more... |
Album: Billy Hart Quartet - JustThursday, 20 March 2025
There was a telling remark in Wynton Marsalis’s recent interview with Katty Kay for the BBC show “Influential”. Talking about how jazz functions in real time as a democracy, he said: “Our music requires you to be in balance with other people”,... Read more... |
Album: Greentea Peng - Tell Dem It's SunnyWednesday, 19 March 2025
Going by the sounds of her new album, it wouldn’t unreasonable to assume that Greentea Peng enjoys sucking on a spliff every once in a while. Tell Dem It’s Sunny is certainly Gold Seal gear with a distinctly smoky atmosphere, that’s for sure.Dubby... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Norma Tanega - I Don't Think It Will Hurt If You SmileSunday, 16 March 2025
After scoring a hit in 1966 with the distinctive folk-pop of her jazz-inclined debut single "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog," US singer-songwriter Norma Tanega (1939–2019) seemed to melt away. Three follow-up 45s weren’t hits. Her album wasn’t a strong... Read more... |
Album: The Loft - Everything Changes, Everything Stays The SameSaturday, 15 March 2025
“Sitting on a sofa, cigarettes and beer, ten years disappear…agreeing to agree, just to get along.” By going into the difficulties of resuscitating the past, the lyrics of “Ten Years,” the fourth song on The Loft’s first album, neatly sum-up the... Read more... |
Album: Jason Isbell - Foxes in the SnowFriday, 14 March 2025
America – the pro-wrestling-ass nation, the ultimate society of the spectacle – famously likes things big, and modern country and western music has gone along with that. Big hats, big trucks, big sentiment, big pop production, very big sales indeed... Read more... |
