mon 02/06/2025

New music

Album: Miley Cyrus - Something Beautiful

A couple of months ago, I wrote here that Lady Gaga was the godmother of the new generation of ostentatiously “theatre kid” pop stars – but actually, perhaps I was wrong and Miley Cyrus deserves that title. Ever since her teens, she has consistently...

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 90: Small Faces, ESKA, Luvcat, Dope Lemon, Celia Cruz, Monolake and more

VINYL OF THE MONTHEmily Saunders Moon Shifts Oceans (The Mix Sounds)It’s de rigeur nowadays, if you love music, to love Joni Mitchell. She is, of course, a great soul, but her music never connected here. That said, I have a favourite Joni Mitchell...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Pete Shelley - Homosapien, XL-1

Pete Shelley’s departure from Buzzcocks felt abrupt. When he left the Manchester band which had been integral to British punk since 1976, the other members thought it was still a going concern. Shelley had reached a different conclusion.Buzzcocks...

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Album: Nick Mulvey - Dark Harvest Pt.1

Nick Mulvey’s first two albums, First Mind in 2014 and Wake Up Now in 2017, are among the loveliest singer-songwriter fare released this century. With his last album, 2022’s New Mythology, his ayahuasca-fuelled search for spiritual meaning went full...

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Alan Sparhawk, EartH Theatre review - an absorbing game of two halves from the former Low mainstay

For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan Sparhawk moves ceaselessly. Whirling, arms sweeping like the sails of a windmill, gliding across the stage. He sings...

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10 Questions for musician Michael Gira

Michael Gira (born 19/2/54) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, author and artist. He founded Swans, a band in which he sings and plays guitar, in New York during the late 1970s. Since that time, Gira and Swans have been a major influence in...

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Album: Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The Light

Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end result feels more admirable than truly compelling. While the band still knows how to craft polished, politically...

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Album: Sally Shapiro - Ready to Live a Lie

Ready to Live a Lie is so sonically vaporous it almost isn’t there. While the album’s 11 tracks draw from continental European musical archetypes – specifically Italian disco and Eurovision-styled balladry – there is little solidity which can be...

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Album: Anna Lapwood - Firedove

This album Firedove (Sony Classical), surely, has to be seen as part of a bigger story: that of organist, choir director and broadcaster Anna Lapwood, who, still in her twenties – just – has become an essential part of the (often cautious and...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Johnnie Taylor - Who's Making Love The Stax Singles 1966-1970

Johnnie Taylor’s big break came with the ever-fabulous September 1968 single “Who's Making Love.” His ninth 45 for the Stax label, it went Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Up to this point, the Arkansas-born singer had been on the R&B charts...

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Album: Morcheeba - Escape the Chaos

Morcheeba reach their 30th anniversary this year. The 1990s band, a unit once synonymous with phrases such as “trip hop” and “chill-out”, are up to album number 11. Their multi-million-selling oeuvre is based around a hazy combination of low-slung...

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Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi

Ammar 808 is the high octane vehicle for the Tunisian-born producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, now based in Denmark. His first album Maghreb United (2018) struck hard and fast in a field already well-populated by the fusion of traditional Arab sounds and...

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