New music
peter.quinn
The great jazz singers are also the great storytellers. Last night, listening to Cassandra Wilson sing “Wichita Lineman”, that single, devastating couplet - "And I need you more than want you/And I want you for all time" - conjured up an individual's entire life story. Seamlessly traversing genres in fresh and creative ways, performing a set that juxtaposed Cesária Évora's “Angola” with a completely impromptu “A Foggy Day”, the Jackson, Mississippi vocalist, musician, songwriter and producer confirmed her own compelling storytelling gift.When Wilson took to the stage after a scene-setting Read more ...
James Williams
When The Golden Age of Apocalypse, the first LP by Stephen Bruner, the American musician better known as Thundercat, was released in 2011, it was a revelation. Co-produced by Flying Lotus and taking its cues from electronica, prog, pop and funk, its sublime jazz sound united head-bobbing musos, fellow musicians (Bruner counts Dr Dre, Erykah Badu and Odd Future among his fans and collaborators) and critics.To celebrate the release of his equally inspiring follow up, Apocalypse, Bruner and his band took to the stage at XOYO in London’s Shoreditch for a show that was remarkable in both its Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There is something eminently smug and punchable about Robin Thicke. Born into a showbiz dynasty of US TV celebrities (media geek fact: his dad also composed the theme to Diff’rent Strokes), he appears to have lived a cossetted existence, writing slick, plastic sex songs for a multitude of stars from an early age while heavily involved in the epic artifice of TV talent shows. What’s not to loathe? Except that you don’t get signed to The Neptunes’ label or have Jay-Z work with you on the basis of dilettante dabbling. No, Thicke, punchable or no, can navigate his way around a pop song.His latest Read more ...
joe.muggs
When Tunng started out in 2005, they were a peculiar proposition. Treading a fine line between Heath Robinson ramshackle and meticulous high-tech, ancient and hyper-modern, bone percussion and glitchy electronic sparkles, they certainly deserved the then-popular term “folktronica”. Though their melodies were unerringly catchy, their lyrics were so out-there, their lineup so unorthodox and their sound so psychedelic it was never likely they'd be more than a cult act.So why, last night, did they bring nothing to mind so much as Fleetwood Mac or Paul McCartney's Wings? Their new, fifth, album Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Watching Adam Stafford at work can only be described as magical. Thanks to his ingenious use of loop and effects pedals, the Falkirk-born songwriter can spin intricate, layered compositions using nothing but his voice and a couple of bars on guitar. At last week’s Glasgow launch show for his latest album, he ended the night with a ten-minute monster from Awnings, a 2009 experimental a capella album. Cue an audience literally stunned by a noise as wild and intense - and yet, as strangely controlled - as that from a full orchestra.It stands to reason that some of the immediate impact of Read more ...
simon.broughton
It was wonderful watching and listening to Abida Parveen through the sculptural arms of a girl sitting a few rows in front. As Abida began, with a rich, clarinet-like voice, the woman raised her arms as if to bathe in or caress the sound, elegantly turning and twisting her fingers and hands to the music. Parveen is the greatest Sufi singer in Pakistan and is a very rare visitor to the UK, so it was something of a coup for the Manchester International Festival to get her, not just for her own show, but also to take part in John Tavener’s remarkable composition Mahámátar, for a Werner Herzog Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Like a child’s crude drawing of a crime they’ve witnessed, the cover image is of two adults: one female, one male. The female is bent forward, holding what looks to be an axe. Below waist height, the male is holding a linear object spewing something towards her. It may be a gun, it may be his penis. Phrases strew the image: “psychiatric shopping mall”; “I don’t think you should be around people”. Whatever’s inside the sleeve of Nadine Shah’s debut album isn’t going to be cuddly-wuddly tomfoolery.On Love Your Dum and Mad’s highlight “Runaway”, Shah sings “I still have that red silk dress, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Public Image Ltd: Public Image – First Issue“I’d like to kill Jimmy Savile, I think he’s a hypocrite. I bet he’s into all kinds of seediness that we all know about, that we’re not allowed to talk about. I know some rumours.” This bombshell comes 46 minutes into the hour-long interview on the bonus disc of this reissue of the debut album by Public Image Ltd, John Lydon's post-Sex Pistols combo. Recorded for the BBC in October 1978, it was edited for broadcast.It’s hardly surprising the former Johnny Rotten had strong views, but the real eye-opener is that this outsider figure – then such Read more ...
joe.muggs
This is not an easy record to get a handle on. When I first got it, I bounced through a couple of tracks idly, and it felt like it was coming from the messy genre fusions of the mid-90s – somewhere between trip-hop, indie-dance, rap-rock and mildly crusty festival-dub. There are growling guitars, indie-rock basslines, anthemic reggae horns, and frontman Joshua Idehen's voice, which lies somewhere between rapper, poet, singer and orator, all making it sound like a livelier take on Tricky, or maybe Roots Manuva fronting a rock band.But idle listening is not enough for this record. For one thing Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s just before midnight on Friday. A few hundred couples circle the floor of a school gym. On stage, violinists play a rhythmic music which cycles repetitively. Coloured with sad, minor notes, it sounds like a stately ancestor to bluegrass. Hands joined, the couples raise their arms above their heads. The woman spins. Breaking the link, the man suddenly bobs downwards, hops up and spreads his arms apart in a come-hither gesture. His partner’s raised hands say no. Linking arms at the waist, they resume the circuit.But he doesn't give up. He’ll try again and again to entice her. This is the Read more ...