CD: Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus

★★★ CD: JACQUES GREEN - DAWN CHORUS Housey electronic suite from Toronto producer is gently alluring

Housey electronic suite from Toronto producer is gently alluring

Canadian DJ-producer Philippe Aubin-Dionne – AKA Jacques Greene – has had a successful career in global clubland. One release in particular, his spacey 2011 deconstruction of the song “Deuces” by R&B star Ciara, which he entitled “Another Girl”, created waves in the world of house music. His 2017 album Feel Infinite demonstrated he had vision enough to hold listeners on a longer electronic journey.

CD: 808 State - Transmission Suite

First album in 17 years from Mancunian electronic innovators is an engaging retro-futurist ear-journey

Prior to the UK dance music explosion of summer 1988, house and techno were American micro-scenes, geographically restricted to Chicago, Detroit and New York. Small coteries showed interest in the UK, but few thought of making the stuff. Mancunian producers 808 State, however, were early adopters, recording an album that year and later charting with iconic 1989 hit “Pacific State”, a futuristic, Balearic instrumental.

Reissue CDs Weekly: The Daisy Age

Compilation celebrating hip hop’s most magpie-minded chapter

In the lyrics of 1989’s “Doin’ Our Own Dang”, Jungle Brothers’ Mike D noted his combo were “Breaking the beat others wished they broke.” Going further, he acknowledged “Cause you’re trying to feel what’s on my reel to reel.” Jungle Brothers recognised they were not on their own. During the same year, the like-minded De La Soul released their debut album 3 Feet High and Rising.

CD: Metronomy - Metronomy Forever

★★★★ METRONOMY - METRONOMY FOREVER Double album finds band at both their most accessible and most challenging

Double album finds band at both their most accessible and most challenging

According to Metronomy maestro Joseph Mount, his first attempt of album number six was a much snappier affair. But it wasn’t until he broke from his self-imposed immediacy that it started connecting with him. In its final form, Metronomy Forever clocks in at 17 tracks of singles, instrumentals and soundscapes, and though it skirts close to double-album indulgence, you’re never more than one song away from a winner.

CD: Kano - Hoodies All Summer

★★★★★ CD: KANO - HOODIES ALL SUMMER A career best for an MC at the heart of grime

A career best for an MC who's been at the heart of grime since its inception

Of all grime's original generation, Kano has a strong claim to being the greatest rhyme-constructor in the old school hip hop sense of dense rhymes packed with multiple meanings. Add movie star looks and a penchant for fur coats in photoshoots and he was most young grime fans' tip for following Dizzee Rascal into the big league.

Gossip, SWG3, Glasgow - a reunion tour worth celebrating

Dance-punk trio bring pre-Pride party vibes to Glasgow

If there was a downer during the giddy, gleeful Glasgow stop of Gossip’s recent run of shows, it was only when front woman Beth Ditto introduced the band as being “not really together but we’re here”. The dance-punk trio - joined, for this short run of reunion shows, by pre-split touring members Chris Sutton on bass and Gregg Foreman on keyboards - were made to front sweaty rooms, with Ditto in particular a gleaming vision in a sleek black wig and metallic pink dress.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Jambú e os Míticos Sons da Amazônia

REISSUE CDS WEEKLY Jambú e os Míticos Sons da Amazônia - portrait of Brazilian city Belém

Top-notch aural portrait of Brazilian city Belém

Belém’s population is one-and-a-half million. Located 100km south of Brazil’s north coast on the east bank of the Amazon feeder river Pará, it’s the capital of the state sharing its name with the waterway. The city is only 160km south of the equator, an entry point into the rain forest and closer to Trinidad and Tobago than Brazil’s cultural magnet Rio de Janeiro.

CD: Avicii - TIM

★★★ CD: AVICII - TIM The soul of extreme musical populism bared, heartbreakingly

The soul of extreme musical populism bared, heartbreakingly

Sadness abounds in Avicii's posthumous third album. In context, even the plaintive single syllable of the title is full of pathos. It reminds of the real person, the Swede Tim Bergling who as a teenager discovered he had an unerring ability to hit the commercial sweet spot with his dance productions, and rocketed to global giga-fame.

Primal Scream, The Haunt, Brighton review - up-close, short, raucous and sweaty

★★★★ PRIMAL SCREAM, BRIGHTON FESTIVAL Frenetic small-scale gig is short and sweaty

Frenetic small-scale gig by the large-scale rock'n'roll band

Primal Scream have played in this city, in the recent past, at the 4,500 capacity Brighton Centre but tonight they’re in a venue which holds well under 400. A bananas atmosphere reigns when bands of their stature play intimate shows, and so it is tonight.

CD: Kornél Kovács - Stockholm Marathon

Tropical house taken to Sweden and made interesting

On his second album, Swedish star DJ Kornél Kovács has achieved the impossible and made “tropical house” interesting. Somehow, he's taken every cliché of that slow, lilting pop dance sound Drake and lifestyle influencers Instagramming from pristine beaches and tweaked them to find unexpected strangeness and depths.