New Music Reviews
Music Reissues Weekly: Guerrilla Girlsǃ - She-Punks & Beyond 1975-2016Sunday, 01 January 2023
In December 1977, the music weekly Sounds included an article about the County Durham punk band Penetration. By Jon Savage, it was headlined The Future Is Female. The same four words would be used by the band for their promotional badges. Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Maggie Rogers - SurrenderSaturday, 31 December 2022
Flick through my 2022 Spotify Wrapped playlist and those who know me best won’t be surprised by what they find. Architects, the UK’s preeminent metal group who grapple with progressing their sound further on the classic symptoms of a broken spirit – check. Foals, the indie delights who continue to sweep all before them, and adorned new, summery vibes with latest album Life Is Yours. Check. Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Dina Ögon - Dina ÖgonFriday, 30 December 2022
Some of what’s nourishing the debut album by Sweden’s Dina Ögon is evident. A Bossa Nova jazz-pop essence evokes Brazil’s Quarteto em Cy. There’s a trip-hop undertow. Vocal lines bring to mind Free Design. Less easy to pinpoint is a melodic sensibility which seems to be derived from local traditions; echoing the sort of fusion pioneered by Jan Johansson’s Jazz på svenska and Merit Hemmingson when she reframed folk music on the Svensk folkmusik på beat albums. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Best of 2022Sunday, 25 December 2022
The Beatles loomed over everything else. It wasn’t inevitable, but the arrival of the revealing Revolver box set and Peter Jackson’s compelling Get Back film confirmed that there is more to say about what’s known, and also that there are new things to say about popular music’s most inspirational phenomenon of the 20th century. Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Sault - Untitled (God), Today & Tomorrow, 11, Earth, AIIRFriday, 23 December 2022
It’s always hard to choose one album to spotlight come the annual Best Ofs, and 2022 has given us an extraordinary embarrassment of riches to choose from – the bountiful bastard… Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 74: The Muppets, The Beatles, Decius, Black Lab, Black Sabbath, Tinariwen and moreMonday, 19 December 2022
Welcome to the final theartsdesk on Vinyl of 2022 which is topped off by two Vinyl of the Months, one there for seasonal jollies and the other for musical adventurousness. As ever, the rest runs the gamut from reissues of albums from decades ago to the most contemporary, cutting edge music around. Dive in! CHRISTMAS VINYL OF THE MONTH Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Cécile McLorin Salvant - Ghost SongMonday, 19 December 2022
I tend to run away from all known bandwagons, but I'm on this one. Peter Quinn called Cécile McLorin Salvant’s album Ghost Song “a moving, imaginative, at times laugh-out-loud collection of songs” back in February, and it is a wonderful piece of work on every level. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Mirage - The World Goes On Around YouSunday, 18 December 2022
Each new Beatles album offered a chance for other acts to record their own versions of songs which didn’t make it onto singles. What was on the long-player could pick up attention if it was covered. Revolver was no exception. Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers’s version of “Got to Get You Into my Life” was in the charts the August 1966 week Revolver was issued. Read more... |
Emma Smith, Pizza Express Jazz Club review - Christmas spiritedThursday, 15 December 2022
There’s much fun to be had with snow, and fun things go with it, too, such as album launches in Soho on a freezing Saturday night in December, when the rest of the country is watching England depart the World Cup in the quarter finals. Read more... |
Trans Musicales Festival 2022 review - vibrant eclecticism rules in RennesTuesday, 13 December 2022
It’s Friday night and I’ve finally arrived at 43-year-old French music festival institution Trans Musicales. Due to some dreadful nonsense, it’s taken a 12-hour train journey, two baguettes, one short Stephen King novel, six large beers, a tumbler of Bourbon, and one shuttlebus to place me at the Parc Expo, a series of giant airport hangars that house the majority of musical activity (although there’s a smattering of earlier events in Rennes itself). Read more... |
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