New music
Guy Oddy
There can’t be many bands who have been around (on and off) for almost 40 years and who choose to play the whole of their latest album as their live set. That kind of thing is more often reserved for 10- or 20-year anniversary tours. No one could accuse Al Jourgensen and Ministry (or any of his many bands, for that matter) from having ever taken the easy route at any point in their career though. Fortunately for a heaving O2 Institute, Uncle Al is still not playing “the game” today.To celebrate this year’s Fourth of July, Ministry played two sets on the Birmingham leg of their first UK tour Read more ...
mark.kidel
Damon Albarn isn’t just a national treasure but an international one. He seems to spread his reach so widely, with a mix of curiosity and boundless energy, a great deal of discernment and a vision as different as possible from the narrow-minded attitudes that feed the Brexit frenzy.Having worked creative magic in Mali, with a range of exciting collaborations and recordings at Bamako’s Bogolan studios and elsewhere, and paid homage to various traditions on his label Honest Jon’s, Albarn has taken his ever-renewing project Africa Express into the creative maelstrom that is South Africa. He is Read more ...
caspar.gomez
As ever theartsdesk’s Glastonbury report arrives after all other media coverage. Despite management pressure Caspar Gomez refuses earlier deadlines. He told Editorial, “The press tent is like an office, a place of work, full of laptops and coffee. Who needs that?” His annual saga doesn’t attempt to compete with Tweeted micro-reviews or ever-available BBC iPlayer festival highlights. It takes a winding road, explores the scenery, the musical-chemical highs and body-worn lows, capturing in fuller form than anywhere else a most singular plunge into Glastonbury 2019.THURSDAY 27th JUNEIt’s been Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Janelle Monae says her show is all about making memories. She tells the crowd: “I hope that I can become a memory for you that you access when you’re feeling down – a memory that’s rooted in love and freedom.”Themes of #loveislove, courage to live your reality even if outside of the norm, and speaking truth to power are loud and proud in Dirty Computer – the album Janelle is touring Europe, with the London leg coming hot on the heels of a Glastonbury appearance.Her energy isn’t diminished as she takes to the stage in variations of a monochrome unitard, PVC cap and floor length coat, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
With shifts from the crepuscular to the distinct, Dawnbreaker is the aural equivalent of a stygian day periodically lightened when banks of cloud break to allow knife-like sunlight through.The album begins with “Fellows”, where an unadorned acoustic guitar accompanies a cracked solo voice declaring “he gave me his love and I couldn’t give mine.” The atmosphere and sound quality suggest it was rescued from a wax cylinder recording. Next, and bedded by what could be the rhythm box of a Seventies supermarket keyboard, “Gem” swings along, builds and adds instruments, developing into a Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
“We didn’t come all the way from Nashville, Tennessee with just one fiddle,” says Carrie Underwood, halfway through her Glasgow show. The onetime American Idol turned multiple Grammy award-winning country superstar isn’t one for doing things by halves: hers is a show with a big band, big boots, big earrings and her gigantic, arena-filling voice.Despite hints to the contrary (Guns n Roses as her entrance music; feelgood Saturday night southern party anthem “Southbound” as the opening track) a breakneck opening streak hits all the country cliche greatest hits: good girls and casanova cowboys, Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Scott Hansen is a man that, in the musical guise of Tycho, finds himself seemingly unable to sit still creatively. Over his previous four albums, Hansen has incrementally filled out his sound, by bringing post-rock guitars, bass and live drums to a downtempo electronic groove, as well as recruiting other musicians into the band. Weather is no different in its desire to bring new sounds and people into the mix. Indeed, it sees Tycho’s further humanisation since 2006’s electronic solo debut, Past Is Prologue, with the addition of Hannah Cottrell’s sophisticated, pop vocals.After more than a Read more ...
Owen Richards
With the fabled fields of Glastonbury on the horizon, The Killers chose the equally mythic Cardiff Castle as their practice run. While Stormzy was making history on the Pyramid Stage, the Welsh capital played witness to a precision-engineered pop-rock spectacular, complete with pyros and an extravagant light show. Well, if you can’t make history, make memories.They began big with a one-two punch of first-album bangers. “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” led straight into “Mr Brightside”, a power play to drop their generational lads anthem so early, but it mainlined adrenaline straight through the Read more ...
Liz Thomson
“He was an outsider, a purveyor of truth”, Sarah Jane Morris has said of John Martyn, whose rackety life came to a tragically premature conclusion in 2009, when he was just 60. He was a key figure on the British folk scene, and his distinctive fusion of folk and blues quickly led him into the realms of jazz. A brilliant finger-picking guitarist in a style often referred to as folk baroque, Martyn was also an early experimenter with the fuzzbox and other gizmos, and while his own hero was Davey Graham, Martyn’s admirers came from across the musical spectrum and included Mike Harding and David Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Belém’s population is one-and-a-half million. Located 100km south of Brazil’s north coast on the east bank of the Amazon feeder river Pará, it’s the capital of the state sharing its name with the waterway. The city is only 160km south of the equator, an entry point into the rain forest and closer to Trinidad and Tobago than Brazil’s cultural magnet Rio de Janeiro.Named after Bethlehem and founded in 1655, Belém’s economy is defined by its role as an incoming and outgoing port and has its roots in an early 17th century Portuguese fort. Its location and the attendant potential for the Read more ...
joe.muggs
Releasing this record must be a daunting process for Steve Clarke. For one, it's his first record as a frontman and main songwriter, after a lifetime as a jobbing bassist and tour manager. For two it's a collaboration with his wife – they've been married a year, and together for five – and isn't shy of expressing the hopes and fears of an evolving relationship. But perhaps most potentially intimidating for Clarke, his wife is Rachel Goswell of Slowdive, one of the most distinctive sounding UK bands of recent decades, so it's inevitable her presence will generate attention and draw comparisons Read more ...
Liz Thomson
I remember my first time in San Francisco, February 1982, crying at the sight of Golden Gate Bridge. I still shed a tear – it and the Bay are so very beautiful and the city is, like Venice, crazy-wonderful, defying all logic. It’s impossible to set foot “in the city by the Bay” without Tony Bennett’s song lodging in your brain; impossible, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, not to hear the song without picturing that magical city. It takes only a couple of notes of that celebrated and evocative piano riff...The man who inhabits the song and sings it from every stage is 93 in just a Read more ...