New Music Lockdown 6: David Gilmour, Taylor Swift, Prince, Bat For Lashes and Blossoms

NEW MUSIC LOCKDOWN 6 David Gilmour, Taylor Swift, Prince, Bat For Lashes and Blossoms

This week's freshest stay-at-home music recommendations to keep things lively

As the music industry slips into the rhythm of lockdown, so the spigot slowly becomes untapped and events, livestreams and similar start to flow more steadily. This week a host of big names are up to a bunch of different stuff, all worth checking. Dive in!

A Theatre for Dreamers/Von Trapped Family Livestream + Dave Gilmour Live at Pompeii

Album: Hayley Williams - Petals for Armor

★★★★ HAYLEY WILLIAMS - PETALS FOR ARMOR A funkin' great surprise

Debut album from Paramore frontwoman is a funkin' great surprise

The music of monstrously successful emo-pop sorts Paramore is globally massive but is far from everyone’s cup of angst-lite. There is something polished and squeaky clean about them, Teflon fluoro-goth with an off-putting whiff of decent boy/girl-next-door niceness. This writer, then, comes to the debut album of lead singer Hayley Williams with Everest-sized prejudices.

Album: Baxter Dury - The Night Chancers

★★★★ BAXTER DURY - THE NIGHT CHANCERS Skilfully drawn vignettes

The singer turns storyteller with a collection of skilfully drawn vignettes

“I’m not your fucking friend,” intones Baxter Dury as recent single “I’m Not Your Dog” begins. As opening salvos go, it’s right up there with the best of them, full of sneering hostility and fiery intent. As an introduction, it’s a writer’s hook – pushing us away while drawing us in.

Album: Sink Ya Teeth - Two

★★★★ SINK YA TEETH - TWO Norfolk post-punkers push their sound toward a dancefloor-friendly second album

Norfolk post-punkers successfully push their sound forward on a dancefloor-friendly second album

Norwich is not the first place most people think of as a hub of riveting music but it’s where female duo Sink Ya Teeth hail from. Consisting of bassist Gemma Cullingford and singer Maria Uzor - with both throwing synth into the pot where necessary – the pair have proved themselves a vital presence in the live arena.

Album: Huey Lewis and the News - Weather

Perennial West Coast feel-good band bring the bland on possibly their final outing

Huey Lewis and the News were an unlikely mid-Eighties phenomenon. Their Sports album was a mega-success for a band already approaching early middle age. Their Fifties feel, given a contemporary polish and boosted by association with cinematic juggernaut Back to the Future, sat comfortably (yet incongruously) alongside the likes of Madonna and Duran Duran.

Album: Field Music - Making a New World

Audacious concept album examining the still-extant ripples of World War One

“Only in a Man’s World” is a snappy pop-funk nugget with an Eighties feel. There’s a kinship with Peter Gabriel and “Once in a Lifetime” Talking Heads. Its lyrics though are something else. They begin by asking “Why should a woman feel ashamed?” and go on to address why necessary items associated with periods are deemed a luxury by the tax regimen. “Things would be different if the boys bled too.” Rather than polemic, it comes across as exploring the double standards inherent to the state.

My Baby, Concorde 2, Brighton review - Dutch three-piece deliver trance dance power

The best band you've never heard of set the night alight once again

“Trance boogie,” states My Baby frontwoman Cato van Dijck before submersing herself in the rising tribal rhythm of “Sunflower Sutra". Trance boogie is, indeed, what My Baby do. The song is decked with floating flecks of glissando guitar from virtuosic New Zealand bandmate Daniel Johnston on the other side of the stage. “Sing with me, brother,” Cato demands with a smile and behind his drum kit her sibling Joost leans into his microphone and harmonises. Behind it all is a housey four-to-the-floor beat, but their sound is all organic groove.

Is this Jimi Hendrix’s greatest posthumous release? Producer Eddie Kramer talks about a legendary live album

★★★★★ JIMI HENDRIX'S GREATEST POSTHUMOUS RELEASE? Five-CD set of Band of Gypsys at the Fillmore East in 1969-70

The complete set of Hendrix's Band of Gypsys performances at the Fillmore East is released this week

This week, one of the finest gems in the entire Hendrix catalogue finally sees the light of day in its full unedited glory – Songs for Groovy Children comprises all four sets from the Band of Gypsys New Year’s Eve 1969-70 residency at the Fillmore East in New York City.

Herbie Hancock, Barbican EFG London Jazz Festival review – the musical chameleon is still searching at 79

Despite some longueurs, the multi-skilled bandleader remains an irresistibly joyful force

When it comes to the true jazz legends capable of filling concert halls with faithful fans, whom jazz festival programmers can put on as headliners, the choice is dwindling. Herbie Hancock is one and he does; his Barbican concert is one of the big events of this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival and it had been sold out for months.