Album: Alice Ivy - Do What Makes You Happy

Aussie producer's third is half gems and half pap

What’s to be said about an album that’s half well-executed body-moving, dancefloor pop and half sickly, slick schmaltz? It’s as if the creator is covering off all possible fanbases, those with taste and those lacking it.

Album: Alley Cat - The Widow Project

★★★★ ALLEY CAT - THE WIDOW PROJECT Quiver in the shadows with dubstep auteur

Enter a haunted factory and quiver in the shadows with a dubstep auteur

If the names Pinch, Vex’d, Burial, Digital Mystikz, The Bug mean anything to you, stop reading now and buy or stream this album. Seriously, go. Go get it. That honestly is all you need to know: if you like the imperial phase when British dubstep was first establishing lasting artistic careers and extending its tendrils into the wider musical world – completely separately from its branching into a fizzy, EDM / rave form in big arenas – then you will love this record.

Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Drumsheds review - surround-sound magic in the super-club

★★★★ AURORA ORCHESTRA, COLLON, DRUMSHEDS Surround-sound magic in the super-club

On a vast dancefloor, the chance to listen from inside the orchestra

Every lover of folk-tales knows that the seeker has to endure dangers and setbacks before they finally win the prize. Last night, the ever-enterprising Aurora Orchestra played The Firebird – Stravinsky’s own musical vision of the intrepid hero who outwits the forces of darkness – on a unique site that presents an audience with its own kind of ordeals. Once the Tottenham IKEA, Drumsheds has undergone a metamorphosis from super-store to super-club.

Album: Caribou - Honey

★★★★ CARIBOU - HONEY The psychedelic indie-dance individualist still setting off fireworks

Almost a quarter century in, the psychedelic indie-dance individualist still setting off fireworks

Dan Snaith’s career has been a joyous thing to watch. Almost a quarter of a century the Canadian started out as Manitoba (soon renamed to Caribou) making a giddy mixture of dreamy ‘60s psychedelic pop, glitchy electronica and then cutting-edge dance music.

Moby, O2 review - ebullient night of rave'n'rock'n'Johnny Cash

★★★ MOBY, O2 Ebullient night of rave'n'rock'n'Johnny Cash

The millennial electronic star returns with his first European tour in over a decade

Sometimes a gig suddenly and completely elevates. Such is the case tonight when Moby, on his first UK tour in 12 years, plays “Extreme Ways”, his 2002 anthem for hedonism and its desperate consequences. What has been an adequately entertaining night blossoms into something more riveting. The 20,000-strong O2 crowd, previously mostly seated, rise en masse, move and sing along. The place is a-buzz.

Album: Jamie xx - In Waves

Get right on one, matey, with a glorious capturing of dancefloor dissolution of self

There’s been a lot of early 90s rave aesthetics in popular culture lately, but an awful lot of it has been at the level of signifiers. Fila, Stüssy, Air Max 90s, smiley faces, sirens, rewinds, crowd noises, hop in a Ford Cortina, tribes coming together, dancing at dawn, baggy hoodies for goalposts, isn’t it, wasn’t it, hmm? There’s been a little less discussed, though, about what raving actually felt like, and in particular that it its revolutionary character came from everyone having the same feeling of being on the same drug at the same time.

Album: Floating Points - Cascade

High energy techno and rave from the synth craftsman needs your best speakers

I made a terrible mistake when I first got this LP: I played it on my laptop speakers. That’s not the straight up foolishness you might think, mind – after downloading something for review I’ll often play it quietly in the background while I catch up on admin, because it can be a good way of getting the general shape of an album, an overview as it were, before properly diving into it. But for this album in particular that really didn’t work.

Album: Galliano - Halfway Somewhere

★★★★ GALLIANO - HALFWAY SOMEWHERE A joyous return for the consummate London beatniks

A joyous return for the consummate London beatniks

Some performers are born to perform. It seems obvious, but it’s not a given in the music world. Some just want to make sound, some want to compose, not all are in it to connect directly to an audience. Rob Gallagher, however, is all about that connection, and he’s never stopped doing it. It was there in his band Galliano’s genial funk from 1988 through 1997: his London beat poetry always felt like it was addressing you direct, and the band came to live above all on the live stage where he could speak to the crowd.

We Out Here Festival 2024 review - generations of weirdness and wonder

★★★★ WE OUT HERE FESTIVAL 2024 Generations of weirdness and wonder

Five editions in, the jazz-plus festival settles in for the long haul

I won’t give it loads about the atmosphere and attendees at We Out Here – suffice to say that in its fifth edition, it has maintained all the strengths I mentioned last year, with the added benefit of slicker-operating infrastructure having ironed out any remaining wrinkles in its new Dorset site. The navigability, sound levels, smooth running bars etc were all just a little better, which only added to the good vibes that have been there from the start.

Album: Camila Cabello - C,XOXO

She's rattling the bars of her creative cage, but they're not breaking

Oh this is sad. Up until this point Camilla Cabello has been a good pop star. Her biggest songs were loaded with familiar-to-the-point-of-cheesiness retro Latin samples, or angsty mini-dramas loaded with the musical theatre-style chops that had made her an X-Factor star in her teens, always delivered with a ton of conviction and feeling.