fri 12/09/2025

New Music Reviews

Tallinn Music Week 2019 review: 'We All Value Being European'

Kieron Tyler

“We like people here in Estonia. I think we all here very much value being European. To all our British friends, we know that the offer of e-residency has been ticking-up constantly. You can find a sure foothold for your business here in Estonia. There’s enough space, please come.”

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Three Day Week - When the Lights Went Out 1972-1975

Kieron Tyler

This new collection, compiled by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne, aurally delineates a period when much that was British had an edge of bleakness.

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Melzer, Albion Quartet, Birmingham Town Hall review - songs without words

Richard Bratby

This was a fascinating, unexpected prospect; instantly appealing to anyone who’s ever wondered about the string quartet’s niche in the 21st-century musical ecosystem.

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World Metal Congress, Rich Mix, London review - celebration and critique of a global phenomenon

Asya Draganova

The stereotypical image of heavy metal music suggests it exists in isolation from other musical styles. And while it is true that metal is distinct and re-invents its transgressive nature all the time, the genre has generated commercial success as well as a loyal and diverse global community.

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My Baby, Castle & Falcon, Birmingham review – the Dutch/Kiwi band start up the festival vibe early for 2019

Guy Oddy

Balsall Heath’s Castle & Falcon is one of the newer live music venues in Birmingham, a city that finally seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance in these otherwise uncertain times.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Rema-Rema - Fond Reflections

Kieron Tyler

Until now, Rema-Rema’s only release was a 12-inch EP released in August 1980. It had hit shops after the band fell apart at the end of the previous year. Negotiations with 4AD, a new offshoot of the Beggar’s Banquet label, were underway towards the end of 1979 but then guitarist and future Adam and the Ants-man Marco Pirroni left. They rehearsed without him but called it a day in November.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Where The Girls Are Volume Ten

Kieron Tyler

The US music trade weekly Cashbox chose a picture of the then-hot Diana Ross & the Supremes and Temptations joint enterprise for the cover of its 14 December 1968 issue.

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Yxng Bane, Brixton Academy review - all the fam on stage

Katherine Waters

There’s a wolf howl and Yxng Bane (pronounced Young Bane) jumps off a block on stage and his furry hooded coat flies open and the arena erupts in screams. The pit is filled almost exclusively with seventeen year old girls, excellently contoured and sporting chunky trainers and crop tops like it’s the early 2000s all over again, and he’s wearing nothing underneath except many hours at the gym.

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Loreena McKennitt, Royal Albert Hall review - making Celtic connections

Liz Thomson

Having long been immersed in folk and world music and acoustically-oriented singer-songwriters, it’s a surprise to be given a CD of music by someone who’s never crossed your radar, especially...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Residents

Kieron Tyler

Writing in 1980, the musician and musical theorist Chris Cutler said that “without the support and patronage of the culture-establishment, The Residents were able to exist, continue to exist, grow, find their public, hold that public – and expand it – until the pop establishment was forced to take notice.” He contended that as they were neither musicians or part of music sub-culture they “exemplified a new type [of development], specialising in nothing, turning their hands to anything: a...

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