hip hop
CD: The Go! Team - Rolling BlackoutsTuesday, 25 January 2011![]() The last album from Brighton’s The Go! Team, 2007’s Proof of Youth, followed the template set by Thunder, Lightning, Strike, their 2004 debut. AD-HD sample-driven songs met Northern soul and hip hop with call-response vocals and melodies that could... Read more... |
Singles & Downloads 9Tuesday, 25 January 2011![]() This month we have some unjustly hyped rubbish electro-pop, some unjustly ignored brilliant eletcro-pop, some postmodern retro-disco, some dubstep, some grime, some sampledelic New York punk, and, at the top of the pile, one of Britain's brightest... Read more... |
Year Out/Year In: Electronic Music Digs In and Spreads OutMonday, 03 January 2011![]() 2010 saw some major shifts stirring up the UK club music ecosystem and unleashing some fascinating hybrids and variants of existing sounds out into the wild. As the hefty bass of dubstep muscled its way firmly into the heart of the mainstream,... Read more... |
Review and Q&A Special: Flawless, Chase the Dream, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 21 December 2010![]() When not one but two street dance crews blasted into Britain’s Got Talent 2009, it felt like a pressure cooker blowing. An ardent, physical and excitingly exact form of dance that had been bubbling away, compressed and hidden, under the surface of... Read more... |
New Music CDs Round-Up 15Saturday, 27 November 2010![]() This month theartsdesk attempts to answer burning questions like - how much of an egomaniac is Kanye West? Are Take That any good? (Yes, actually - surprisingly for some). Can you tell the difference between Rumer and Duffy? What kind of pencil does... Read more... |
Odd Future, The Drop, Stoke NewingtonSaturday, 06 November 2010![]() Given the somewhat viral nature of Odd Future's rapidly flourishing notoriety, it's both appropriate and a little ironic that their debut UK performance should take place in the basement of a pub in a part of north London where the underground doesn... Read more... |
Ninja Tune XX, Ewer Street CarparkTuesday, 05 October 2010![]() Its authenticity was helped no end by a torrential downpour leaking through the brickwork and creating puddles in various parts of the uneven floor – and by the rousing mix of hyperkinetic Nineties jungle beats cut up with seemingly humanly... Read more... |
TakersThursday, 30 September 2010![]() Over there is the gang who give the movie its title (though it was originally going to be called Bone Deep), because they take stuff, mostly money. They’re a suave and dude-ish bunch, headed by Idris Elba exuding his usual intimidating air of... Read more... |
Flying Lotus & Infinity at ICAThursday, 19 August 2010![]() Steven Ellison is one of the most fascinating figures in modern music. Son of Motown songwriter Marylin McLeod and nephew to Alice Coltrane, he's inspired in equal part by his own musical heritage, the slow-and-low hip hop of his home state of... Read more... |
New Music CDs Round-Up 10Saturday, 03 July 2010![]() This month's most interesting new music CDs according to theartsdesk music team includes a dark take on sex and consumerism by The-Dream, which is CD of the Month, "morally ambiguous" South London gangsta rap from Giggs, disco pop from Sia, Scissor... Read more... |
Time Gentlemen Please, The Demon Barbers, Theatre Royal WakefieldThursday, 24 June 2010![]() Yorkshire folkies The Demon Barbers have used English dance in their live shows for several years. Time Gentlemen Please takes the idea a step further, integrating contemporary dance stylings within a cast of more traditional types. Thus three... Read more... |
Choc Quib Town, Jazz CaféMonday, 24 May 2010![]() I love a world music gig where there’s hardly a single world music fan present - or for that matter, a world music journalist. By this I mean that it’s a joy to be at a concert where the audience seems to mainly consist of people from the band’s... Read more... |
