New Music Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: Goldie & the Gingerbreads - Thinking About The Good TimesSunday, 12 September 2021![]()
In October 1964, New York’s Goldie & the Gingerbreads boarded the RMS Mauretania for Southampton. In the midst of the British Invasion, they were taking on the beat boom at its coal face. Read more... |
Blade Runner, Avex Ensemble, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - synths synced to screenWednesday, 08 September 2021![]()
"I've seen things you people wouldn’t believe." It’s one of the most famous lines from Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner, though in the past 18 months we’ve all seen things we would not have believed back at the start of 2020, when I originally secured my tickets for this show that had been scheduled for 26 March 2020. Read more... |
Nadine Shah, Winterstoke Sun Shelter, Ramsgate review - a thrilling return in a stunning venueTuesday, 07 September 2021![]()
Hilarious, potty-mouthed and mesmerisingly beautiful, Nadine Shah is on superb form at the Ramsgate Festival of Sound’s closing evening show. And aside from the banter there is, of course, that remarkable voice – hugely powerful and somehow perfectly suited to this enchanting outdoor venue. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Laura Nyro - American DreamerSunday, 05 September 2021![]()
“She is a 20-year-old white New Yorker who sings like a 55-year-old black lady from Mississippi. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Leslie Winer - When I Hit You, You’ll Feel ItSunday, 29 August 2021![]()
When I Hit You - You’ll Feel It opens with “When I Was Walt Whitman”. A French-language answer-phone message is abruptly cut off by a massive-sounding percussive pulse over which a borderline menacing voice enigmatically murmurs words which are hard to make out. Read more... |
Edinburgh International Festival 2021: Anna MeredithTuesday, 24 August 2021![]()
She’s an artist who’s impossible to define. Producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Anna Meredith has a musical mind that cannot keep still. Her latest studio album, Fibs, which was released in 2019, is a genre-defying blend of electronic and acoustic music, conceived with raw zeal, true artistic integrity, and a huge sense of fun. Read more... |
The Beach Boys: Feel Flows - the Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971Monday, 23 August 2021![]()
“Add some music to your day,” the Beach Boys urged in their song of the same name, from their 1970 album Sunflower. There’s far more than a day’s worth of music included on this immense five-CD package, which scrutinises the turn-of-the Seventies Beach Boys in miniscule detail as they made the awkward transition from their California surf-and-sand past to a more diffuse, more democratic and in many ways more interesting group. Read more... |
Reissue CD Weekly: Iggy and the Stooges - Born In A TrailerSunday, 22 August 2021![]()
Despite their implosion three years earlier, 1977 was a good year for The Stooges. The CBS budget label Embassy reissued their 1973 Raw Power album in the wake of their songs cropping up in the repertoires of The Damned and Sex Pistols. Read more... |
Edinburgh International Festival 2021: traditional music round-up reviewFriday, 20 August 2021![]()
Following on from last year’s online-only My Light Shines On programme, traditional music features heavily in the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival, with a series of live performances taking place outdoors, in the quad of Edinburgh University's Old College (pictured below). Read more... |
Bloodstock Festival 2021 review - UK metalheads descend on Derbyshire and bring the noiseWednesday, 18 August 2021![]()
Here we are, deep in the second summer of Covid-19 and the UK music festival industry is still giving the impression of being on life support. Yet again, there’s been no Glastonbury, no Womad and not even the return of the Supersonic Festival. Read more... |
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