New music
mark.kidel
With a sound that's instantly recognisable, Justin Vernon – known as Bon Iver - continues to astonish. Purveyor of wonder, sculptor of enchanting sounds, he treads a miraculous path between melancholy and joy and has established himself as one of the great voice of contemporary indie pop.His new album built on the EP Sable, which he has supplemented with new material, further explorations of love, a search for identity whose mixture of innocence and wisdom steers well clear of self-indulgence. From his first album, For Emma Forever Ago (2007), recorded in solitary retreat, he has made a Read more ...
Primal Scream, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - from anthems of social justice to songs of heartbreak
Guy Oddy
Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes may have been steering the good ship Primal Scream for some 40 years but, on the evidence of this week’s visit to Birmingham, they are in no way ready to join the heritage circuit – banging out the hits exactly as they were recorded – just yet.That said, they did have an electric guitar, painted in Screamadelica colours, for sale at their merchandise stand for the princely sum of £2,000, so they can’t be completely blind to their position as elder statesmen in the world of rock’n’roll.Kicking off with a funky, psychedelic soul infused take on “Don’t Fight It, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHRattle Encircle (Upset! The Rhythm)Rattle are an unusual band. Consisting of Nottingham duo Katharine Eira Brown and Theresa Wrigley, their set-up is two drum kits, with which they build simple hypnotic patterns then add repetitive vocals over the top. They don’t sound like anyone else. Well, perhaps a little like the more outré work of femme-centric post-punk bands such as The Raincoats, The Slits, The Au Pairs, and ESG. It’s not music that most will put on to chill out to or bounce around to – it’s too spooked and odd for either – but it also has a weird power, almost like Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Langenu are a black metal band. On stage at Estonia’s Tallinn Music Week, they are fearsome. Blood-vessel-burstingly intense. Tempering their force with twists into progressive, psychedelic-adjacent territory, they are a band any rock fan would dig.Playing an evening dedicated to the region’s Finno-Ugric culture, Langenu stand apart. Folk or traditional music is typical to this realm. Rock, in any form, is not. This is a first. They are here because their last release, the Setooniq EP, is sung entirely in the Seto language.Seto, like Estonian, Finnish and Sámi, is a Finno-Ugric language. The Read more ...
Ibi Keita
Black Country, New Road’s Forever Howlong is an ambitious reinvention that both captivates and, at times, frustrates. Following Isaac Wood’s departure, the band leans into a more collaborative and folk-inspired direction, trading their post-punk chaos for something more delicate and introspective. It’s a bold move, and one that yields some truly beautiful moments, even if the overall experience doesn’t fully resonate.Tracks like “Two Horses” and “The Boy” stand out for their emotional clarity and nuanced storytelling. The former, in particular, showcases the band’s ability to create intimacy Read more ...
Liz Thomson
I can’t hear Joan Armatrading without being instantly transported back to Liverpool, and my student digs just around the corner from Penny Lane. I was a first-year music student, writing essays in the late-night glow of an Anglepoise, my radio-cassette player (boomboxes hadn’t yet been invented) tuned to Radio City. “Love and Affection” and “Down to Zero”, from her magnificent self-titled 1976 LP (no CDs either, and certainly no streaming!) were on the playlist of just about every DJ.I saw her live only once, from quite near the front of the 250,000-strong audience assembled at Blackbushe for Read more ...
mark.kidel
The sax-player Kenny Garrett established a reputation as one of Miles Davis’s band in the Amandla (1989) period. He was also a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the launching-pad for scores of talented young musicians.Influenced by the harmonic freedom pioneered by John Coltrane, he’s one of those post- hard bop instrumentalists who reached out towards various kinds of fusion, bringing jazz back to its more danceable roots and leaning heavily towards a sound that sold well in the market-place.No surprise then that Kenny Garrett’s recent set at Ronnie Scott’s consisted of two elements: Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The titular “lighthouse of glass” is a place where the narrator is “crying into the sun,” in which there is a need to “stand by my solitude.” Choosing isolation and self-determination are themes running throughout Lighthouse of Glass the album and how Sweden’s Sofia Härdig has approached recording these 10 songs. As well as the songwriter, she is the arranger, engineer, producer and main instrumentalist.“April,” the chugging, string-infused album opener suggests a PJ Harvey influence, with a smidge of Nick Cave too. This soon dissipates in favour of broader nods to Patti Smith: “Kingdom Come Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in July 1976 and originally issued only on cassette. The release was organised by what was credited as the “Sun Shine Music Shop,” an enterprise which seems to have left no additional imprint. No further “Sun Shine Music Shop” albums are known.In contrast, Ibex Band, the outfit which recorded Stereo Instrumental Music, had a lineage outstripping that of the label which released the album. In 1975, they had issued an album and four related singles where they backed established vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed. They also backed Aster Aweke on one of her early albums Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Mike Scott is The Waterboys. Launched by wide-eyed 1980s folk-rock, and “The Whole of the Moon”, he’s long since roamed into whatever stylistic gumbo he fancies. The latest album – the band’s 16th – is a concept piece, a 25-track sonic biography of the late Hollywood maverick Dennis Hopper.It’s sometimes entertaining, sometimes preposterous, and sometimes pure cringe. The songs follow the chronology of Hopper’s life. For instance, there’s a floaty Floyd-ish song early on called “Blues for Terry Southern”, in honour of Easy Rider’s co-writer, while near the end is “Golf, They Say”, a southern Read more ...
Tim Cumming
I saw the Miki Berenyi Trio play a warmly received sold out set at the Lexington last autumn, at which many of the songs now coming out on Tripla ("three" in Hungarian) had their live previews, alongside a few from the Lush years – the likes of “Kiss Chase” and “Ladykillers” – and Piroshka, the four-piece that emerged briefly from the ashes of the 2016 Lush reunion.Berenyi has since written a superb memoir (Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success), looking back at her idiosyncratic – at times traumatic – family life and history, as well as her trajectory from zine-making teen music Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Pigsx7 have hardly got a reputation for penning tender and soulful ballads, but Death Hilarious is a particularly aggressive and punishing album even by their standards. Taking cues from Black Sabbath’s heft, Motorhead’s “bend not stab” sound and soul shaking noise rock, their new album is the aural equivalent of being mugged by a gang of feral kids and being left feeling particularly battered by the experience.Starting as they mean to go on, opening track “Blockage” is a riotous barrage of speedy riffs and heavy beats punctuated by atonal guitar soloing that’s reminiscent of Black Flag’s Read more ...