Reviews

Inside Reviews

Reading Festival, Berkshire

Sunday, 6 September 2009

The band of brothers threw an Oasis-style tantrum at Reading Festival, but Chipmunk and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs made their mark

Album: Age of Chance, 1000 Years of Trouble / The EPs (EMI)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

Age of Chance arrived like a well-aimed grenade amid the lily-livered cuties of the C86 scene.

Album: Os Mutantes, Haih or Amortecedor, (Anti)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

Formed in Brazil in 1966, Os Mutantes combined pyschedelic rock with traditional Brazilian music to create a sound that has since found favour with artists as varied and influential as Beck, Byrne, Banhart and Kurt Cobain. But can the legend survive a new record, OM's first in 35 years?

Album: Zero 7, Yeah Ghost (Atlantic)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

If Faithless are a poor man's Massive Attack, then Zero 7 truly are a band for credit crunch times.

Album: Various artists, Theme Time Radio Hour Season 2 (Ace)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

More great dancing around the kitchen music from DJ Bob Dylan's radio show, cannily compiled into a second double CD with scholarly annotations by a mystic-sounding Billy Bragg.

Album: George Pringle, Salon des Refus�s (Deth To Fals Metal Records)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

Concerns that 2009's electro-pop resurgence has nowhere left to run are partially allayed by this self-styled "diseuse" – a monologue performer, for the uninitiated.

Album: Jackie Oates, Hyperboreans (Unearthed)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

Length-and-line English pop-folk, well-chosen songs, nicely executed and pretty as some spring mornings.

Album: Tom Bancroft, The Ballad of Linda and Crawford (Interrupto)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

Beginning with the rat-tat-tat-tat of the irresistible "Toxic Beaming Happiness", which mixes music written for the US pianist Geri Allen with an homage to Britney Spears, drummer/ composer/bandleader Bancroft has created a powerful yet playful concept album about personal/marital breakdown.

Album: Various artists, Three Score Years and Ten (Topic Records)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

"Seventy years of the oldest independent label in Great Britain," it says, with truth on its side, the label being Topic and the three score years and 10 being the time they've taken to record the folk music of these islands.

Album: Netsayi, Monkey's Wedding (World Connection)

Sunday, 6 September 2009

Just as Mali's Rokia Traor� irritated some purists with her coolly innovative recent album Tchamantch�, so Zimbabwe's Netsayi is set to ruffle a few ceremonial feathers with this thrilling mix of African polyrhythms and Joan Armatrading-style singer-songwriting.

Album: Prefab Sprout, Let's Change the World with Music (Kitchenware) (Rated 2/ 5 )

Friday, 4 September 2009

The title of Prefab Sprout's first album in eight years embodies the kind of vaunting egotism one might expect from Bono, Sting or some other mononymic would-be saviour, and one's first instinct is to suppose it's ironically intended.

Album: Various Artists, Theme Time Radio Hour, Season 2 (Ace) (Rated 5/ 5 )

Friday, 4 September 2009

This second compilation of juicy morsels plucked from Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour is every bit as nourishing as the first, its 50 tracks ranging from 1927 ("Diamond Joe" by The Georgia Crackers) to 2004 (Jolie Holland's "Goodbye California"), and stylistically across the entire gamut of musical endeavour, except maybe heavy metal and heavy classical.

Album: The Cribs, Ignore the Ignorant (Wichita) (Rated 2/ 5 )

Friday, 4 September 2009

Last heard wielding guitar for American alt.rockers Modest Mouse a year or two ago, Johnny Marr continues his outreach programme dedicated to bringing a touch of intrigue and style to otherwise unremarkable indie rockers by now turning up as the second guitarist in The Cribs.

Album: Os Mutantes, Haih Or Amortecedor (Anti) (Rated 4/ 5 )

Friday, 4 September 2009

For the legendary Tropicália group's first release in 35 years, sole remaining founder member S�rgio Dias Baptista has again turned to fellow Brazilian musical revolutionaries Tom Z� and Jorge Ben for co-writing assistance.

Album: Zero 7, Yeah Ghost (Atlantic) (Rated 4/ 5 )

Friday, 4 September 2009

While most of their peers in the downtempo chill-out genre have steadily declined through their careers, Zero 7 have somehow managed to buck the trend.

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