New music
Album: FaithNYC - Love is a Wish AwayThursday, 21 November 2024
FaithNYC is a vehicle for the singer and songwriter Felice Rosser, an original rooted in reggae,soul, punk and the New York downtown avant-garde. She once played in an all-woman reggae band, Sistren, and was a close friend of Jean-Michel Basquiat.... Read more... |
English Teacher, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - Mercury winners step up in size with styleWednesday, 20 November 2024
Props designed like flowers were scattered across the QMU stage for English Teacher's performance. A fitting choice given the Leeds group are evidently in full bloom these days, with an upgraded venue in Glasgow due to demand and, of course, a... Read more... |
Album: Father John Misty - MahashmashanaWednesday, 20 November 2024
The word “mahashmashana” – महामशान in Sanskrit – translates as “great burying ground.” Co-opted as the title of Josh Tillman’s sixth album as Father John Misty, its use might reflect a concern that the contemporary world is facing its demise. Or it... Read more... |
Kenny Barron Trio, Ronnie Scott's review - a master of the coolMonday, 18 November 2024
Kenny Barron, revered as the best jazz pianist around, is a perfect gentleman and a master of “cool” – a quality once described in great depth by the American Africanist Robert Farris Thompson, in an article originally published in African Arts in... Read more... |
Album: Body Count - MercilessMonday, 18 November 2024
Rapper, actor and occasional media celebrity, Ice-T’s heavy metal band, Body Count have been around since the early ‘90s and have turned out some fine albums along the way – most notably their self-titled debut and 2014’s Manslaughter. Unfortunately... Read more... |
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... |
