soul music
Nu Civilisation Orchestra & ESKA: 'Hejira' and 'Mingus', Poole Lighthouse review - redistributing the futureTuesday, 22 November 2022
I had high hopes for this show. After all, Eska Mtungwazi is pretty much the only singer on earth I’d go out of my way to hear sing Joni Mitchell songs.Not only does she have the necessary vocal range and control, but her own sole solo album sits... Read more... |
Album: Larkin Poe - Blood HarmonyFriday, 11 November 2022
The Larkin Poe story goes back to 2010, when they released four beautiful and distinctive seasons-related EPs, displaying the Lovell sisters Rebecca and Megan’s rich, absorbing vocal harmonies, slippery slide guitar work and a winning with with... Read more... |
Album: Bruce Springsteen - Only the Strong SurviveThursday, 10 November 2022
Bruce is back! His 21st studio album (can it really be 50 years next year since Greetings from Asbury Park?) and his second covers album. It’s a musical world away from the first, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006), but like that... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: For Dancers FortySunday, 30 October 2022
“You Turned my Bitter Into Sweet” sounds like a hit. The 1965 Mary Love single was issued by the Los Angeles-based Kent label and had a Motown flavour and a hint of The Supremes’s “Come See About me”, from the previous year. “You Turned my... Read more... |
Album: Loyle Carner - HugoThursday, 20 October 2022
You’ll want to love Loyle Carner. There’s so much about what he gives and how he delivers it that’s disarming, charming, brilliant even. His lyrics across this album are very obviously from the heart and took real courage to hammer into shape. He... Read more... |
Album: Gabriels - Angels & Queens, Part ISaturday, 24 September 2022
Lauded by Elton John (who called their 2020 debut EP Love and Hate in a Different Time “probably one of the most seminal records I've heard in the last 10 years”), a show-stealing performance on Later… With Jools Holland in 2021, fêted at this year’... Read more... |
Album: Danger Mouse & Black Thought - Cheat CodesWednesday, 10 August 2022
The last time Danger Mouse (Brian Burton to his mum) dropped a hip hop album, it was 2005’s The Mouse & The Mask, a witty, beaty, big and bouncy collaboration with the late, great MF DOOM. That was 17 years ago. In fairness, he’s been busy with... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Movers - Vol. 1 1970-1976Sunday, 07 August 2022
After a burst of gun-shot drumming, “Hot Coffee” instantly hits its groove. Simple but insistent guitar, a rubbery bass line and electric organ all fall into line. For the instrumental’s two-and-half minutes, it is unstoppable.“Gig Soul Party” is as... Read more... |
Album: Beyoncé - RenaissanceMonday, 01 August 2022
There’s polarising discourse and there’s polarising discourse, and then there’s Beyoncé discourse. On the one hand, there’s “the Bey Hive”: the very model of a furious modern fandom who will boost her and monster her critics at a microsecond’s... Read more... |
Album: Ben Harper - Bloodline MaintenanceSaturday, 23 July 2022
Throughout the 1990s and the first decade of this century, Ben Harper achieved global stardom, although the UK was a territory where he never achieved lift-off. By contrast, in the US, Australia and much of Europe, he’s regarded as a heavyweight (he... Read more... |
Album: Lizzo - SpecialSaturday, 16 July 2022
You can’t really blame Lizzo for playing to her strengths. When she started putting out records some nine years ago, there wasn’t really a niche in the market for a flute playing, twerking, positive-thinking, plus-size rapper-stroke-disco-diva.... Read more... |
Love Supreme Festival, Sunday review - eclectic jazz on the Sussex DownsWednesday, 06 July 2022
By day three of any festival things are usually winding down. But there was a sense that Love Supreme have saved the best for last this year with a strong offering of funk and soul, R&B and experimental jazz.Crowds of Londoners hitching a... Read more... |
