Album: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Council Skies

Noel's latest is portentous but never convinces

Council Skies was created in Noel Gallagher’s new studio, partly during lockdown, an attempt to reconnect with where he came from, Manchester, as per its cover art. It’s not an exercise in nostalgia (except insofar as everything either Gallagher sibling has ever done is), but more about mining his origins for inspiration, authenticity and emotional meaning. There’s an audible earnestness, then, a ferventness, but, unfortunately, the ratio of catchy anthems is low.

Father John Misty sings Scott Walker, Barbican review - edging towards the supernatural

Making magic with the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus and conductor Jules Buckley

A standing ovation part-way through a concert is unusual. Conductor Jules Buckley gestures to the members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus that they should rise. Beside Buckley, Father John Misty stands looking from the conductor to everyone else on the stage, to the audience. Seemingly, in the midst of this, he’s thrown.

Tallinn Music Week 2023 review - when music is unavoidably the language of freedom

Electropop, folk, yacht rock and more delights in Estonia’s capital city

Estonia’s Mart Avi styles himself as “the twilight samurai of alternative pop”. He creates “nowhere-somewhere music, mapping uncharted territories between avant-pop and timeless grandeur”. The characterisations are issued via AVICORP, his internet presence.

The Great Escape Festival 2023, Brighton review - a long, hot, messy Day Three

Our team check out Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, Thumpasaurus, Nice Biscuit, Moonlight Parade and more

“stay with the beer. beer is continuous blood. a continuous lover.” So said Charles Bukowski in his poem “how to be a great writer”. Who am I to argue. It’s a bright day and 11.50 AM. The sun isn’t past the yard-arm but the beer is cold and good. IPA. Finetime and I stand with Vanessa, her 18-year-old son Cody and her mate Jodie. Vanessa has a short blond crop which glows.

Music Reissues Weekly: Cherry Stars Collide, Waves of Distortion

CHERRY STARS COLLIDE, WAVES OF DISTORTION Shoegazing confirms its resonance

Shoegazing confirms its resonance

In July 2007, an article in The Guardian expressed surprise that shoegazing was influencing a series of current musicians, Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, Maps and Ulrich Schnauss amongst them.

“You could hear the heady, woozy influence of a style of music that had been a byword for naffness and overindulgence for the past 15 years,” said the article’s opening paragraph. “A type of music that Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers had said he ‘hated more than Hitler’".

The Great Escape Festival 2023, Brighton review - a vibrant dip into Day One

★★★★ THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL 2023, BRIGHTON A vibrant dip into Day One

Our team check out Moonchild Sanelly, Shelf Lives, Yot Club and Hannes

Brighton is writhing with music biz sorts. The Great Escape is here, the multi-venue festival that’s taken place here for over a decade-and-a-half, presenting bands from all over the world, most of them little known, at least in the UK. It takes place over four days, Wednesday to Saturday, although not much happens on Wednesday, so the real Day One is Thursday, and here we are.

Die Verlierer, New River Studios review - Berlin punks instantly find an audience at their UK debut

Assured display makes the case this German band could go a long way

It’s flabbergasting. OK, there’s the power of the internet as a propagation tool but here’s a German band playing their first UK show to a jumping-up-and-down audience punching the air while shouting along with the chorus of “X-Ray Vision” – which, indeed, is “X-Ray Vision”. The reception is extraordinary.

Album: BC Camplight - The Last Rotation of Earth

★★★★ BC CAMPLIGHT - THE LAST ROTATION OF EARTH Dark, often uncomfortably funny

Dark, often uncomfortably funny, dispatches from Brian Christinzio’s consciousness

On Brian Christinzio’s sixth album as BC Camplight, he wants listeners to know about his recent experiences and their effect on him. Herewith, a mostly unembroidered account of how he sees things. When allusiveness arrives, the metaphors are easy to interpret. The last three tracks are titled “Going Out on a Low Note”, “I'm Ugly” and “The Mourning”.

Album: SBTRKT - THE RAT ROAD

SBTRKT scratches that seven-year itch with an album that covers a LOT of bases

Aaron Jerome has always cut his own path through British music. After a few jazzy, groovy experiments under his own name in the 00s, he came dramatically to prominence at the end of that decade as SBTRKT. He was always associated with the post-dubstep moment where the UK bass subcultures of dubstep and grime folded back into house and techno, launching big names like Hessle Audio and Disclosure – but in fact he didn’t quite fit there.

Album: Everything But The Girl - Fuse

Duo return after a quarter of a century with something original and electronically enhanced

24 years since their last album, it’s pleasing to have Everything But The Girl back. That voice! They were conceived amidst post-post-punk “new pop” conceptualism, consistently made hit albums for 15 years, and only quit because they’d become bored of the naff entertainment industry circus. Happily, as only happens with a few bands who reappear after decades, Fuse does not disappoint.