soul music
Album: Dexys - The Feminine DivineFriday, 28 July 2023
In 2012 Dexys returned with their fourth album, and first in 27 years, One Day I’m Going to Soar. It was a concept piece, original and funny, chewing over the volatility of love, containing wonderful set-pieces, most especially a trio of songs at... Read more... |
Album: Mahalia - IRLThursday, 13 July 2023
Ever since she broke through in her teens, Leicestershire singer Mahalia Burkmar’s music has often been referred to as retro or revivalist R&B. But that framing is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the genre operates for young 21st... Read more... |
Album: Gabriels - Angels & Queens - Part IIThursday, 06 July 2023
You could say the catalyst behind it all was Rocketman himself. During his Apple Music Show, celebrated CBE Elton John named Gabriels’ self-released EP, Love and Hate in a Different Time, one of the most seminal releases in the last ten years. At... Read more... |
Album: ANOHNI - My Back Was a Bridge for You to CrossWednesday, 05 July 2023
A “back to basics” album is a risky thing. When an act has expanded into big, lavish or experimental production, it’s not a simple act to strip that away. Trying to go back to the intimacy or spontaneity of early work can feel forced: they may find... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Tribal Rites of the New Saturday NightSunday, 18 June 2023
“It all started with a June 7, 1976 article in New York magazine about Queens, New York working-class young adults who flocked to a local disco in platform shoes and outlandish clothes to perform organized dances. [Bee Gees manager] Stigwood read... Read more... |
Album: Meshell Ndegeocello - The Omnichord Real BookMonday, 12 June 2023
From the celestial vocal harmonies of “Call The Tune” and insistent looped rhythms of “Omnipuss” (in which you feel the spirit of Miles’s On The Corner), to the Sly Stone-esque “Clear Water” and intensely vital “Vuma” (featuring South African... Read more... |
Album: Janelle Monáe - The Age of PleasureWednesday, 07 June 2023
There’s been a good deal of discussion on “the socials” about how much Janelle Monáe’s sexy image is a new thing or a big deal.Casual viewers, still stuck on the suit-wearing image with which she crashed into public consciousness in 2010, have acted... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Folk, Funk & Beyond - The Arrangements Of John CameronSunday, 28 May 2023
Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” was the UK’s first explicitly psychedelic record. Although there were delays with it hitting shops, it was recorded in December 1965. A large part of its impact came through the instrumentation and arrangement. Jazz... Read more... |
Album: SBTRKT - THE RAT ROADThursday, 04 May 2023
Aaron Jerome has always cut his own path through British music. After a few jazzy, groovy experiments under his own name in the 00s, he came dramatically to prominence at the end of that decade as SBTRKT. He was always associated with the post-... Read more... |
Album: Rickie Lee Jones - Pieces of TreasureMonday, 01 May 2023
Reuniting with Russ Titelman, the producer of her eponymous 1979 debut and its follow-up 1981’s Pirates, Rickie Lee Jones approaches the great American songbook as if she was reuniting with an old flame, the thrill of it smouldering and... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Loma Northern SoulSunday, 30 April 2023
One of the essays in the booklet accompanying Loma Northern Soul describes the titular label as an “outlet aimed at secondary or tertiary record markets, issuing product that it was hoped would prove strong in R&B radio, yet had the potential to... Read more... |
Album: Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!Friday, 28 April 2023
“If you’re going to do it, do it well” goes a chanted refrain in the opening title track here. And it’s words Jessie Ware clearly lives by – she is not someone who has time to do anything rubbish. From featuring on the cream of post-dubstep... Read more... |
