New music
Album: BC Camplight - A Sober ConversationWednesday, 25 June 2025
A Sober Conversation is the work of a master songwriter, one who knows how to achieve their goals. As the album’s nine tracks pour from the speakers, comparisons come to mind: 20/20 and Smiley Smile-era Beach Boys, Lindsey Buckingham, the early solo... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 91: Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Tropical Fuck Storm, Sparks, The Sisters of Mercy and moreTuesday, 24 June 2025
VINYL OF THE MONTHFrank From Blue Velvet I Am Frank (Property of the Lost) + Column258 Interloper (The Workshop Sessions, Volume One) (Property of the Lost)Hastings label Property of the Lost has grown into a potent force, its stable of artists... Read more... |
Album: Durand and the Indications - FlowersMonday, 23 June 2025
Neo-soul devotees Durand Jones and the Indications mine a vein of sensuous sounds, at the soft end of a genre that's partly defined by the raw passion of gospel. Their roots draw from vintage Curtis Mayfield and the smooth vocal harmonies of the... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Sonics - High TimeSunday, 22 June 2025
“Theirs is truly rock in extremis, a précis of the youthful impetuosity and cathartic chaos at the heart of real rock ’n roll.”This extract from the essay in the booklet coming with the handsome box set High Time bluntly lays it out: The Sonics, as... Read more... |
Album: Benson Boone - American HeartSunday, 22 June 2025
I first had a conversation about Benson Boone without realizing it was him we were talking about. It went something like: “Did you see that horrifying moment at Coachella when Brian May got onstage with some American guy, and no one knew... Read more... |
Album: Yungblud - IdolsSaturday, 21 June 2025
Yungblud has declared his fourth album, Idols, to be a “a project with no limitations”. This is quite a claim.So, what musical wonders has Dominic Harrison created in collaboration with his team of producer Matt Schwartz, composer Bob Bradley and... Read more... |
Patrick Wolf, Rough Trade East review - the Kent-based bard refashions his new album ‘Crying the Neck’Friday, 20 June 2025
After the evening’s second song “The Last of England,” Patrick Wolf cautions “I’ve got nothing left to say.” During the shows leading up to this outing promoting his new album Crying the Neck, he says he felt “like I’ve been drag-queen story hour”... Read more... |
Album: Loyle Carner - Hopefully!Friday, 20 June 2025
Loyle Carner’s Hopefully! is a luminous, deeply personal exploration of fatherhood, identity, and artistic reinvention, marking the south London rapper’s most tender and experimental work yet. Building upon the introspection of Hugo (2022), this... Read more... |
Album: HAIM - I QuitThursday, 19 June 2025
Haim’s profile just grows and grows. Since their last album, youngest sibling Alana’s starring role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s whimsical Seventies L.A. nostalgia-fest, Licorice Pizza, has done them no harm. I Quit is, the band says, thus titled... Read more... |
Bonnie Raitt, Brighton Dome review - a top night with a characterful, very American blues rock queenWednesday, 18 June 2025
If you walked into a bar in the US, say in one of the southern states, and Bonnie Raitt and her band were playing, you’d have the best night of your life. They are the kind of purely American rhythm’n’blues experience, tempered with FM radio... Read more... |
Hidden Door Festival 2025 review - the transformative Edinburgh event's most site-specific festival yetWednesday, 18 June 2025
"When I was your age, I worked in a corrugated cardboard factory!" is a phrase my father was fond of telling me as a teenager, presumably in an attempt to extol the virtues of a good Presbyterian work ethic.I wonder what he’d have made of his first... Read more... |
Pulp, O2 Arena review - common people like usMonday, 16 June 2025
Jarvis Cocker is proudly holding the No 1 trophy handed to him on the day Pulp topped the album chart for the first time in 27 years with More, their first album in almost as long. “It’s nice they’ve got something to do when they’re getting on a bit... Read more... |
