New Music Reviews
CD: Brian Wilson – No Pier PressureSaturday, 04 April 2015
There are certain things that you approach a Brian Wilson album expecting. Melody and harmony of course, but also a certain kind of approach: a fearlessness to experiment. When he finally completed the famously unfinished Smile in 2004, it was a landmark moment (though not, if we’re honest, as satisfying as the old demo versions). Read more... |
Just in From Scandinavia: Nordic Music Round-Up 13Thursday, 02 April 2015
Very often, the greatest impact comes without shouting. Subtlety can have a power lingering longer than the two-minute thrill of a yell. So it is with Bridges, the eighth album by Eivør. In the past, the Faroese singer-songwriter has collaborated with Canada’s Bill Bourne, the Danish Radio Big Band and Ireland’s Donal Lunny, and taken turns into country and jazz. Read more... |
Future Islands, RoundhouseWednesday, 01 April 2015
It’s been just over a year since Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring famously gyrated, and chest-thumped his way through the band's latest single on American TV. The show was Letterman and the singer looked like a stevedore undergoing primal scream therapy. Within days the footage had gone viral. People have been talking about it ever since. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The SpecialsSunday, 29 March 2015
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The Subways, Institute, BirminghamTuesday, 24 March 2015
Not unreasonably, anyone might imagine that a band might lose a bit of their usual vigour if they found themselves four albums into their career playing in a room not much bigger than a church hall, miles from home on a cold Monday evening. Not so the Subways. Read more... |
Ian McCulloch, St Pauls Arts Centre, WorthingSunday, 22 March 2015
Things do not start well. Ian McCulloch, in trademark shades, apparently not aged a jot since Echo & the Bunnymen’s 1980s glory days, hits the stage in an offensive strop. He is performing a solo acoustic set from a chair. Beside him on a table sit a glass of water, a glass of milk and another glass with – at a guess – vodka and cranberry juice. He has the demeanour of a diva who’s been having a “party” in their changing room. Milk is good for settling an acid stomach. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Odyssey - A Northern Soul Time CapsuleSunday, 22 March 2015
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Sam Lee & Friends: Temples TourSaturday, 21 March 2015
Sam Lee launched his second album this week, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut, A Ground of it Own. Read more... |
The Pursuit of Now, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 18 March 2015
Even for a dancer of Akram Khan’s sublime gifts, “Now” is an evasive concept to convey. During last night’s Sadler’s Wells extravaganza of Azerbaijani jazz and contemporary dance, “The Pursuit of Now”, Khan and his co-performer, the German-Korean dancer Honji Wang, mesmerised in a series of vignettes, gorgeously choreographed and lit. Read more... |
CD: Blancmange – Semi DetachedWednesday, 18 March 2015
After waiting a quarter of a century for Blancmange’s last album, 2011’s Blanc Burn, this new offering, effectively a Neil Arthur solo project, almost feels like a rush release. There’s a much changed visual aesthetic – gone is the stylised, Fifties cover kitsch, replaced by something much more stark and impenetrable. Now, I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but what about CDs? Read more... |
The Specials: Specials, More Specials; The Special AKA: In the Studio
Various Artists: The Odyssey - A Northern Soul Time CapsulePages
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