singer-songwriters
Lisa-Marie Ferla
In “Look What You Made Me Do”, the tabloid-level diss track that heralded the arrival of Taylor Swift’s sixth album, the one-time darling of Nashville declares the "old" Taylor “dead”. That song, and its follow-up procession of lukewarm singles in desperate need of a chorus, raised a gloomy prospect: had contemporary pop’s cleverest, wittiest, most sensitive lyricist been killed off in favour of score-setting and clumsy Bonnie and Clyde comparisons?Turns out the "new" Taylor is pretty much the same as the old one, albeit with cut-glass EDM hooks in place of teardrops on her guitar. Reputation Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
An underground American star since 2010’s Strange Cacti EP, Angel Olsen’s distinctive brand of indie folk-rock was propelled to new heights in both Burn Your Fire For No Witness (2014) and then last year with MY WOMAN. After years of touring, interviews, videos and topping end-of-year lists, Phases, the singer-songwriter's new album of rarities, B-sides, and previously unreleased songs, takes us back to a time when delicacy ruled her music. Its vulnerability suggests that long-time fans will be more than happy to follow Olsen musically back in time and out of the spotlight.“Fly on Your Wall Read more ...
peter.quinn
This fourth studio album from pianist, vocalist, songwriter and producer Oli Rockberger highlights his remarkable knack of marrying instantly memorable chorus hooks with captivating harmonies steeped in jazz, soul, gospel and R&B.Consisting of 10 beautifully crafted explorations of love, desire and loss, Sovereign was conceived and recorded in New York with the trusted rhythm section of bassist Jordan Scannella and drummer Jordan Perlson, just as Rockberger was on the cusp of returning to his London birthplace following 16 years in the US – a journey which began with study at Boston’s Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
British singer-songwriter Nick Mulvey’s new album, Wake Up Now, is one of the year’s finest. However, there’s a moment on the single “Myela”, a heartfelt Afro-Latin stomper protesting the plight of refugees, which can grate. The song suddenly stops and female backing singers begin a nursery rhyme chant of “I am your neighbour, you are my neighbour”. On record it seems trite; however, in concert at this eye-pleasing, airy Bexhill-on-Sea venue, it’s transformative. Mulvey and his five-piece band use the sequence as a launch pad for a cosmic jam, before settling into a brief snippet of Gary Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Recorded in Rhinebeck, upstate New York, the ninth album in Josh Ritter’s 18-year career strikes many moods, from the manic to the contemplative. It is, he has said, a record of storms, internal and external; of the darkness before a summer storm, “the smell of gathering electricity in the atmosphere” – literally and metaphorically. The cover artwork – he is an accomplished painter – is suitably evocative.Ritter has talked of his wish to escape “the shadow of my earlier self, my earlier work”, and of the discovery of “an exciting sense of dissatisfaction” – a curious phrase, perhaps, but one Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Nick Mulvey’s 2014 debut album First Mind may be one of the century’s best so far. Album number two, then, has the critical bar set high. On that opening record, the ex-Portico Quartet singer-songwriter majored in complex-yet-simple songs that wove intricate Latin/classical-flecked guitar work with electronic tones and a sense of wide-eyed openness. Wake Up Now initially seems to be travelling a similar path, but soon proves to be marinated in African feeling and have its scope set more cosmically. It is a lovely album and a match for its predecessor.In a cynical age, where irony is king, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Nine hours after meeting up in a Shoreditch courtyard to discuss her new album Music for People in Trouble, Norway’s Susanne Sundfør is on stage elsewhere in the district at a theatre called The Courtyard. It’s a sell-out and the room she’s playing is over-full and over-hot. A few days before the album’s release, most of the new songs are unfamiliar to the audience. Yet connections are made instantly. Although her songs twist and turn unpredictably, the lyrics and grand melodies are immediately impactful.It helps that Sundfør is an extraordinary singer and the solo setting – she switches Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Alternative versions of familiar songs, it seems, have never been more popular: the better the composition, the more they reveal new depths. That was how fans and critics saw Richard Thompson's first volume of Acoustic Classics - a kind of unplugged retrospective of his unique song-craft. It was so well-received that Thompson has now produced a sequel, Acoustic Classics II, which casts an even wider net to include the Fairport Convention era.The album begins with "She Twists the Knife Again" from 1985, one of Thompson's most bitterly eloquent numbers. This new arrangement possesses Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Lyndon Morgans goes back a long way – in the 1980s he formed a band, Sad Among Strangers, instead of going to university. But then he turned to theatre, writing some award-winning plays which found an audience at the Royal Court.His playwrighterly credentials are much in evidence in his songwriting, to which he returned in 2000, when he put together Songdog and recorded The Way of The World, the first of a half-dozen albums which have drawn repeated comparisons with Nick Cave. It’s easy to see why, but there are a myriad other comparisons and influences discernible: Bob Dylan inevitably, Tom Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Think of Randy Newman and the image conjured up may be of a lugubrious piano man with a sardonic streak. Or perhaps the composer responsible for countless Pixar soundtracks. But there is more to the bespectacled songsmith than just his witty songs and orchestral themes. There are also his theatrical flourishes. And Dark Matter, Newman's first singer-songwriter LP in a while, starts in just such a cabaret mood"The Great Debate" takes the form of a discussion, weighing up the pros and cons of science and religion in an eight-minute epic complete with gospel choirs and spoken-words. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
If there’s a downside to the resurgence of vinyl, it’s that all that’s left in most charity shops these days is James Galway and his cursed flute and Max Bygraves medley albums. Then again, there’s always new stuff coming in so it’s down to everybody to get in there quick, before the local record shops hoover up all the gems. And there it is. Many small towns now have local record shops again. That’s surely something to celebrate. There’s even a Vinyl Festival this September in Rotherhithe [Notification 20.7.2017: This event has been cancelled] with a hundred stalls featuring independent Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
To anyone other than Eighties and Nineties indie obsessives, the guitarist from The House of Love and Levitation and the singer from Adorable getting together in 2014 did not cause a stir. However, both had stylistically leapt away from their pasts, and the resulting album, Broken Heart Surgery, showcased rich, heart-worn songs, filtered through a sensibility somewhere between Lee Hazelwood and John Barry 1960s film scores. It brought them a new audience. Their second album is equally palatable.Boasting great cover art by photographer Rosanne de Lange, featuring the now disappeared car Read more ...