progressive rock
CD: Mike Oldfield - Return to OmmadawnSaturday, 21 January 2017
New releases by Mike Oldfield don’t exactly grow on trees, but nor can they be deemed rarities. For the first three decades he brought out roughly half a dozen a decade. But Return to Ommadawn is only his second since 2008. As the title announces,... Read more... |
David Gilmour, Royal Albert HallSaturday, 24 September 2016
A single guitar note rang out over smouldering synth-chords. It was bent up a tone and then wavered in the air before gracefully falling. And so began the final residency of the Rattle That Lock tour. No hype. No support act. Just David... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Pink FloydSunday, 03 July 2016
Pictured above is the label of an exceptionally important Pink Floyd record issued last November. Only a thousand people bought a copy. That was the amount that hit shops. Pink Floyd 1965: Their First Recordings was a double seven-inch set with a... Read more... |
CD: Kiran Leonard - GrapefruitWednesday, 23 March 2016
In the run-up to the release of his second album Grapefruit, Kiran Leonard has revealed the musical touchstones which map out his world. Boredoms, Kate Bush, the jazzy French Canterbury-rock types Etron Fou Leloublan, Fela Kuti, Swans, Scriabin and... Read more... |
Disappears perform David Bowie's Low, 100 Club, LondonTuesday, 24 November 2015
The 100 Club is dark. Really dark. People are shrouded in the ink-light. I think it’s to save their embarrassment as they order a drink and realise they’ll have to either apply for a loan or sell a child in order to get drunk. In any case, the... Read more... |
David Gilmour: Wider Horizons, BBC TwoSunday, 15 November 2015
Had he not become one of the pivotal members of Pink Floyd, it's not difficult to imagine that David Gilmour might have become an academic like his father Douglas (who was a lecturer in zoology and genetics at Cambridge), or maybe a high-flying... Read more... |
CD: Jeff Lynne's ELO - Alone in the UniverseSaturday, 07 November 2015
There's something reassuringly resistant to modernity about Jeff Lynne. In much the same way that his cast iron Brummie accent and demeanour have remained unchanged despite decades in Los Angeles, so his music remains in a late 20th century... Read more... |
Psychedelic Britannia, BBC FourSaturday, 24 October 2015
As part of BBC4’s continued course of musical regression therapy, we revisited a time of wide-eyed innocence, when ideas were big and pupils even bigger. The Sixties had swung and now they were set to start spinning as people looked to the past for... Read more... |
CD: Zombi – Shape ShiftMonday, 19 October 2015
As well as releasing electronic music on Ron Morelli’s feted L.I.E.S. label, and the sporadically brilliant Ghost Box, as well a particularly impressive outing on Static Caravan (as Primitive Neural Pathways), Steve Moore is the bass- and synth-... Read more... |
CD: Dungen - Allas SakMonday, 28 September 2015
From its title-track opening cut to the final moments of its closer “Sova”, Allas Sak is recognisably a Dungen album. The musical dynamic between the Swedish quartet’s members and their collective sound is so distinctive that they effectively... Read more... |
CD: Iron Maiden – Book of SoulsSaturday, 05 September 2015
It’s nearly 40 years since bassist Steve Harris formed Iron Maiden and much has changed since then. Singer Bruce Dickinson has learned to fence, fly and kick cancer in the cock, and the band have continued to release albums – albums which, though... Read more... |
The Man Who Sold the World, O2 Shepherd's Bush EmpireWednesday, 01 July 2015
Normally, if an album as good as The Man Who Sold the World had itself sold the sum total of sod all on release, it would have been lost, then found, before becoming a fêted rarity, exchanging hands for hundreds while bootleggers had a field day.... Read more... |
