Musique Non Stop: February 2018

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Madonna and Grimes lay bare cost of creative freedom for female artists

Laments from the two stars show that an industry quick to sell the idea of female independence is far less keen to support it

The buried Instagram comment and hastily deleted tweet have become a kind of desperate cri de career for female artists who have founded professional lives on on bold statements. This weekend, both Madonna and Grimes used Instagram’s comments section to express their frustration with how their respective teams were handling their new material.

On Saturday Madonna’s manager, Guy Oseary, posted a glowing tribute to Madonna’s album Ray of Light on its 20th anniversary: “Love this woman. Love this album,” he wrote. Deep down the comments thread were two contributions from the artist herself. “Can you help me now please!! ” read the first, followed by a pointed addendum that referenced her work with William Orbit on the album. “Remember when I made records with other artists from beginning to end and I was allowed to be a visionary and not have to go to song writing camps where no one can sit still for more than 15 minutes … coming soon”

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by Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Resonators at WoW Music Festival on 29/06

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Resonators at MondoMix Festival on 02/06

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Resonators at Knockengorragh Festival on 26/05

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Sunday, February 25, 2018

Nils Frahm review – neoclassicism with knobs on

Barbican, London
Germany’s cult king of ambient piano charmed London with his uplifting arpeggios, artful dial-twiddling and… toilet brushes

When he was a boy, Nils Frahm was taught to play the piano by a stern Russian, Nahum Brodsky, who himself had been taught by a pupil of Tchaikovsky’s. When Frahm’s hands fly across a grand piano tonight – the lid removed, so that its innards are exposed, the better to be hit by toilet brushes – you can be in no doubt of this 35-year-old’s pedigree and his incandescent classical chops. Frahm’s left hand will build an insistent rhythm, and his right will run up and the down the keys, arpeggiating wildly.

Sometimes, Frahm will kick off a black-and-white Adidas trainer with the intensity of it all; afterwards, he will towel himself off like a rock star. And Frahm is something of a rock star, albeit one without a leather boot on the monitor. This German pianist is also an analogue keyboard ninja, an acoustics nerd, and the poster boy for a classical crossover genre (neoclassical, post-classical, the unwieldy labels go on and on) indebted to jazz, ambient electronic music and much time spent clubbing.

You spend much time bobbing violently in your seat to the ghost of a snare drum, to an implied beat

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by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian

Young Fathers: ‘Everybody has a dark side. We’re all complicit…’

Award-winning Edinburgh hip-hop trio Young Fathers on ‘bad men’, shadow-boxing with portraits, and their new album, Cocoa Sugar

On a cold Sunday night at the end of January, a rapt audience at London’s Barbican Centre is watching a new film called Fetish, showing a naked black man walking through the streets of New York. It is an evening of audio-visual art marking the end of Boom for Real, last year’s monumental exhibition of the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Directed by Topher Campbell, the film is a commentary on the black male body, vulnerability and “othering”, and it is scored live by the Scottish band Young Fathers, powerfully matching the video’s growing sense of dread leading up to a euphoric release.

It’s hard to imagine many other bands in the country who could pull this off, or even attempt to. Back in 2014, as relative unknowns, Young Fathers beat favourite FKA twigs to win the Mercury prize with their debut album Dead, a mesmerising mix of genres that sounded like nothing else around. They quickly followed it up with White Men Are Black Men Too, a disconcerting, occasionally abrasive but captivating second album. They have toured the world, collaborated with Massive Attack, and Danny Boyle liked them so much he included six of their songs in last year’s T2: Trainspotting. They are, it is generally accepted, a critical success if not a mainstream one.

A lot of bands are coming out of the woodwork and being overtly political because of the current climate we’re in

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by Kathryn Bromwich via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Nils Frahm review – short on harmony but texture and tone in spades

Barbican, London
Frahm jokes about his musical limitations, but his piano solos are quiet riots that transport you to a higher plane

He might be the most popular solo pianist on earth at the moment but the Berlin-based “neo-classical” star Nils Frahm will be the first to admit that he’s not a classical pianist of any description. In this two-hour show there is little harmony or chordal development, scarcely any improvisation, and – with the exception of the jagged, nerve-wracking, Michael Nyman-ish piano solo Hammers – little virtuosity. What you get in spades, however, is texture – something that the classical conservatoires and jazz modules have always ignored.

