“When we started out we were really just an amalgamation of three bands – the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and the House of Love,” said Ride’s Andy Bell in 2012. The arrival of the literally-named double album 4 EPs – collecting their first four EPs in one place – brings a chance to ponder this.
Not even a worldwide health epidemic could stop the meteoric rise of the Irish singer, who has managed to crack America, achieve national treasure status in his homeland and rack up streaming figures that could actually pay his winter gas bill. Not bad going.
Cecil Sharp House, citadel of folk music, finally resounded last night to the mellifluous tones of Barbara Dickson whose distinguished career began at the Howff Folk Club, Dunfermline, in the heady days of the 1960s folk revival. The choice of venue perhaps suggested an all-folk programme but while Dickson dug deep into her song bag the performance drew on numbers from across her remarkably varied career.
In an intimate evening with Polly Jean Harvey MBE, the double Mercury Prize winning artist sang an altogether different kind of tune than you might expect.
Reading from her new book of poetry, Orlam, a coming of age story about a not-girl-not-boy, set within the changing seasons of a mythical Dorset landscape, the songs we heard were odd little twists of nursery rhymes, whisper-sung in a strong West Country accent.
The Larkin Poe story goes back to 2010, when they released four beautiful and distinctive seasons-related EPs, displaying the Lovell sisters Rebecca and Megan’s rich, absorbing vocal harmonies, slippery slide guitar work and a winning with with crunchy blues-rock riffs. They’ve released five albums since then, and Blood Harmony is, for the Georgia-born siblings, a musical homecoming to the sultry humidity of the American South of their musical and familial roots.
Bruce is back! His 21st studio album (can it really be 50 years next year since Greetings from Asbury Park?) and his second covers album. It’s a musical world away from the first, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006), but like that collection it’s a deep dive into a genre totally different to his own – American soul classics from the 1960s and 1970s.
After an unavoidable delay theartsdesk on Vinyl returns with over 9000 words on new and recent releases, ranging across the entire spectrum of known music. Dive in!
VINYL OF THE MONTH
Edrix Puzzle Coming of the Moon Dogs (On the Corner)
Any younger Sugababes fans might have felt a little neglected here. “Who’s a 90s child?” yelled out enthusiastic DJ Shosh as she warmed up the crowd, followed soon after by a cry of “Who’s an 80s child?”, which received an even louder roar in response.
This was an audience seeking a nostalgic party all right, albeit a rowdier one than anything by the girl group during their chart-topping days, with even a pint glass sailing through the air during a lively opener of “Push the Button” that felt more like a rave than a pop gig.
The Oslo World organisers are at pains to point out that, despite the name, they are not a “world music” festival. And with good reason, really. There may have been a few familiar WOMAD veterans headlining over the week-long event – Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour, Malie's Fatoumata Diawara, the queen of Cuba Omara Portuondo – but the emphasis was emphatically not on any kind of beads-and-bongoes authenticity.
There’s retro and there’s retro. Some music – what you might call the Oasis tendency – simply reproduces the obvious signifiers of the past as signposts of cool. But there’s other stuff that shows deep understanding of both the technique and the spirit of what came before, that really taps into the same wellsprings that created the sound it’s replicating in the first place.