New music
joe.muggs
In a pirate television (pirate television!) broadcast from 1992, a large group of Russian youths in flat top haircuts and leather jackets discuss Depeche Mode's appeal. “It's romantic style,” suggests one with absolute assurance, “it's music for the lonely.” It is just one touching, funny moment in a film packed with them, but it also sums up what The Posters Came From The Walls is about. This “music for the lonely” by a band of awkward blokes from Basildon has brought this group of young people together, as it has all the legions of devoted lovers of the band that we see throughout the 58 Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Rihanna, Russian Roulette (Mercury)
I strongly suggest anyone who believes the sound of US mainstream pop is somehow homogenised and safe take another look at the current charts. Standing over them like android colossi are Lady Gaga and Rihanna - who not only look exactly as pop stars were always going to look "in the future", but sound apocalyptically insane. This song is in the standard melodramatic modern power-ballad style of writer/producer Ne-Yo, but the combination of Rihanna's piercing voice and the lyrics that circle in the non-specific manner of nightmares around death, obsession, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Little, it seems, falls beyond the musical compass of Ryuichi Sakamoto. After cutting his teeth with synthpop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto branched out like a one-man synthesis of Messrs Byrne, Bowie and Eno, investigating world and renaissance music, chamber pieces, orchestral works and movie soundtracks.Well versed in traditional Japanese and Okinawan forms, Sakamoto is also adept in multimedia and digital manipulation, and was even commissioned to write ringtones for Nokia. Recent collaborations with Alva Noto and Christian Fennesz confirm that Sakamoto's inquisitive spirit Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
An ongoing series celebrating musicians' birthdays.
2 December 1982: Britney Spears is 27. There is some resistance to Britney hereabouts, so I thought I'd post a version of "Toxic" sung acoustically by Galia Arad to demonstrate that she does have some terrific songs. If Galia - who with her cousin Lail, should become much better known in 2010 - loves Britney, who are we less cool mortals to resist her?
{youtube width="400" height="300"}9HVJTPtZkWk{/youtube}Of course Britney's production is also first-rate - those Egyptian film strings are awesome, no?
{youtube width="400" height="300"} Read more ...
joe.muggs
"Depeche Mode," says Jeremy Deller, "have always been seen as a bit naff in this country, at least in the media. They could never shake off the image of their earliest Top Of The Pops appearances, so no matter how musically exploratory they got, they tended to be seen as this jumped-up rather silly pop band. This film hopefully redresses that a bit." This film – The Posters Came From The Walls, directed by Turner prizewinner Deller with Nick Abrahams, and screening in Britain this Tuesday night – is a view of the Basildon synth band's singular career through the eyes of some of their most Read more ...
glyn.brown
It’s girls’ night out. Walk in, the waves of scent and hairspray go right up your nose. And now here’s Lily, sloping on with a half-blonde half-black hairdo like a cross between Nancy Sinatra, an Afghan hound and a very pretty Jimmy Savile. As she crosses the Vegas-style stage, there’s even a touch of Wendy Richard about the high-pitched squeak and bum-wiggling dance. She’s wearing a tiny black sequined number and suggestive seams, and after a lame "Hello London! Is it Friday night or what?", she apologises because her tights are falling down. But it’s not until halfway through the set that Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
"Welcome to the second night of my depressing acoustic tour," said Malcolm Middleton by way of introducing his set. The statement plays on his well-established reputation for miserabilism. Later on he asked the audience, "Enjoying yourselves?" to which a smattering of "yeahs" could be heard. "Then I'm not doing my job properly," deadpanned Middleton. The Glaswegian singer-songwriter, who was one half of boozy alt-folk rabble-rousers Arab Strap until 2006, sat alone in a spotlight, his sole instrument an acoustic guitar, and continually dropped downbeat comments, but his pithy songs of Read more ...
howard.male
This week sees the much antipicated release of the Tom Waits live album Glitter and Doom - which almost rhymes with moon. Much has been written about the seismic change in Tom Waits’ music that occurred around 1983 with Swordfishtrombones. Before that date Waits was just a bar-room blues kind of guy: double bass, brushed snare, and fumbled piano were the accessible backdrop to songs of unfulfilled love and drowned Saturday nights. This Tom was always hunched over the stained Formica, swathed in cigarette smoke, waiting for a new lover to walk in, or an old lover to return.But then the Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Charm. Lisa Hannigan has it in bucketfuls. An unusual charm, like her unique take on her self-styled “plink plonk rock”. Something homely, warm and very unshowbiz. Whereas her American counterparts might lose themselves in fad diets and obscure activism, Hannigan knits and writes blogs on her favourite recipes. She shouldn’t be a pop star at all. One might be tempted to describe her as being “girl next door”, except nobody really lives next door to anyone this cute and talented.Until her Mercury nomination Hannigan was mainly known in this country as the “girl who used to sing with Damian Read more ...
joe.muggs
There are occasional days when the Royal Festival Hall really feels like the people's palace it was always meant to be – and yesterday, with its free concert of live improvisation mixed with dubstep and electronica in the RFH bar, was absolutely one of them. Rave kids, pensioners, parents with babes in arms and some particularly energetic school-age children all proved that given the right context music the border between “challenging” music and entertainment is more porous than some might like to believe.
And it was rather impressive how challenging the curators of the event were willing Read more ...
peter.quinn
Watching some jazz musicians play live, you're made acutely aware of the intense effort that goes into their performance. Conveying a non-verbal message that roughly translates as “this shit is really hard, you know”, tell-tale signs include the pained rictus of deep concentration, the sotto voce grunts, groans and exhalations, and the self-communing, head-down-to-the-floor mode adopted for solos of five minutes or longer.Observing Esperanza Spalding's sunny disposition in the hallowed confines of Ronnie Scott's, on the other hand, you get the impression that she's barely breaking a sweat. Read more ...
peter.quinn
Melodically rich, harmonically daring, rhythmically subtle, pianist Gwilym Simcock's quartet piece, “Longing To Be”, which kicked off last night's Queen Elizabeth Hall gig was one of the most jaw-dropping performances I've heard at this year's London Jazz Festival. Opening with an expansive, über-romantic solo from the pianist in free time, the piece unfolded quite beautifully with the layered introduction of Yuri Goloubev's bowed bass, James Maddren's understated percussion and Klaus Gesing's haunting soprano sax.Both bassist and drummer are members of Simcock's trio that features on his new Read more ...