Music, Records

Stereophonics - album review

Indie rock

4 Oct 2007

Although rock’s snootiest critics might have it that The Stereophonics are one of the most blasphemous and superannuated crimes ever inflicted on music, it’s hard to underestimate the value of giving a fanbase what they want. Certainly, the band’s…

Roisin Murphy

18 Oct 2007

ELECTRO Overpowered (EMI) A love or hatred of Roisin Murphy’s former band aside, there’s no arguing with the fact that this ex-Moloko vocalist currently makes some of the most sophisticated electro pop around. Boasting catchy melodies, demonic…

KT Tunstall

6 Sep 2007

POP KT Tunstall delared she wanted to make a ‘scuzzy rock’n’roll album’, but teaming up with Steve Osbourne, who has put the gloss on Placebo, Happy Mondays and U2 among others in the past, meant it was never really going to happen. Instead, Tunstall…

Sigur Rós - Hvarf-Heim

13 Dec 2007

ROCK (EMI) Released to loosely accompany the Icelandic outfit’s superb recent film, Heima, this two-CD album is a revelation. The Hvarf half contains outtakes and rarities from 12 years of full-band studio sessions and is full of the sumptuous epic…

Abba - The Album

13 Dec 2007

POP (Polydor) If you’re tired of Abba, you’re tired of life, basically, so this deluxe re-issue of their most ambitious album is extremely welcome. Originally released in 1978 when the band were at their creative and commercial peak, The Album…

The Dykeenies

6 Sep 2007

INDIE ROCK After a year of sell-out gigs and internet hype the Cumbernauld brotherly trio plus two mates release their debut album. The opener (‘The Panic’, about STD fear) is prophetic: a great, stompy, bang of the fists and wail of the klaxons with…

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt

24 Apr 2008

COUNTRY/FOLK/BLUES (V2) Campbell and Lanegan’s Mercury-nominated debut was a one-trick pony, but it was a pretty cool trick. Campbell’s wispy whimper and Lanegan’s bourbon-soaked growl blended refreshingly over some old school folk and blues, but it…

The Vernon Elliot Ensemble - Ivor the Engine and Pogle’s Wood

13 Dec 2007

SOUNDTRACK Ivor the Engine and Pogle’s Wood (Trunk) Smallfilms (a partnership between writer and narrator Oliver Postgate and animator Peter Firmin) made some of the most endearing children’s television shows from the 50s through to the 70s…

Pat Metheny

18 Oct 2007

JAZZ Secret Story (Nonesuch) When Secret Story first came out in 1992, it marked something of a departure in the guitarist’s work. Reaction to it may well depend on what it is about that work that attracts you – the smooth fusioneer or the…

Jose Gonzalez

20 Sep 2007

FOLK In Our Nature (Peacefrog) For most people, Swedish-Argentine troubadour Gonzalez will always be known for his song ‘Heartbeats’ soundtracking that Sony Bravia ad with the bouncy balls in San Francisco, and that’s his main problem. What makes…

Rilo Kiley

6 Sep 2007

ROCK Rilo Kiley’s last album and singer Jenny Lewis’s subsequent solo debut both contained a handful of indie-country stonewall classics, but this lacklustre and scattershot offering shows none of the same spark, despite Lewis’ ever-wonderful and…

Britney Spears

15 Nov 2007

POP Blackout (Jive) Producer So, she’ll be here in a few minutes, yeah? Record company executive Yeah, so we’ll have a window of 30 minutes to lay down some vocals. P But she hasn’t even heard the tunes yet . . . RCE Erm, yeah, just, um…

Singles & Downloads

8 May 2008

Get ready, kids, it’s New Morrissey Single of the Fortnight time! And this one’s a stormer, all taut and driving, and laced with that familiar austerity which, you suspect, hides a well of uncertainty somewhere just below the surface. And it’s got these…

Parka - Attack of the Hundred Yard Hardman

8 May 2008

BAGGY (Jeepster) One day, that baggy comeback is going to arrive, and will a band like Parka be leading the charge? Probably not. For all their verve and enthusiasm, the Glaswegian group (now based in London) sound just like the times they emulate…

Idlewild

18 Oct 2007

ROCK A Distant History (Parlophone) Ask anyone who’s ever poured over Cure outtakes or Pulp B-sides. When you get to know a band’s back catalogue intimately, after time it’s the bits in between that hold the greatest fascination. After ten years…

Singles & Downloads

6 Sep 2007

It’s Autumn again and, as ever, there are a sack full of new singles struggling to squeeze into limited radio rotation spots like fat men caught in a revolving door. Just as scientists have a tough time predicting natural disasters, gauging how…

Vector Lovers

6 Sep 2007

ELECTRONICA On the cover of the the Vector Lovers’ third long playing offering there is a picture of a group of kids in a field at sunset. It look like it was taken circa 1977. Martin Wheeler -- the man who is Vector Lovers -- seems to crave a bygone…

Also Released - Music

8 May 2008

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (4AD) This was recorded in a remote cabin in the wilds of Wisconsin and it sounds like it. A gloriously minimal and spectral solo debut from Justin Vernon. Jack Marchment - Corydon and Manjrekar (Benbecula) Inspired…

Jonathan Harvey - Body Mandala

24 Apr 2008

CONTEMPORARY (NMC) Jonathan Harvey was Composer in Association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 2005-7, and was a central figure in the recent IRCAM weekend in Glasgow. This CD includes two compositions written in his Glasgow residency…

Tindersticks - Hungry Saw

24 Apr 2008

SOUL (Beggars Banquet) Tindersticks have always understood that the essence of great soul music was a tall (occasionally tragic) tale set to something grand sounding and have amassed a back catalogue of heartbreaking, often breathtaking…

Hadouken! - Music for an Accelerated Culture

10 Apr 2008

INDIE/RAVE/GRIME/PUNK/ELECTRO (Atlantic) The so-called new rave scene has been responsible for spewing out a load of old meaningless tosh since it was coined by desperate music journalists two years ago, but its latest wrong comes in the form of the…

Heidi Talbot - In Love and Light

10 Apr 2008

FOLK (Navigator Records) It seems folk singers just ain’t content with being plain old folk singers these days. Admittedly, the boundaries between folk and the singer-songwriter game have long been fairly blurred anyway, but more and more of the…

Various - FabricLive 37: Caspa and Rusko

13 Dec 2007

DUBSTEP (Fabric) This instalment of the FabricLive series sees cheeky young upstarts of the Dubstep scene Caspa and Rusko at the helm. Representing the more playful side to Dubstep, their choices on this album – including much of their own work…

Maria Schneider Orchestra

20 Sep 2007

JAZZ Sky Blue (ArtistShare) Maria Schneider’s decision to take her CD releases out of the established distribution system and throw her lot in with ArtistShare paid rich dividends when her 2004 recording Concert in the Garden became the first disc…

The Proclaimers

6 Sep 2007

POP With the Comic Relief single and a musical based on their songs, 2007 has already been a great year for The Proclaimers, and this consummately crafted and soulful album can only add to their wide grins. Title track ‘Life With You’ is as big…