New music
Music Reissues Weekly: Magazine - Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use of SoapSunday, 17 November 2024
“Let's walk down memory lane the Magazine way. Let's regurgitate fifth-rate Low [the David Bowie album] period pieces. Let's plonk plonk plonk with ponderous sub-Pink Floydery. Let's do the wallpaper waltz. This is not pushing back the barriers. It'... Read more... |
Bob Dylan, Royal Albert Hall review - cracked ritual from rock elderSaturday, 16 November 2024
Will Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour ever come to an end? Two years on from the last UK tour, he’s returned, with substantially the same band, once again mostly featuring material from his brilliant album Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). He’s a little... Read more... |
ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetimeSaturday, 16 November 2024
Picture this: framing the stage are two pearlescent clouds which, throughout the performance, gently pulsate with flickering light. Behind them on a giant screen is a spinning globe, its seas twinkling like a million stars.Suddenly, this magical... Read more... |
Album: Linkin Park - From ZeroSaturday, 16 November 2024
The return of Linkin Park has been a long, winding path. The seven years since Chester Bennington's passing have swirled with speculation over what the long term future for the California nu-metal icons would look like.The picture suddenly became... Read more... |
Rachel Chinouriri, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - a formidable and genre-hopping talentFriday, 15 November 2024
It appears Rachel Chinouriri has a good memory. “I remember you!” she yelled excitedly to one fan early on, highlighting that she currently sits in a nice position – popular enough to be playing busy shows in decently sized venues, but at a level... Read more... |
Album: Jon Batiste - Beethoven BluesFriday, 15 November 2024
Beethoven’s renown in his own day was not just as a composer but also as an improvising pianist. He wrote in a letter in July 1819 that “freedom, and to move forward is the purpose of the world of art, as it is of the whole of creation.’So it is a... Read more... |
Album: Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens - American RailroadThursday, 14 November 2024
Conceived in 1998 by the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma to remind the world of the benefits of globalisation in bringing people together, Silkroad is a non-profit organisation with a mission to create “music that engages difference, sparking radical... Read more... |
Interview: Roy Haynes, Jazz Drumming Giant (1925-2024)Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Roy Haynes, who had begun to seem immortal, has died aged 99. In this extensive Arts Desk interview from 2011, one of the greatest jazz drummers ranges across his remarkable life with sharp intelligence and generous feeling.The man who played with... Read more... |
Album: Dolly Parton & Family - Smoky Mountain DNA - Family, Faith & FablesWednesday, 13 November 2024
This is almost too much to bear. This sprawling 37-track collection begins with the sainted 78-year-old Dolly Parton providing a jaunty spoken narration of her family’s history in music and the church. It’s old-school Disney documentary in tone, but... Read more... |
Amyl and the Sniffers, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - rowdy Aussies let looseTuesday, 12 November 2024
Amy Taylor and the rest of the Sniffers ambled onto the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Academy to a huge roar of approval from a packed and diverse audience on Sunday evening. With her Farrah Fawcett hairstyle, toothy smile, sparkly bikini, knee length... Read more... |
Album: Tomorrow X Together - The Star Chapter: SanctuaryMonday, 11 November 2024
South Korean quintet TXT's latest mini-album delivers six meticulously crafted tracks that showcase the group's evolving artistry through everything from dreamy pop to reggaeton to classic R&B.With its stripped back arrangement – some ethereal... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Yardbirds - The Ultimate Live at the BBCSunday, 10 November 2024
“The last we had was a bit of a flop. I own up about it, it was quite bad.” Speaking to the BBC’s Brian Matthew on 4 April 1967, Yardbirds’ frontman Keith Relf is candid about the chart fate of his band’s last single, October 1966’s “Happenings Ten... Read more... |
