New Music Reviews
Tinariwen, O2 Institute 2, Birmingham review - desert superstars raise the roofFriday, 21 July 2023
Mali’s Tinariwen have been a serious powerhouse in non-Western music since the 2001 release of their first major label album, The Radio Tisdas Sessions. Their sound certainly hasn’t stood still in the last twenty years though. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 78: Crass, Rhiannon Giddens, Rudimental, Ralfe Band, Ray Barretto, Ultravox and moreMonday, 17 July 2023
VINYL OF THE MONTH Pere Ubu Trouble on Big Beat Street (Cherry Red) Read more... |
Album: Rain Parade - Last Rays of a Dying SunMonday, 17 July 2023
The atmosphere is foggy. What can be discerned through the murk is either out of focus or translucent. Words drift in from somewhere which can’t be pinpointed. “I’m tuning you in,” “I’ve picked up the loaded dice,” “Everything you know is everything that you let go.” Control is just out of reach. The songs are mid paced, with nods to Crazy Horse and Television. There are odd snatches of backwards guitar. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Keeping Control, Where Were You - Leeds and Manchester navigate the aftershocks of punkSunday, 16 July 2023
“Keeping Control” were the watchwords adopted by The Manchester Musicians’ Collective, an organisation founded in April 1977 to bring local musicians together and give them platforms. On 23 May 1977, it put on its first show – also the first live show by The Fall. Instantly integral to Manchester and its music, the Collective went on to put out two compilation albums, 1979’s A Manchester Collection and 1980’s Unzipping The Abstract. Read more... |
Blur, Wembley Stadium review - a glorious reunion tripWednesday, 12 July 2023
“One night I had a vision of this,” says a visibly emotional Damon Albarn as he looks out to the mass of the crowd at Wembley. Despite closing the London Olympics in 2012, selling millions of albums and headlining Glastonbury, there is the sense that even in their prime, performing two nights at the 90,000 Stadium was one step out of reach. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Montreal - the world's largest jazz festival just got youngerTuesday, 11 July 2023
The Festival International de Jazz de Montreal (FIJM), the largest in the world, is genuinely on a roll. The head of programming of the huge event, which takes place all around the Quartier des Spectacles in the centre of the city, says in this year's wrap-up press release that “a new wind is blowing through our beloved jazz world, and we can be proud today to see the public rallying around. A booming new scene with legends leading the way: Vive le jazz!” Read more... |
KISS, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - familiar feel to rock legends bombastic farewellMonday, 10 July 2023
The farewell for KISS has lasted so long that this Glasgow show, their final ever UK gig, came four years after the End of the Road tour first stopped off in the city. Admittedly that is partly down to the coronavirus scuppering touring plans for a couple of years, but even without that there is a suspicion a group who have monetised themselves so effectively over the years might have found a reason for another trip back here. Read more... |
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, BST Hyde Park review - Saturday in the park with BruceSunday, 09 July 2023
First things first. The support acts at events like this usually get completely overlooked, but it would be frankly criminal not to give a mention to a superb set by the Chicks. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Musical Offering - works for the Soviet-era ANS synthesiserSunday, 09 July 2023
One of the most striking scenes in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 outer-space allegory Solaris is psychologist Kris Kelvin’s first encounter with a being which seems to be his wife, who had died a decade earlier. The unsettling incident’s inherent tension is heightened by its sonic backdrop: rumbling, a peculiarly musical pink noise, lightning-like bolts of sound. This was created on the ANS synthesiser (AHC in Russian script), a device invented in Soviet-era Russia. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Sound - The Statik Records YearsSunday, 02 July 2023
“There's a richness and a true depth here that places Jeopardy alongside (U2’s debut album) Boy as early Eighties tonics for ailing mainstream-rock. The Sound are on to a winner. There isn't one track here that isn't thoroughly compulsive. Overall it's a vastly impressive sound, with as much energy as I've heard on any record all year…the result is a form of sheer power-rock that doesn't make you blush or grimace.” Read more... |
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