electropop
Album: Jenny Hval - Classic ObjectsThursday, 10 March 2022
Norwegian artist Jenny Hval is a novelist as well as a singer-songwriter, and her new album certainly has a literary approach to music making.Classic Objects is made of up little stories set to music - standalone units of narrative outside of the... Read more... |
Album: Bastille - Give Me the FutureSaturday, 05 February 2022
Since exploding to fame a decade ago with the single “Pompeii” and its parent album Bad Blood, Bastille have maintained impressive success on both sides of the Atlantic. To this writer’s ears, the bombast of their early music was off-putting, and... Read more... |
Album: MØ - MotordromeSaturday, 29 January 2022
Danish pop star MØ is as well known for her collaborations as her own music. Shining brighter than all of them is the globe-slaying, 24 carat dance craze "Lean On” from 2015, created with Major Lazer and DJ Snake, and, for a few years, Spotify’s... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Jon Savage's 1977-1979 - Symbols Clashing EverywhereSunday, 02 January 2022
The title borrows from the lyrics of Siouxsie and the Banshees’s August 1978 debut single “Hong Kong Garden”: “Harmful elements in the air, Symbols clashing everywhere.” It also refers to Marcus Garvey’s prediction that on 7 July 1977 two sevens... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2021: Marina - Ancient Dreams in a Modern LandFriday, 17 December 2021
We did that whole state-of-things COVID/Brexit/anxiety/neurosis blah-blah in the end-of-year pieces last year. And, indeed, the year before (when Bozza was elected). Not this year. I’m over that. Let’s crack on. Live life. Own it. All that. An... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 67: Squid, The Beatles, Beach Riot, Black Sabbath, Quantic, Heiko Maile and moreWednesday, 01 December 2021
The first of two December round-ups from theartsdesk on Vinyl runs the gamut from folk-tronic oddness to Seventies heavy rock to avant-jazz to The Beatles, as well as much else. All musical life is here... except the crap stuff. So dive in!VINYL OF... Read more... |
OMD/Scritti Politti, Brighton Centre review - an engaging, ebullient good timeThursday, 18 November 2021
A persistent moan of this writer in recent years, about gigs attended by those his own age (54) and up, is that, however good the band is, the audience are stationary, staring, semi-catatonic. They don’t twitch or move, facing stage-wards earnestly... Read more... |
Kero Kero Bonito, Heaven review - euphoric bubblegumTuesday, 28 September 2021
Here comes the bride. True to Kero Kero Bonito’s unique musical and visual style, a chaotic but masterfully executed fusion of Japanese kawaii culture, kaleiodoscopic synth and indie rock, the audience at Heaven were greeted by lead singer Sarah... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 66: Etta James, BABii, George Harrison, Helloween, Cat Stevens, Gnod and moreMonday, 20 September 2021
As the summer folds away on itself, theartsdesk on Vinyl returns. Beset by backlogs at pressing plants and delayed by COVID, it's finally here, jammed to the gunwales with commentary on a grand cross section of the finest music on plastic. Dive in!... Read more... |
Album: Anne-Marie - TherapySaturday, 24 July 2021
Anne-Marie Nicholson is a hard-working young woman from Essex whose career description is “Global Girl-next-door Pop Star”. She has incrementally worked her way there, attended the marketing meetings. Anyone requiring a CV that exemplifies the... Read more... |
Album: Tones and I - Welcome to the MadhouseSaturday, 10 July 2021
This writer has often pleaded to move away from vocal homogeny in pop. The current value placed on technical skill and hackneyed vulnerability-signifying has become a bore. It’s limiting that Chris Martin-meets-Ed Sheeran or Beyoncé-meets-Whitney... Read more... |
Album: Marina - Ancient Dreams in a Modern LandMonday, 07 June 2021
The latest album from Marina Diamandis, her fifth, is a startling explosion of vim and attitude. It mingles speeding, wordy, indie-tinted dance-pop bangers, tilting at all manner of contemporary ills, with sudden moments of broken-hearted piano-led... Read more... |
