New Music Reviews
Sŵn Festival 2018 – a welcome return to formWednesday, 24 October 2018
It’s been a tough few years for Sŵn Festival. Once a genuine rival to fellow urban festivals Great Escape and Sound City, recent events have fluctuated between one-dayers and a string of ticketed gigs. 2018 marked the biggest change yet, but also a return to the multi-day, multi-venue format. Read more... |
Duane Eddy, London Palladium - the twang's the thangWednesday, 24 October 2018
Fifty years after he first entered what was then known as “the hit parade”, Duane Eddy stepped on stage at the London Palladium, cheered to the echo by an audience old enough to remember 78 rpm. By and large, they’d worn less well than the man they’d come to hear, who looked trim in charcoal jeans and cowboy boots, and a jacket of the sort tailors on Nashville’s Music Row specialise. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The ActionSunday, 21 October 2018
From 7.30pm on Thursday 19 January 1967, George Martin and The Beatles spent the next seven hours at the Abbey Road’s Studio 2 working through takes one to four of “In the Life of…”, a new song which, when completed, would be retitled “A Day in the Life”. In late May, fans would hear it as the final track of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Read more... |
MØ - Forever NeverlandThursday, 18 October 2018
Think of Karen "MØ" Andersen and you may well picture one of her smash hit videos. "Lean On", for instance, where the singer gyrates to a Bollywood/ house mashup. Or "Kamikaze" set in post-apocalyptic Ukraine. Yet, for all the Zeitgeist-y imagery what really made those songs so popular was really just simple... Read more... |
Smashing Pumpkins, Wembley Arena review - Corgan and company deliver the goodsWednesday, 17 October 2018
A three-hour show? There’s no doubt that The Smashing Pumpkins give good bang for the buck but it’s rare to see a band of this size and stature play for more than two hours in London. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Rockin' in the USA - Hot 100 Hits of the 80sSunday, 14 October 2018
One marker arrived on 1 August 1981, when MTV began broadcasting. With its format based around screening pop videos, American radio had a competitor and would lose the edge it once had. Read more... |
CD: Jess Glynne - Always In BetweenThursday, 11 October 2018
The first release from Jess Glynne’s new album, “I’ll Be There” confirmed the North London singer as the first ever British female artist to have seven no.1 singles in the UK Chart. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Kubrick's MusicSunday, 07 October 2018
Stanley Kubrick’s use of music in his films has been inspirational. In 1999, The Caretaker – a nom-de-musique of Jim Kirby – issued Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom. While his alter-ego openly acknowledged the director’s film The Shining, the album’s music reconfigured vintage recordings of bands in tribute to the film’s haunted ballroom scenes. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 43: Pixies, Nazareth, Yumi and the Weather, Beta Band, Northern Soul and moreFriday, 05 October 2018
There’s been a lot of conjecture over the last couple of years about HD Vinyl. It is, we’re told, a more precise and rounded analogue experience, taking record-listening to the next level. The company’s Austrian MD Guenter Loibl has explained that the process uses “a laser-cut ceramic instead of electroplated metal stampers” to achieve results that add 30% more audio information to a record. Sounds great. Read more... |
They Might Be Giants, Barbican review - genuine, authentic humourThursday, 04 October 2018
The songs of They Might Be Giants have an irresistible way of combining the playful, the childlike and the absurd. The band’s major label debut album, Flood from 1990, which was most people’s entry point into their music, is full of quick-witted humour. Read more... |
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