New music
Lisa-Marie Ferla
That How Big How Blue How Beautiful is as much a mission statement as an album title will come as little surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with either Florence Welch or her pop juggernaut of a voice. With new producer Marcus Dravs – known for his work with the arena-filling stadium rock likes of Arcade Fire and Coldplay – on board, rumours that the album would showcase a subtler change in direction were always going to turn out to be exaggerated. But on the strength of some of the finer moments on Welch’s third album – and there are many of them – anything else Read more ...
Matthew Wright
You might think that the carefree, gleeful melodies of sunny Californian surf-rock giants The Beach Boys would render them immune to the kind of egotistical wedge-driving that sunders most rock groups eventually. You would, of course, be wrong. Shortly after the band’s 50th-anniversary world tour in 2012, Mike Love, who owns the band’s name, took it away for his own version of the Beach Boys, leaving founder (and widely acknowledged musical genius) Brian Wilson and Al Jardine behind. Rumours, which will receive a thorough airing in the next year when first Wilson, then Love, publish their Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Though they're separated by thousands of miles, Cuba and Mali share a common musical connection. Right at the heart of Cuban music lie rhythms from sub-saharan African and last night the two traditions were united once again when Havana-born piano virtuoso Roberto Fonseca (of Buena Vista Social Club fame) took the stage with Fatoumata Diawara, a Malian singer and guitarist who is fast becoming a giant of the world music scene.The pair first met when Fonseca invited Diawara to feature on his 2012 release Yo, in which he explored his own African roots. Since then they seem to have been Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Merle and Willie – these kind of senior country summits can either be a bit of a coaster, all well and good underneath your tumbler of Bourbon, or actually something to write home about. Keep this one away from the liquor. It’s produced by Buddy Cannon, who's worked with Willie Nelson on five albums since 2008, including last year's excellent Band of Brothers, and is co-writer on four more late-period Willie Nelson tunes – small, well-turned gems that continue to make the world a better place by being here, and collaborated on by text messaging, according to an interview in The Tennessean. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Marvin Gaye: Marvin Gaye 1961–1965On single, Marvin Gaye’s earliest years were defined by a head-long rush beginning with his fourth 45, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow". After that, future classic followed future classic: "Hitch Hike", "Pride and Joy", "Can I Get a Witness", “How Sweet it is (to be Loved by You)", "Ain't That Peculiar" and more. The years 1962 to 1965 were a musical goldmine for this multi-faceted singer and songwriter.On album, Marvin Gaye’s earliest years were somewhat more complex. Where his label Tamla (odd issues came via related imprint Motown) went for the direct and Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It seems a peculiar conceit to pack up a full symphony orchestra and choir and take them the length of the UK solely to perform suites of music from a popular television show – and I say this as a fan of the show in question. Yet I left the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular with a newfound appreciation for both the soundtrack as an art form in general, and for the work of Murray Gold – the composer responsible for the show’s music since its return in 2005 – in particular.The aptly-named “spectacular” mixed live-action appearances from some of the show’s most iconic nasties, Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The Darkness, despite their current sober lifestyle, claim to be back with music that makes “women weak at the knees and men shit their pants”. If only. The lorry loads of booze and cocaine may be a thing of the past, but also, it seems, is their muse. Somewhere along the way, the boys have forgotten what people love about them. And for all the industrial riffs and squealing vocals, Last of Our Kind doesn’t actually offer much in the way of fun.Ironically, trying to sound less like a parody, has, if anything, made the band even more cartoonish. Before the heavy-grinding “Mudslide”, for Read more ...
Jasper Rees
A long time ago I went out into the field to research a feature about the three ages of obsessive fandom. At the entry level was a bog-standard legion of young teenage girls who simply hung around outside the mansion block in Maida Vale where one or possibly both of the Gosses (of Bros) lived. I also met three young women who had access to Jason Donovan’s diary and were traipsing around town in the hope of glimpse. Donovan’s star had waned but they hadn’t moved on. Most tragic was my dinner in Soho with a Boy George lookalike, a dolled-up marionette who gave himself airs and got chauffeured Read more ...
Jasper Rees
To begin at the very bizarre ending. Fleetwood Mac, finally reunited as a five-piece with Christine McVie stage right on luscious vocals and keyboard, had just thrashed out a show of great finesse for two hours. It had all gone peachily. McVie was given a last lovely encore - “Songbird” – crooned solo on a grand piano. That should have been it. Many were already going, or gone.But after one last bow Stevie Nicks, as ever an accident in a taffeta factory, had a rambling tale to tell about McVie’s prodigal return after 16 years. This bathetic oration lasted about three minutes. Then Mick Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There has never been any doubt of Jamie xx’s skill as a producer. Since he first appeared with the spectral, soundscaped atmospherics of The xx, he has remixed artists such as Adele and Eliza Doolittle but his work on Radiohead and Four Tet, as well as his Gil Scott-Heron remix album, seemed to show more clearly where his heart was at. While this music had polish and beauty, even an occasionally ethereal flavour, there was something shy and cerebral about it. It was only his contained, tension-building club and festival DJs sets that let audiences know this was a man who loved the dance Read more ...
caspar.gomez
Perhaps it was after Bestival 2008 that its organizer, Rob da Bank, made his pact with the ancient gods. That year the Robin Hill Country Park site was reduced to a cold, sleet-raked, tornado-blown mire. The event truly lived up to every overuse of the word “mud” the British media hurls about eagerly each festival season. It was then, presumably, that da Bank, together with his acolytes in necromancy, turned to the pagan arts to facilitate positive weather conditions for future events. It was a piece of epic sorcery that’s mostly held fast since.The Bestival organizers forfeited their souls Read more ...
Guy Oddy
When producers Diplo and Switch released their collaboration Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers do under the guise of Major Lazer in 2009, it gave the electronic dance scene a much needed kick up the backside. Dance grooves, ragga beats and lively MCs collided to create a frantic Dancehall fusion that attracted plenty of attention. Six years later and with Switch long gone, Peace is the Mission comes as a huge disappointment characterised by middle of the road EDM sounds and even a track featuring the awful Ellie Goulding.Opening tune “Be Together” is a pleasant enough introduction. Featuring Read more ...