Justice are a couple of super-suave rock star analogues. Leathers and aviators, yes, but with a very Parisian insouciance. Their music is the same. It has a rocker-friendly je-ne-sais-quoi, but air-brushed with the glitzy sci-fi futurism one might expect from a couple of guys whose origins lie in design.
Three years ago, the release of Till Another Time 1988-1996 generated a thumbs up. A compilation of recordings by the Baltimore and/or New York-based Linda Smith it was, according to this column, “stunning” and “significant.” Until this point, knowledge of Smith had “largely been the province of the do-it-yourself world of music.”
Record Store Day is tomorrow! At theartsdesk on Vinyl we’ve been sent a selection of exclusive RSD goodies. Check out the reviews, then check out your local record shop! See you amongst it.
THEARTSDESK ON VINYL’S CHOICE CUT OF RECORD STORE DAY APRIL 2024
The Near Jazz Experience featuring Mike Garson Character Actor EP (Sartorial)
Death Songbook is, says Charles Hazlewood, founder, artistic director and conductor of Paraorchestra, an album of “music which is about death, or the death of love, about loss, about anxiety.” Suede’s Brett Anderson, on board for this endeavour, notes “I've always found dark material more inspiring than upbeat songs. Upbeat songs always make me depressed somehow. I've always liked those songs that deal with the murkier sides of life.”
For the past almost two years, Maggie Rogers has taken an unexpectedly special place in my heart and musical tastes. Upon reviewing her previous album, Surrender, because of the difference in style and sound to my usual tastes I was caught completely off guard.
Combined with just as unforeseen changes in my personal life, Surrender was an unfounded delight that chimed completely at that point in time. Now it’s not just an album, but a time capsule of those summer months of 2022.
“Betsy,” a voice shouts from the audience as the encore begins. The request for “Betsy on the Roof,” from Julia Holter’s 2015 Have You in my Wilderness album, is met – it was already in the set list – but only after “Les Jeux to You” is performed. That originally appeared on 2018’s Aviary.
At 24, Bradfordian Nia Archives has already clearly marked out her musical territory.
While many of her Gen Z contemporaries have embraced the rave, jungle and drum’n’bass sounds of the early-mid 1990s, she’s done it more wholeheartedly than most: particularly rebuilding the rolling breakbeats and deep bass of jungle as a kind of British urban folk music, collaborating with older generations (original junglists DJ Die and Randall of Watch The Ride), and demonstrating how her natural Caribbean-influenced Yorkshire vocal articulation fits perfectly into that.
The joy of The Hives on record is encapsulated by their 2012 micro-song “Come On”. Despite being one-minute long and consisting solely of the title phrase, it fizzes with righteous, effervescent buzzsaw euphoria. They open their encore with it, showcasing with ease that, whatever the pleasures of their studio output, live in concert is where The Hives truly explode.
Carl Barat and Peter Doherty are "the Glimmer Twins" of their own wayward trajectory through the worlds of rock and roll, stardom, drugs, distraction and destruction.
“Motif,” Love In Constant Spectacle’s fourth track, is the closest Jane Weaver has come in over a decade to the folk influences embraced on her 2007 and 2010 albums Cherlokalate and The Fallen By Watch Bird. Not that her new album is rooted in past ventures, more that it appears she has taken a step back to consider what she has done, and has found this reflection comfortable.