New music
Thomas H. Green
Moby is perhaps better known these days for his two ultra-candid biographies, Porcelain and Then It Fell Apart, than he is for his massive album successes of two decades ago. His memoirs are compulsive, unique windows into the screwed up life of an intellectually inquisitive, punk rock-spirited, rave nerd who accidentally, briefly experienced superstardom. But he’s also fired out a series of dynamic, varied albums over the last decade, including music the match of anything in his back catalogue (“Almost Home”, featuring Damien Jurado, from 2013, is one of this century’s loveliest songs). Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Stereophonics climbed out of Cwmaman in the South Wales valleys minus charisma, musical originality or excitement. They make rock music that is conservative and unriotous, offering comfort not commotion. And yet their solid, straightforward strengths, embodied in Kelly Jones’ gravel-flecked, smoothly powerful voice, confidently carry a two-hour set with 11 hit albums to draw from. “I try to make them as honest and true as I can, and then I play them to you people,” Jones says of his songwriting MO. Meat and potatoes can be a hearty, nourishing diet.Jones recalls ZZ Top, Zeppelin and the Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
Calvi’s bewitching 2018 album Hunter has rightly been lauded and applauded. It represented the moment she moved onto another level, giving her extraordinary voice the challenge and the platform it deserved. Her legendary range is breathtakingly dramatic and could verge on histrionic given the opportunity. But thankfully she never crosses that particular Rubicon.Fresh from scoring the fifth season of Peaky Blinders, Calvi has been looking back at Hunter. More intimate and immediate, these reworkings add a different dimension to familiar songs – not least because she is Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
With them having famously been just teenagers when they released their debut single in 1994 it seems fitting – and not a little tongue in cheek – that the indie rock trio chose Teenage Wildlife for the title of their 25th anniversary compilation. The name – from a David Bowie song that appears on the “rarities” disc of the three-disc set – is clearly one that resonates: it also belongs to a documentary about the band, itself almost a decade old.Where early contemporaries have imploded, drifted apart and cashed in on the inevitable reunion tour, Ash have remained consistent – longevity that Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Paul Heaton’s career-spanning compilation The Last King of Pop depicted him crowned and enthroned like a Salford Solomon Burke, or self-aware Michael Jackson. The unique kingdom he has staked out through The Housemartins and The Beautiful South is peopled by the unglamorous and unhip, and secretes bile in bumptiously bouncing, infectious melodies. The return of latter-day South singer Jacqui Abbott for four albums now has commercially shored up his career, and helped define Heaton’s happily married, mostly sober, Greater Manchester-residing middle-age. But though he pays tribute to this Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The titles conveyed the enthusiasm. “A Girl Named Sandoz”, “Gratefully Dead”, “Monterey”, “San Franciscan Nights” and “Yes, I am Experienced”. LSD, The Grateful Dead, Monterey Pop Festival, San Francisco and Jimi Hendrix. There they were, explicit tags confirming that The Animals’ Eric Burdon had been psychedelicised. Three years on from 1964's “House of the Rising Sun”, he was a changed man.It wasn’t unusual for British pop. Whole bands and members of outfits who had traded in edgy R&B and blues had tuned in. The Pretty Things did so. Zoot Money turned his Big Roll band into Dantalian’s Read more ...
India Lewis
Big Thief’s show promised that particular brand of raw singing and perfect guitarmanship that only they can provide, something which they presented with a playful, earnest charm. Adrianne Lenker shared the stage with her three bandmates, two other guitar players and a drummer, all riffing off one another throughout the performance with an obvious love of the sound that they shared. This could sometimes seem perhaps a little indulgent, but the sound that they produced was so good that it was hard to dislike. There’s also something pretty satisfying about a woman performing an excellent solo, Read more ...
howard.male
Inevitably expectations were high, given that this Chicago experimental rock band are one of my favourite groups of the 21st century, and this is their first album for seven years. And at first it’s hard to know what to make of Echo Mine. There are only three traditionally structured songs (and one of those comes in two versions), while the surrounded tracks are largely meandering minimalist instrumentals of various shades and angularity. But then I discover that this is music for a dance piece by Robyn Mineko Williams inspired by the Chicago dancer Claire Bataille (who sadly died lost her Read more ...
Liz Thomson
“Fire and Rain”. Who doesn’t recall James Taylor’s first number one 50 years ago! Born in Carolina and a “graduate” of the 1960s Greenwich Village music scene, Sweet Baby James has given the world some enduring songs and been part of some of music’s greatest scenes. American Standard is his 19th album, his first in five years, and it’s a refreshing dip into the Great American Songbook – “songs I grew up with that I remember really well, that were part of the family record collection”. As indeed they were for many of us.This is classy comfort food which will appeal to those familiar with both Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Judging by her debut album, Malmö singer-songwriter Alice Boman’s frosted-glass musical aesthetic has the odd hint of Mazzy Star and draws from the sound world created for Twin Peaks – a similar outlook to Gothenburg’s El Perro del Mar. Dream On is not the full story though. Boman’s first record was released in 2013 and, since then, she has issued another EP and a few singles.And judging by the wide-ranging dip into her catalogue at London’s Union Chapel, she’s keen to stress Dream On isn’t the full story. While all-but one track from the album was performed – “Mississippi” was omitted – “ Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Norwich is not the first place most people think of as a hub of riveting music but it’s where female duo Sink Ya Teeth hail from. Consisting of bassist Gemma Cullingford and singer Maria Uzor - with both throwing synth into the pot where necessary – the pair have proved themselves a vital presence in the live arena. Their propulsive take on post-punk’s spiked, deadpan funkiness is timely and more-ish, and has been the backbone of their sets, as well as their self-titled debut album. The foundations of their second album retain that purposeful throb, but musically they’ve persuasively expanded Read more ...
peter.quinn
Released to coincide with a new documentary on his life by filmmaker John Scheinfeld, In the Key of Joy celebrates the multifaceted genius of Brazilian producer, composer, keyboardist and vocalist, Sergio Mendes.Recorded between Brazil and California, disc one contains some noticeably fine things, not least collaborations with long-standing friends whom Mendes refers to as his “Three Magi” – bossa pianist João Donato cowrites and performs on the perky “Muganga”; Hermeto Pascoal features on the sinuous groove of “This Is It (É Isso)”, while Guinga writes and plays guitar on one of the album’s Read more ...