fri 12/09/2025

New Music Reviews

theartsdesk in Cologne: urban boutique on the Rhine

Kieron Tyler

The terrace beside the restaurant in Cologne’s Stadtgarten – the city park – is heaving. Agreeably so. A bar and a food counter facing onto it are fringed by rows of long tables. Overhanging trees unite in a canopy suggesting this might be forest clearing.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Stella Chiweshe

Kieron Tyler

Until now, hearing the extraordinary “Ratidzo” was all-but impossible. The original single is rare and has not been reissued before. It begins with a plaintive whistle which sets the scene for a hypnotic and beautiful rotating pattern of single notes possibly played on a gamelan-style instrument. Rhythmic accompaniment comes from a form of shaker.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Try A Little Sunshine

Kieron Tyler

In 1969, a stream of creative new albums pointed to how what had grown from pop music could be reframed. Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline embraced country music. The Band’s eponymous second album drew on and was integral to defining Americana. The first album by Crosby, Stills & Nash shied away from the increasingly harsh template embraced by rock.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Japan

Kieron Tyler

In May 1981, Japan played two nights at London’s Hammersmith Odeon.

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h 100 Young Influencers of the Year: Lucie Wolfman vlogs at the Barbican

Lucie Wolfman

Watch Lucie Wolfman's vlog review of Carl Craig's Synthesiser Ensemble at the Barbican.
 
 
Lucie Wolfman studies English at the University of Sussex, and covers arts for the National Student. She is a Barbican Young Reviewer, creating vlogs about productions.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Teenage Fanclub

Kieron Tyler

The cover images of the four albums Teenage Fanclub issued on Creation Records suggest ambivalence. While Bandwagonesque’s title acknowledges the hopping onto trends endemic in pop, the graphic of a bag with a dollar sign recognises the related collateralisation of music.

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 42: Flaming Lips, Blacklab, Juno Reactor, U2, Ross From Friends and more

Thomas H Green

Initially, this month’s theartsdesk on Vinyl began with the sentence after this one, but it's so dry readers might drowse off, so I started with this one instead and would advise moving through the next one, just picking up the gist quickly... Discogs, a key hub for global record sales in physical formats, recently presented its Midyear Marketplace Analysis and Database Highlights for 2018, which reckons vinyl sales are up another 15% over the last year.

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Jake Shears, Concorde 2, Brighton review - a blitz of glitz

Caspar Gomez

One of the biggest crowd roars of the night comes right at the start when Jake Shears runs onstage. He is wearing a grey top hat, a white tail-jacket with glittered lapel-edging, silver glittery trousers, a tight black sequinned vest top, and a bow tie on his bare neck. The 600 capacity Concorde 2, right on Brighton's seafront, is sold out.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: A Kaleidoscope of Sounds

Kieron Tyler

Once heard, Wimple Winch’s “Save my Soul” is never forgotten. The A-side of a flop single originally issued in June 1966, it is one of the most tightly coiled British records from the Sixties and has sudden explosions of tension suggesting the band are ready to punch anyone within reach. Late the previous year, The Who’s “My Generation” had taken pop music to new, hitherto unexplored, levels of aggression.

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BaianaSystem, Village Underground - the new Brazilian contenders

Peter Culshaw

The post-modernists have taken over the asylum. At least, that's what I thought twice this week. Once when I saw Vlad Putin on YouTube doing karaoke to an adoring audience. The other was seeing Brazil’s latest contenders BaianaSystem, who played to a sweaty packed-out house at the Village Underground.

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