Album: Katy B - Peace and Offerings

★★★★★ KATY B - PEACE AND OFFERINGS Peckham club queen's soulful return

Peckham club queen's return after a lengthy hiatus, and she's feeling soulful

“Flashbacks / driving in your car volume pushed right up to max / all those late nights I’d try to drink them back” These are almost the first words you hear on this record, coming in as South London Afrobeats producer P2J’s bass tones roll in on the opener “Under my Skin”. And they’re a perfect introduction to the theme and mood of the record too.

Album: Billy Bragg - The Million Things That Never Happened

★★★ BILLY BRAGG - THE MILLION THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED Comfy pandemic blues

Comforting, comfy pandemic blues

Like a more genuinely earthed Springsteen, Billy Bragg’s middle-aged, Dorset years have offered somewhat self-conscious wisdom and awareness of his singer-songwriter status. He’s grown up and into himself, diligently expanding both his craft and ideals.

Sports Team, SWG3, Glasgow review - entertaining, but not always original

★★★ SPORTS TEAM, SWG3, GLASGOW Entertaining, but not always original

The six-piece were at their best when their songs were as frantic as possible

It may go against rock n’ roll cliché, but occasionally there is merit to good time keeping for a band. Lucia and the Best Boys saw their support slot in their home town of Glasgow reach an ignominious ending when they were cut off a song early, vocalist Lucia Fairfull’s chat having seen the glam synth pop group go over their allocated slot.

Album: New Age Doom & Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Lee 'Scratch' Perry’s Guide to the Universe

★★★★ LEE 'SCRATCH' PERRY'S GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE Dub genius makes an individual exit

The dub genius goes out in his own individual way

It seems totally appropriate that Lee “Scratch” Perry’s last recorded album before his death earlier this year, is a collaboration with a Canadian experimental noise outfit and that it is several musical lightyears away from his legendary 1970s Black Ark recordings. For Lee “Scratch” Perry was one of those rare artists, like James Brown and Miles Davis, who made a deep and enduring mark on modern music by showing no fear about experimenting with a whole new pallet of sounds.

Justin Adams and Mauro Durante, The Green Note review - fiery duo in an intimate space

★★★★ JUSTIN ADAMS AND MAURO DURANTE, THE GREEN NOTE Fiery duo in an intimate space 

Fusion of the Delta blues and trance music from Southern Italy hits the spot

Two men trade licks: one of them delves into the heart of the blues, a potent dose of the boogie, the medicinal music of the Mississipi Delta. The other with a mournful voice and violin draws on the equally stripped-down and drone-inflected roots of Southern Italian tradition.

The Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You at 40

★★★★ THE ROLLING STONES' TATTOO YOU AT 40 Arguably the band’s last great studio album returns remastered and expanded

Arguably the band’s last great studio album returns remastered and expanded

As The Rolling Stones – sans a much-missed Charlie Watts – generate old fashioned, 20th-century rock'n'roll excitement in the stadiums of north America this autumn, their final great studio album, 1981’s Tattoo You, returns to the new releases shelf after 40 years.

Album: Tori Amos - Ocean to Ocean, review

Opening the Pandora's box of grief

A “sonic photograph” is how Tori Amos describes her sixteenth album, recorded at her home in Cornwall during the spring and summer of Britain’s third lockdown, when, travel, her usual mode of coping with “troubling things”, was not an option. Living in Bude, with her English husband Mark Hawley, their daughter and her partner, she had no option but to “sit with myself and accept where I was”. “Swim to New York State” is her song of escape, a languorous opening with beautiful sonorities.

Field Music, Francis Lung, Electric Ballroom review - neither band is capable of standing still

★★★★ FIELD MUSIC, FRANCIS LUNG, ELECTRIC BALLROOM Art-poppers advance

Well-matched bill catches art-pop outfits as they push forward

Forty five minutes into their set Field Music play “A House is Not a Home”, from their 2006 second album Tones of Town. An hour in, “Them That do Nothing” from 2010’s Measure is aired. They end with “Orion From the Street”, the opening track from their recent Flat White Moon album.

Album: They Might Be Giants - BOOK

'New' songs which consciously echo TMBG's 1980s hits

“We’ve always tossed in some super-dire, high-voltage, death-trip lyrics that offset the merriment of a melody,” John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants explained recently. And that, in essence, has been a substantial part of the band’s unchanging proposition ever since 1982 when Flansburgh and John Linnell, who had been high school friends in Lincoln, Massachusetts, started the band.

Music Reissues Weekly: Graham Collier - British Conversations

GRAHAM COLLIER - BRITISH CONVERSATIONS Previously unissued suite by the British jazz composer and bandleader

Previously unissued suite enhances understanding of the British jazz composer, bassist and bandleader

Over 1974 to 1978 Graham Collier issued five albums on his own imprint Mosaic. There was another in 1985 and eight releases on Mosaic by other musicians, but for its first four years the imprint was dominated by the British jazz composer, bassist and bandleader’s own work. In the same period, three books Collier had written came out.