MUSIC IS THE

ROXY MUSIC: Los Angeles: After 50 years, few bands deliver more than this

On the final night of their first American tour in over two decades, art rock pioneers Roxy Music started at the beginning. They appeared on stage at The Forum in Los Angeles and launched straight into “Re-Make/Re-Model”, the eclectic, experimental song that opened their self-titled debut album in 1972. Behind them, towering screens showed the […]

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JULIAN LENNON: Emotional echoes of the artist’s complicated public history reverberate through his album’s solid collection of mature mid-tempo rockers and ballads

Calling his seventh album Jude was an act of reclamation for Julian Lennon. In a recent interview, the 59-year-old explained that, while 1968 song “Hey, Jude” is “a great chanting song, a favourite Beatles song”, for him it had always been “a harsh reminder of what actually happened in my life, which was that my […]

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THE PRODIGY: Raved about then, ignored now – whatever happened to the band’s incendiary 1997 album? Ed Power revisits its multiple controversies to find out

T he crab snapping its claws on the cover of The Prodigy’s The Fat of the Land can justifiably claim to be the most famous crustacean in pop. It also has become a slightly unfortunate metaphor for a record that raised a huge, click-clacking ruckus when it first came out, but which has ultimately ended […]

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THE BYRDS: Solo Flytes Volume 1. (Limited 3CD Set)

We are told: A new 3CD series with a remit to trawl through performances of the solo work of former Byrds members. This exhaustive series will exhume rarities from Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, David Crosby, Gene Parsons, Gram Parsons, Skip Battin and Clarence White as they plough through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s playing radio […]

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The Smiths’ final album was the band’s favourite despite being “unusual sounding”, drummer Mike Joyce has said on the 35th anniversary of its release.

Strangeways, Here We Come was released on 28 September, 1987, months after the Manchester band disbanded in acrimony. It went on to reach number two in the UK charts and was the group’s most successful album in the US. Joyce said though the band had split before it came out, it had been “a great […]

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NICK MASON: Uncages Memories of Making Animals, Declares Which Pink Floyd Albums Sound Better in Mono on Vinyl, and Explains Why the Band Came Up With a New Song in 2022

STEREOPHILE Let’s face it — January 1977’s Animals has always been considered to be somewhat of a dark horse in the Pink Floyd recorded canon. Yet here in Year 45 of Animals, the album is finally getting a rightly deserved re-evaluation, thanks to Animals 2018 Remix (Pink Floyd Records/Sony Music), which was just released on […]

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JONI MITCHELL: Some viewed Wild Things Run Fast, which turns 40 next month, as a betrayal of her roots. Looking back, the reality is far more complicated

Tourists visiting the Caribbean during the summer of 1981 might have spotted something unexpected: Joni Mitchell in the thick of things at a disco, grooving up a storm to the Police’s inscrutable hit De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da. “I love to dance, and anytime I heard it, boy, I didn’t care if […]

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RED HOT CHILLI PEPERS: Live (3CD)

We are told: THREE SUPERB FM BROADCASTS FROM JAPAN 1990, USA 1991 & EUROPE 1995 The most formidable of contemporary rock groups, the Red Hot Chili Peppers don’t just defy categorisation, they appear to invent their own with every new release – and often do likewise within the confines of a live performance. Indeed, the […]

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MUSIC NEWS: Kit Downes / Petter Eidh / James Maddren – Vermillion

THOM JUREK writes … Vermillion is the third ECM leader date by classically trained British pianist and organist Kit Downes. He began his tenure with the label on 2018’s Obsidian, a collection of mostly solo pieces recorded in churches on pipe organs. His follow-up, 2019’s Dreamlife of Debris, showcased him playing piano and organ in […]

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DEXTER GORDON: Our Man In Paris (Numbered 140g Clear Vinyl LP)

We are told …. This 1963 date is titled for Dexter Gordon’s living in self-imposed Parisian exile and recording there with two other expatriates and a French native. Along with Gordon, pianist Bud Powell and Kenny “Klook” Clarke were living in the City of Lights and were joined by the brilliant French bassman Pierre Michelot. […]

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TUBBY HAYES: Dancing in the Dark – review by John Fordham

  The Savage-Solveig label devotes itself to the archive of previously unreleased live material by the dazzling British sax star of the 50s and 60s, Edward Brian “Tubby” Hayes. This session finds the bop virtuoso at Nottingham’s Dancing Slipper club (a favourite haunt of a jazz-loving teenager who would become Kenneth Clarke MP) on 12 […]

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KOMEDA: The giant of Polish jazz

MARTYNA KIELEK / Senior Music Editor It is not possible to talk about Polish jazz (which I intend to make one of my regular topics here, among other types of jazz and occasionally blues music) without bringing up the composer and pianist Krzysztof Komeda. His enormous talent (displayed during a time in communist-governed Poland when […]

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THE BYRDS: News

This remarkable set was taped for radio broadcast very soon after the band’s new line-up of Roger McGuinn, Clarence White, Gene Parsons and John York had coalesced. Despite the turmoil in their recent history, they turn in a superb series of performances on a fascinating selection of songs (several of which they rarely played), featuring […]

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