club music
Joe Muggs
Some performers are born to perform. It seems obvious, but it’s not a given in the music world. Some just want to make sound, some want to compose, not all are in it to connect directly to an audience. Rob Gallagher, however, is all about that connection, and he’s never stopped doing it. It was there in his band Galliano’s genial funk from 1988 through 1997: his London beat poetry always felt like it was addressing you direct, and the band came to live above all on the live stage where he could speak to the crowd.In the subsequent band Two Banks of Four he did admittedly step back from the Read more ...
Joe Muggs
I won’t give it loads about the atmosphere and attendees at We Out Here – suffice to say that in its fifth edition, it has maintained all the strengths I mentioned last year, with the added benefit of slicker-operating infrastructure having ironed out any remaining wrinkles in its new Dorset site. The navigability, sound levels, smooth running bars etc were all just a little better, which only added to the good vibes that have been there from the start.Given how fun last year had been I wasn’t going to miss Thursday this time. As I set up my tent I could hear the brilliantly quirkly Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Oh this is sad. Up until this point Camilla Cabello has been a good pop star. Her biggest songs were loaded with familiar-to-the-point-of-cheesiness retro Latin samples, or angsty mini-dramas loaded with the musical theatre-style chops that had made her an X-Factor star in her teens, always delivered with a ton of conviction and feeling. Even the infuriatingly catchy “Senorita” with her then boyfriend Shawn Mendes somehow managed to maintain likeability despite its ubiquity. There was a general sense that she knew what she was doing and was good at it; she had her own lane.It feels churlish Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
US electronic perennial Moby has had a good run. He was a rave culture phenomenon from 1991 onwards. He blew that with a vegan punk album. He released Play at the decade’s end and sold millions. He then had decadent superstar years, a run of huge, often juicy albums. He quit booze’n’drugs in 2008. His music blossomed again, culminating in a trio of albums raging at the state of his nation. Following the last of these in 2018, not much has held the attention. Always Centered at Night has moments that do.Those wanting energy and urgency should look elsewhere. This is mostly a downtempo Read more ...
Joe Muggs
There’s a whole generation of singers who’ve risen to considerable fame on the back of the return of home-grown commercial dance music to the charts since the early 2010s. Various Jesses and Ellas, Nathans and Calums have flooded daytime radio with decent enough, often TV talent show-winning, more or less generic vocals.They all seem perfectly nice, but it can be hard to pick them apart, and – as highlighted by Raye’s recent label wranglings, and the You Know My Voice podcast from Kelli-Leigh – there does seem to be a fast-track route to solo success afforded to certain categories of artist Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Justice are a couple of super-suave rock star analogues. Leathers and aviators, yes, but with a very Parisian insouciance. Their music is the same. It has a rocker-friendly je-ne-sais-quoi, but air-brushed with the glitzy sci-fi futurism one might expect from a couple of guys whose origins lie in design. Their new album, their fourth and first in a leisurely eight years, retains their usual slightly-gnarly-but-smartly-turned-out vibe, but reaches towards new and entertaining musical directions.Justice blew up with Noughties monster remix “We Are Your Friends”, then rode the proto-EDM wave, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
At a time when conflicts in the Middle East are reaching fever pitch, Emel Mathlouthi represents hope. Her new album MRA, is titled for the Arabic word for “woman” and was created entirely by women, as in, every single person involved with it at any level is female. She has said of it, “I've come to discover the true meaning of sisterhood… I want us to change the system from within, by and through women.” Happily, this outlook is attached to music that’s sonically exciting.Based in New York, the Tunisian-born singer first created waves when her initially banned song “Kelmti Horra (My Word is Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
A decade ago Canadian duo Chromeo had their biggest success with the single “Jealous (I Ain’t With It)” and its parent album, White Women. However, it didn’t presage a move into the mainstream.For over 20 years, Chromeo’s wry-sexy, wordy electro-funk has been more hipster than populist. Their magnificent 2009 appearance, endorsing handwashing, on eye-boggling kids TV programme Yo Gabba Gabba sums up their playful ethos (check YouTube!). Then again, the same could said of their more recent COVID-era Quarantine Casanova EP. They were into all that Random Access Memories schtick before Daft Punk Read more ...
Joe Muggs
There are musicians on the UK dance underground who doggedly identify with particular scenes and evolve with them. There are those who adapt stylistically in order to move from scene, or manage to be part of several at the same time. And then there is Londoner Danny Native aka Altered Natives. He is truly the outsider’s outsider.He’s made tracks over the years that have been played by mainstays in scenes like house, broken beat, UK funky, post-dubstep and elsewhere, but by a combination of accident and design is part of none of these things. With a distinctively cantankerous and mordant wit, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The KLF are endlessly fascinating. There’s never been a “pop group” like them. From the late Eighties into the early Nineties, they treated music, especially electronic dance music, as a laboratory for lunatic experiment. Unlike most avant-garde thinkers in pop, though, they made a glorious and highly unlikely commercial success of it, via a series of globally successful singles (and, to some degree, the album, The White Room).From their beginnings to demise, filmmaker Bill Butt was an accomplice, creating films and videos as asked. The BFI's 23 Seconds to Eternity gathers these together Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The Chemical Brothers are unstoppable. Their live shows are a guaranteed monster good time, redolent of proper old-school rave-ups, but with visual tech from some freaky eye-boggling future. Their last album, 2019’s No Geography, was a total belter. Their latest, their tenth, is also a total belter. They do what they do. But they do it so bloody well.For That Beautiful Feeling sees them finding new detail, new depth, new ways to make what they do fresh again. It’s riveting, full of verve. Dismissed by those that don’t know as a retro turn, the truth is that The Chemical Brothers, despite Read more ...
Cheri Amour
For someone predominantly poised at her kit, the mononymous music producer’s return is surprisingly devoid of live drums. Daughter of Leftfield cofounder Neil Barnes, Georgia has made a name for herself as the drummer for artists such as Kwes and Kae Tempest. Her 2019 release Seeking Thrills was “a hymn to British hedonism” with a hefty slice of Robyn-esque pop panache. Last year saw Georgia embrace these stadium-sized singalongs as tour support for LA sister trio Haim. While her lively rendition of Kate Bush’s iconic “Running Up That Hill” received a new wave of mass appreciation after the Read more ...