soul music
Glastonbury Festival 2025: Five Somerset summer days of music, controversy and beautiful mayhemThursday, 03 July 2025
MONDAY 30th JUNE 2025“I think you’d better drive,” says Finetime, his face sallow, skull-sockets underscored by dark brown rings. He looks peaky.“Why?” I enquire. Sweat nodules down my face, my body, everywhere. So saline-intense it leaves powdery... Read more... |
Album: Mocky - Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1)Wednesday, 02 July 2025
Dominic “Mocky” Salole has had a long career in which the tension between authenticity and pastiche has been a constant. Toronto-born, of English and Yemeni heritage, he came of musical age in the Bohemian hotbed of 1990s Berlin with a close-knit... Read more... |
Album: Durand and the Indications - FlowersMonday, 23 June 2025
Neo-soul devotees Durand Jones and the Indications mine a vein of sensuous sounds, at the soft end of a genre that's partly defined by the raw passion of gospel. Their roots draw from vintage Curtis Mayfield and the smooth vocal harmonies of the... Read more... |
Album: Yaya Bey - do it afraidMonday, 16 June 2025
One of the great untold stories of the past decade is just how potent a cultural force R&B has been. It might not have had the wild musical innovation it did in the 2000s when the likes of Neptunes, Missy Elliot, Timbaland and Rodney Jerkins... Read more... |
Album: Van Morrison - Remembering NowSaturday, 07 June 2025
When Van Morrison last released an album of original songs, during the Covid pandemic, it didn’t go down well. Indeed for many, 2022’s What’s It Gonna Take squats in Morrison’s catalogue like a toad in a fruit salad.“A self-absorbed descent... Read more... |
Album: Little Simz - LotusWednesday, 04 June 2025
Little Simz clearly believes in meeting situations head on. Her sixth full-length album kicks off, in every sense of the phrase, with “Thief”: unambiguously a lyrical barrage at her childhood friend and frequent collaborator Inflo, who Simz is... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Johnnie Taylor - Who's Making Love The Stax Singles 1966-1970Sunday, 25 May 2025
Johnnie Taylor’s big break came with the ever-fabulous September 1968 single “Who's Making Love.” His ninth 45 for the Stax label, it went Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Up to this point, the Arkansas-born singer had been on the R&B charts... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Motor City Is Burning - A Michigan Anthology 1965-1972Sunday, 13 April 2025
In October 1967, John Lee Hooker released a single titled “The Motor City is Burning.” The song commented on the civil unrest which had taken place in his Michigan home city of Detroit that July. “Oh, the motor city's burnin',” sang Hooker. “My home... Read more... |
Album: Greentea Peng - Tell Dem It's SunnyWednesday, 19 March 2025
Going by the sounds of her new album, it wouldn’t unreasonable to assume that Greentea Peng enjoys sucking on a spliff every once in a while. Tell Dem It’s Sunny is certainly Gold Seal gear with a distinctly smoky atmosphere, that’s for sure.Dubby... Read more... |
Album: Cymande - RenascenceThursday, 30 January 2025
When you’ve achieved the truly sublime, trying to recapture it can be bittersweet. Cymande, for the mere three years they existed in the early 1970s, were one of the very best bands on the planet: a unique mixture of Rasta spirituality and African-... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Music Reissues WeeklySunday, 29 December 2024
A reissue can be an aide-mémoire, a reminder that a record which has been off the radar for a while needs revisiting, that it deserves fresh attention.In that spirit, this column has looked at straight vinyl reissues of albums of varying styles,... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered SinglesSunday, 03 November 2024
After the chart success of his second album, June 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul, it was inevitable that any single had to represent Isaac Hayes in a different way to the LP. The album’s 12-minute version of “Walk on by” would not work as a seven-incher.... Read more... |
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