1990s
Pete Fij / Terry Bickers, Worthing Festival 2023 review - lyricism, amusing anecdotes and gorgeous guitar playingTuesday, 20 June 2023
Pete Fij and Terry Bickers are bathed in muted red light. They are sat side-by-side, Fij with an acoustic guitar, Bickers with a vintage 1970s CMI hollow-bodied electric. Behind them, oil wheel lighting gloops and bubbles gently, bespattered with... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Heavenly - Le Jardin de HeavenlySunday, 04 June 2023
“It takes a real effort to sound this small, this timid; to resist the effort to rock out and kick pedal. Singer ‘Amelia’ (oh yeah, I bet that’s her name) has spent her entire adult life pretending she doesn't menstruate. The rest of her band, too,... Read more... |
Album: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Council SkiesMonday, 29 May 2023
Council Skies was created in Noel Gallagher’s new studio, partly during lockdown, an attempt to reconnect with where he came from, Manchester, as per its cover art. It’s not an exercise in nostalgia (except insofar as everything either Gallagher... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Cherry Stars Collide, Waves of DistortionSunday, 14 May 2023
In July 2007, an article in The Guardian expressed surprise that shoegazing was influencing a series of current musicians, Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, Maps and Ulrich Schnauss amongst them.“You could hear the heady, woozy influence of a style of... Read more... |
Jah Wobble, Brighton Festival 2023 review - Coronation bank hol Sunday marathonTuesday, 09 May 2023
Jah Jah Jah blah blah blah. We’ll get to that.I meet Everest at Worthing station at 3.20pm. He’s clad in a light brown corduroy jacket and a cap. He looks dapper. Like a Len Deighton spy. We board the train to Brighton. I hand him a chilled bottle... Read more... |
The Dam review - a remarkably haunting allegorySunday, 07 May 2023
Maher (Maher el Khair, an actual brick-maker) works in a brickyard sloshing sticky mud into rectangular moulds with his bare hands. Next the mud bricks are tipped out to dry in the sun, before being fired in a large, wood fired kiln. The same... Read more... |
Prohaska, Hallé, Bloxham, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a sure hand at the helmFriday, 05 May 2023
Getting on for 27 years ago, Thomas Adès’ These Premises Are Alarmed was one of the pieces commissioned by the Hallé for a premiere in the opening series of concerts at the new Bridgewater Hall, conducted by Kent Nagano.Now that Adès, then their... Read more... |
Album: Steve Mac - Bless This Acid HouseFriday, 05 May 2023
Some rock bands base their career around being musically fluid, an ever-changing what-will-they-do-next? conundrum. Others, such as, famously, Motörhead and The Ramones, simply go on doing their thing, honing it, repeating ad infinitum, with an... Read more... |
Max Porter: Shy review - an ode to boyhood and rageWednesday, 03 May 2023
Max Porter continues his fascination with the struggles of youth in his newest release, Shy: his most beautifully-wrought writing to date, an ode to boyhood and a sensitive deconstruction of rage, its confused beginnings, its volatile results, and... Read more... |
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Komedia, Brighton review - a delightfully woozy head-tripFriday, 28 April 2023
My associate for the evening has recently returned from Breaking Convention, a conference on psychedelics, celebrating their renaissance in recent years. He’s been microdosing regularly. Around us the crowd sways, many with eyes closed, bobbing,... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2023Thursday, 20 April 2023
Record Store Day is nearly here. At theartsdesk on Vinyl we have a selection of goodies which are appearing exclusively in record shops. See anything you fancy?THEARTSDESK ON VINYL’S VINYL OF RECORD STORE DAY APRIL 2023Suicide A Way of Life Rareties... Read more... |
Orbital, Brighton Centre review - a solid hands-in-the-air night outMonday, 10 April 2023
Just before the encore, the crowd is finally warmed up and dancing. It took a while, but hands are now in the air, middle-aged bodies are shifting about, muscle memory of MDMA nights in the last century.The Hartnoll brothers are also jigging onstage... Read more... |
