That elderly lady in the loft, who had no shower or kitchen, who threw parties for the bohemian crowd, where she played strange, ringing, twanging instruments with a faraway look in her eyes? Around New Orleans they said she lived in a hippy commune before hippies existed, or worked her passage as a cabin girl on a Mississippi steamboat, or ran away to a monastery in Mexico with an anarchist priest. They said she had two kids, that she had studied in Europe and travelled all over the world; some said she was secretly involved in a famous pop...
Both Jewish and Arab, musically omnivorous but unmistakeably Middle Eastern, globe-trotting trio El Khat are a fascinating hot mess of sounds and influences. Their founder, frontman and primary songwriter Eyal El Wahab is part of the huge Yemeni-Jewish population in Israel, mostly children of refugees who fled persecution in Yemen in the late 1940s, a diaspora now numbering over 400,000. Named after the plant famous for inducing mind-bending euphoria, El Khat’s mission is to keep the unsung cultural heritage of their ancestors alive, but on their own terms, adding a healthy dollop of DIY attitude, psych-rock energy and noisy experimentalism. They are promiscuous folk-punk mongrels,...
She arrives, of course, as if by magic. As dancers dressed with giant flower petal costumes move around the stage, like extras from Rio Carnival, she appears without warning, popping up from a trapdoor in the centre of a walkway stretching deep into the audience. She is beamed onto a giant screen that covers the length of the stage, her expression suggesting she’s seemingly been caught by surprise – what are you lot doing here? – before she bursts out smiling and the roar of the crowd gets even louder. JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES...
HAVE A COPY SENT DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR “Rock’n’roll,” sang Alex Chilton on 1972’s “Thirteen”, “is here to stay…” We couldn’t agree more, so it’s a real honour to present Out Past Midnight: A Big Star Sampler, a compilation of hand-picked tracks from one of the greatest bands of all time. With this CD, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Big Star’s Radio City, along with the live tribute shows later this year, and marking a half-century since Chris Bell set out on his solo career with I Am The Cosmos – but really, there’s no need for an...
Bruklin ’s new single, “Magic Show,” is a dynamic pop track that has quickly captured the spotlight. Produced by Oak Felder and Sebastian Cole, this song stands out with its infectious beats and catchy melodies, perfectly reflecting Bruklin’s distinctive style. The accompanying music video, shot with imaginative circus elements and energetic dance routines, further amplifies the track’s vibrant energy. This visual treat has already garnered over a million views within a week of its release, cementing Bruklin‘s rising star status in the pop music industry. Her previous hit, “Stay Friends,” laid the groundwork for this latest success, and “Magic...
The song remains the same – but also different A tough act to follow, Led Zeppelin. And as you’ll read in the latest Ultimate Music Guide, just because you were Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, the band’s main songwriters, didn’t mean that you found it easy. For Robert Plant, in the first place it meant retrenching in the past: gathering some bandmates from 15 years ago, and songs even older than that. The mission? To shake out the cobwebs round Britain’s university venues with a band he called the Honeydrippers. Jimmy Page meanwhile hit the rehearsal rooms with Chris...
Amelia Earhart was the pioneering American aviator who, among her many achievements, became the first women to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. She led the way in other areas too, using her fame to champion women’s rights, including the Equal Rights Movement, endorse commercial air travel, write bestselling books, take on sponsorship deals and, more broadly, promote her passions in public. She had the ear of President Roosevelt and blazed a trail for women in an industry where female pilots and mechanics are still woefully underrepresented. JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND...
The urge to disentangle certain charismatic artists from the mythos that clings to them is as eternally irresistible as it is futile. Interviews and memoirs are useful for this only if the subject/narrator is 100% reliable; the internet, teeming with wild opinions and purported truths, is no place to look for verification. Which is why a combination of cultural romanticism and institutionalised trust still has us looking to an artist’s songs for clues as to who they “really” are. As someone drawn to the dark side – well documented, not least of all in his unflinching autobiography Sing Backwards...
Jacken Elswyth was always likely to be an alternative folk musician. Until recently, her parents were members of the band Sproatly Smith, at the centre of Herefordshire’s ‘Weirdshire’ folk scene; they’re also the two guests joining Elswyth on her new album, At Fargrounds. “It’s not exactly a standard narrative,” she smiles. “My parents aren’t old folkies who sang in folk clubs while I was young. We’re both approaching folk from a slightly oblique angle and doing something a bit strange with it. But it does mean that there is a connection there to the image of traditional song being...
When Josef K were promoting a retrospective compilation in 1987, they were asked about the title. Why was it called Young And Stupid? “Because we were,” they replied. Since then, the Edinburgh band’s mystique has only grown, and their slim catalogue has been endlessly reappraised. The fact that Josef K’s music was released on Postcard Records has been a help and a hindrance. The group were outshone by the more flamboyant Orange Juice, and the label’s sock-drawer Svengali Alan Horne sometimes gave the impression he had signed them by mistake. JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES...