pop music
CD: The Avalanches - WildflowerThursday, 07 July 2016
The weight of expectation can be a terrible thing to bear. When Since I Left You, The Avalanches’ patchwork party debut, was released in 2000, there was no sense of how long it had taken to make, just a collective intake of breath at the dense... Read more... |
Carole King performs Tapestry, Hyde Park BST FestivalMonday, 04 July 2016
If last night made anything clear it's that some things are still some way beyond the reach of hipster reappropriation. The audience in Hyde Park for Carole King was 99% white and middle-aged, with the very few younger people scattered about... Read more... |
CD: Mark Barrott - Sketches from an Island 2Wednesday, 22 June 2016
The EU referendum isn’t the only thing causing polarised opinion over European issues. The question of what constitutes Balearic Beat looms large over the music community. For some, it’s a fixed point, namely celebrated DJ Alfredo’s record box in... Read more... |
CD: Hannah Georgas - For EvelynMonday, 20 June 2016
How does Hannah Georgas’s 98-year-old grandmother feel about her collaborations with Graham Walsh, her two-time producer better known as part of Canadian electronic quartet Holy Fuck? It is, one suspects, one of a few aspects of this rich, immersive... Read more... |
CD: Jake Bugg – On My OneSaturday, 18 June 2016
After two albums in rapid-fire quick succession, 2012’s eponymous debut and its 2013 follow-up, Shangri-La, Jake Bugg could be forgiven for taking a little longer to get his third out into the world. There was talk of working with the Beastie Boys’... Read more... |
DVD: Born to BoogieTuesday, 14 June 2016
“Telegram Sam” by T. Rex spent its second and final week at the top of the singles chart in the week of 12 February 1972. A month later, on 18 March, Marc Bolan and his band played two shows at Wembley’s Empire Pool to a sell-out crowd under the... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Adam and the AntsSunday, 05 June 2016
Adam Ant was one of the few who saw Sex Pistols’ first live show. On 6 November 1975, his band Bazooka Joe was playing Charing Cross Road’s St Martin’s School of Art. They found an uninvited support band had gatecrashed the evening. The impact of... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Martin FryMonday, 23 May 2016
It was in the long-ago year of 1982 that Martin Fry and ABC released The Lexicon of Love, a feast of addictively lush pop-soul swathed in Anne Dudley's orchestrations and producer Trevor Horn's sparkling electronic innovations. Fry bestrode it like... Read more... |
CD: Kate Jackson - British Road MoviesMonday, 16 May 2016
There was always something otherworldly about Kate Jackson, the voice of late, great Sheffield rockers The Long Blondes. Guitarist Dorian Cox, whose stroke in 2008 precipitated the premature breakup of the band, may have been its primary songwriter... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The AssociatesSunday, 08 May 2016
Any appreciation of Scotland’s The Associates is coloured by the knowledge that Billy MacKenzie took his own life at age 39 in January 1997. More than his band’s voice, he personified their unique approach to music. Between 1979 and 1982, with... Read more... |
CD: Jessy Lanza - Oh NoThursday, 05 May 2016
Canadian singer/producer Jessy Lanza's records – and this one more than ever – can feel like they're mapping an alternative history, one where populist and leftfield electronic music were never separate. Two aspects dominate her sound: her crisp,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Move, The YardbirdsSunday, 01 May 2016
The figures are approximate, but the Yardbirds’ first studio album has been issued on CD at least 12 separate times. With The Move, their debut album and its follow-up Shazam have each had a comparatively paltry eight outings on CD. As for vinyl... Read more... |
