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Find An Answer To That Question: Sparks On 'Hippopotamus' And Visual Songwriting
Sparks occupy a unique space in modern pop. Their new album, ‘Hippopotamus’ is their 23rd, and showcases the fundamentals of the band’s genre fusion: classically inspired songwriting shone through a prism of artful duality. It’s a kind of musical Theatre of the Absurd.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 13 September 2017
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Nostalgia on Pause: The Movielife Return With 'Cities in Search of a Heart'
On April 18, 2003 the Movielife played a show that Vinnie Caruana shouldn’t remember. It was part of a tour in support of their third album, ‘40 Hour Train Back to Penn’, at a club in Cardiff, Wales that isn’t there anymore. The place was half full, at a guess.
Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Tuesday, 12 September 2017
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Persistence And Patience: Kojey Radical Talks 'In Gods Body'
Photo: Ejiro Dafe
Kojey Radical endeavours to educate his audiences by offering new and original perspectives on life. He presents ideas that challenge our ideals and promotes change through the rejection of societal norms and any sense of political dictatorship.
Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Monday, 11 September 2017
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Capturing Chaos: Introducing Yassassin
Photo: Chris Almeida
Yassassin come from all over the world, with members hailing from Sweden, Italy, England and Australia. But it was the East London music scene that drew them into each other's orbit. After appearing on the same bills with their previous bands they started frequenting the same parties and became friends.
Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Wednesday, 06 September 2017
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Talent Will Out: Courtney Marie Andrews And The Road To 'Honest Life'
If you tuned in to Later…with Jools Holland earlier this year, you may have caught your first glimpse of Courtney Marie Andrews. Singing deeply introspective, poetic songs about heartache and personal growth with a hint of peak Joni Mitchell, that exposure was reward for years of toil that culminated in one of the finest albums of 2016: the soul-baring, bittersweet ‘Honest Life’.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Wednesday, 30 August 2017
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Stereophonics: Many Happy Returns To 'Word Gets Around'
A budding artist's early influences will almost certainly shape the sound of their debut record. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, they were often rammed full of cover versions and songs already flogged to death by a band as they perfected their chops. The Rolling Stones’ eponymous debut, for example, contained just one track penned by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – Tell Me (You’re Coming Back) – among its 12.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Tuesday, 29 August 2017
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Time and Place: The Preatures Find A Reflective New Space on 'Girlhood'
We have our own personal waypoints. Musicians have them too, but many of theirs also populate vinyl racks and streaming services. When the Preatures look back on their new LP, ‘Girlhood’, they’ll see their studio space in Surry Hills, Sydney. They’ll remember a night spent on a balcony with friends prior to playing a big festival set. They’ll watch their younger selves navigate the yawning space that follows a breakthrough release.
Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Thursday, 17 August 2017
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The Pop Kids: Heartache And Hooks With Girl Ray's 'Earl Grey'
Photo: Neil Thomson
There are times when we become hopelessly fixated on certain songs. We get hooked on the way they make us feel, or the fact that they just get us. They talk to us when we perhaps can’t verbalise what we’re going through, and that’s one of the reasons Poppy Hankin loves pop music so much.
Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 02 August 2017
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Laying It All Down: In Conversation With Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Cut Kenny Wayne Shepherd and he’ll bleed blue. Well, more specifically he’ll bleed the blues. The Louisiana native is a diehard. He has lived and breathed the genre since he helped to reinvigorate it in the mid-90s after bursting onto the block with a blistering sound that, although referencing the greats, gave the blues a youthful vibrancy and crossover appeal it badly needed.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Wednesday, 26 July 2017
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A Fascination With Destruction: The Enduring Appeal Of Guns N' Roses' Finest Hour
The year was 1987 and, for many, rock ‘n’ roll was truly fucked. The reason? A hairspray-soaked posse of posturing pretty boys who had set up shop with a commercially-charged, overproduced pop sound full of empty hedonistic abandon. Any notions of authenticity, rebellion and anarchy were superseded by a relentless desire to party hard and get laid. Until one band, and one record, woke everyone up.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Tuesday, 25 July 2017
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Elvis Costello: Many Happy Returns To 'My Aim Is True'
Take a look at the songwriting credits on the Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s seminal 1968 single Fire and, alongside those of the bandleader and his co-conspirator, Vincent Crane, you’ll find the names Mike Finesilver and Peter Ker. Less than a decade later, with the royalties from the record tucked in their pockets, the duo would turn four walls in north London into a den of punk creativity.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 24 July 2017
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Play The Shitty Hits: Katie Von Schleicher's Ambitious Twist On Pop's Best Moves
Photo: Chris Baker
You always feel a great pop song before you understand it. There’s a disconnect between a chorus that makes your heart swell, or a turn of phrase that makes tears well in your eyes, and the meticulous, sometimes sterile, process that helps transport a writer’s thoughts from the page to your turntable/phone/whatever. But Katie Von Schleicher finds magic on both sides of the equation.
Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 05 July 2017
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Vampire Weekend's Baio: Bowie, Trump and Being a 'Man of the World'
“Bowie showed me what an album could be,” Chris Baio says. “When I was 18 I heard ‘Low’ for the first time. It’s full of these weird but tight pop songs like Breaking Glass - a song with a memorable chorus and a big guitar riff - and then on the back half you’ve got Warszawa - this very abstract, ambient piece of music. It all happens on the same record and it never seems contrived. It all makes sense.”
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 30 June 2017
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Moving, Mutating, Surviving: Jehst Talks 'Billy Green is Dead'
Urban music and culture in the UK - whether that’s hip-hop, grime or any other format - has always by its very nature represented working class interests and struggle. It’s not surprising to see artists like Akala, Stormzy, Lowkey and Loyle Carner speaking out on incidents like the fire at Grenfell Tower or supporting anti-establishment figures like Jeremy Corbyn. Nevertheless, this movement’s increased visibility on public forums has inevitably sparked wider interest: who are these soapbox or ‘political’ rappers?
Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Thursday, 29 June 2017
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ABC: Many Happy Returns To 'The Lexicon of Love'
Last year finally saw the release of one of the most long-awaited sequels in musical history: ABC’s ‘The Lexicon of Love II’. The album landed almost 35 years on from the pop outfit’s landmark debut, echoing and rivalling the original.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 21 June 2017
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Algiers: Communing With The Ghosts of Pop on 'The Underside of Power'
Photo: Dustin Condren
Drop the needle on Aretha Franklin’s Young, Gifted and Black and you’ll also find yourself in the room with the song's composers, Nina Simone and Weldon Irvine, as well as its inspiration: the playwright Lorraine Hansberry. You’ll hear notes that accompanied the civil rights movement in America, words that rose in throats alongside spirituals and folk songs dating back decades. That’s pop music: a conversation between past and present. It’s the chance to commune with ghosts.
Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Tuesday, 20 June 2017
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Radiohead's 'OK Computer' At 20: The Footprints of a Masterpiece
Twenty years ago, Radiohead put out the seminal ‘OK Computer’. The record is being reissued to mark the occasion, alongside assorted b-sides and rarities, while the band will soon headline Glastonbury, something they also did in the immediate aftermath of its arrival back in 1997.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 16 June 2017
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