New music
Doja Cat's 'Vie' starts well but soon tails offSaturday, 27 September 2025
Doja Cat is a fascinating one-off. She’s a rap-centric Californian artist whose background dips into everything from new age philosophy to skate culture. She’s the epitome of a 2020s singer who’s as much a social media phenomenon as a pop star (and... Read more... |
Mariah Carey is still 'Here for It All' after an eight-year breakFriday, 26 September 2025
One of the great moments of Private Eye magazine’s fustiness in recent years was putting Mariah Carey in Pseud’s Corner, for the quote about how she deals with the ageing process: “I do not acknowledge time.” That quip is of course in no way pseudo-... Read more... |
Album: Solar Eyes - Live Freaky! Die Freaky!Thursday, 25 September 2025
Solar Eyes are an indie dance two-piece from Birmingham’s Hall Green. With a sound that binds together psychedelic guitars, foot stomping beats and trippy lyrics, their sophomore album Live Freaky! Die Freaky! exudes a wild-eyed exuberance that... Read more... |
Album: Night Tapes - portals//polaritiesWednesday, 24 September 2025
“Helix” is the ninth track on portals//polarities. With this dramatic, acid house-leaning slab of shoegazing-infused electropop, Night Tapes make the case that they’re the real deal.Up to this point, their pop-inclined electronica has embraced... Read more... |
Album: Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu Plays MulatuMonday, 22 September 2025
The tour by the 81-year-old Mulatu Astatke which is currently under way and this album seem to be giving off different messages. Coming to London on 16 and 17 November, it is being marketed as a farewell. Last night's show at Ancienne Belgique in... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Sly and the Family Stone - The First Family: Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967Sunday, 21 September 2025
The remarkable The First Family: Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967 represents the first-ever release of a previously unheard recording of a 26 March 1967 Sly and the Family Stone live show. It is the earliest document of Sly and Co. to surface.At... Read more... |
Album: Robert Plant - Saving GraceSaturday, 20 September 2025
Robert Plant is magnificently well-equipped to shine as a consummate musical survivor: not only has his voice kept its magic, with a range from sensual caress to ecstatic howl, but he’s deeply rooted in timeless music, Scots-Irish and American folk... Read more... |
Brìghde Chaimbeul, Round Chapel review - enchantment in East LondonThursday, 18 September 2025
Hackney’s Round Chapel is an appropriate venue. Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul opens her set with “Dùsgadh/Waking.” It has the spirit of a call to prayer: the directness, the insistence, the magnetic quality. All of which draws in... Read more... |
First Person: Musician ALA.NI on how thoughts of empire and reparation influenced a songThursday, 18 September 2025
I’ve never thought of myself as a political artist. I write about love. The tender bits, the messy bits, the heartbreak that rearranges a life. That’s where songwriting usually finds me. “TIEF”, from my forthcoming album Sunshine Music, arrived... Read more... |
Album: NewDad - AltarThursday, 18 September 2025
With their second album Altar, the Irish combo NewDad has moved from the love-embittered shoegaze of their 2023 debut Madra toward a worldlier perspective married to a comparatively sophisticated but confrontational style. Some reviewers have... Read more... |
Album: The Divine Comedy - Rainy Sunday AfternoonWednesday, 17 September 2025
Neil Hannon has been recording and touring as the Divine Comedy since 1989 and has tried a fair few flavours along the way, from chamber pop to Britpop, while sounding fundamentally himself throughout. Rainy Sunday Afternoon, however, sounds like a... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Robyn - Robyn 20th-Anniversary EditionSunday, 14 September 2025
Sometimes, record labels don’t like what those on their roster have recorded. Such was the case with BMG Sweden and Robin Carlsson who, as Robyn, had made three albums with varying success and a raft of home-country hit singles for the label from... Read more... |