You can buy the sheet music for Frahm’s piano solos, but the notes that he rattles out on his panoply of keyboards are almost incidental. What’s important is the tone; the grain; the satisfying way in which each studio-crafted voicing plonks and zings and bounces around the auditorium.

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by John Lewis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Wah Wah Radio – February 2018

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Buttering Trio – Starshroom (Oh No Remix)

Hector Plimmer – Sunshine (Emma Jean Thackray Remix)

Kraak & Smaak – Breakdown Suite

Black Flower – Fly High Oh My

Nick Hakim – Cuffed

Kali Uchis – After the Storm feat. Bootsy Collins & Tyler, the Creator

Koyma Hondo – Boncana Maïga

The Colours That Rise – Map to Cydonia

The Pumphouse Gang – Welcome Back into my Life

Ruff Stuff – Kiss of Death

The Mauskovic Dance Band – Down in the Basement

Ondeno – Mayolye

Honeyfeet – Whatever You Do (Radio Edit)

Ola Szmidt – Wrapped (Modified Man Remix)

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Soothsayers at Hideaway on 13/04

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Dom Servini at Giant Robot on 19/04

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Dom Servini at The Jazz Cafe on 27/04

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Dom Servini at The Jazz Cafe on 13/04

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Dom Servini at South London Soul Train – OMEARA on 24/02

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Monday, February 19, 2018

Principal Sound review – Luigi Nono's fragile postcards from Venice

St John’s Smith Square, London
Alongside works by Morton Feldman, the experimental music festival centred on the Italian composer’s enigmatic pieces that blur instrumentation into electronics

Principal Sound is three days of concerts devoted to the music of the last half century. It takes its title from the only organ work composed by Morton Feldman, who was the featured composer at the first event two years ago. There was Feldman in this latest weekend of concerts too, but this time the focus of attention was the late music of Luigi Nono, the fragile, fragmented pieces he composed in the years up to his death in 1990.

Performances of those works, often involving electronics and exploring extended instrumental techniques, are still rare in the UK, but four of them were included during the weekend. There was … Sofferte onde Serene..., for piano and prerecorded sounds, with its remembrances of Venice’s bells of and the echoing emptiness of its lagoon, played with wonderful authority and assurance by Siwan Rhys, and A Pierre, Dell’azzurro Silenzio, Inquietum from members of the Explore Ensemble, a tribute to Boulez from 1985, in which electronics blur the edges of the sonorities of bass flute and contrabass clarinet. Most enigmatic of all was the last piece that Nono composed, “Hay Que Caminar” Soñando, for two violins (Clemens Merkel and Alissa Cheung from the Bozzini Quartet) dispersed around the auditorium and responding to each other in halting phrases or assertive outbursts.

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by Andrew Clements via Electronic music | The Guardian

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Everything Is Recorded: Everything Is Recorded By Richard Russell review – mogul music with a stellar cast

As head of XL, Richard Russell shaped UK music for three decades. His own debut release finds its voice in many singers

Imagine, for a moment, being the man who signed Adele. You run a label – XL – home to mavericks as diverse as Dizzee Rascal, Radiohead and Arca, and you produce records by your heroes – Gil Scott-Heron, Bobby Womack – in what one might laughably call your spare time. By many people’s definitions, you’d be about as fulfilled, three-dimensional and jammy a human as there is. In 2015, your net worth was guessed at £75m, but your impact on British music is harder to calculate.

Then imagine being paralysed. One minute, you’re putting out Gil Scott-Heron’s final album. And then – insert an obscure sound effect here, the kind that you collect – you’re laid low by Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system. It’s 2013, you’re in hospital, and you can just about twiddle your fingers. Geoff Barrow, on behalf of Portishead, sends you a dinky synth – a pocket piano by Critter & Guitari to be precise – to retrain your synapses and stop you going mad. You can’t help but read Russell’s paralysis as one of those defining moments that would map the road ahead, if he could ever get his motor skills back.

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by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian

Fischerspoon: Sir review – not worth the nine-year wait

(Ultra)

Fischerspooner were key to the electroclash movement that briefly twinned Europe’s gay capitals and New York almost 20 years ago. The American duo have finally resurfaced with their first album in nine years, produced by REM’s Michael Stipe. In an unfortunate choice of phrase for British readers, W magazine described frontman Casey Spooner’s voyage of discovery after ending a long relationship as “bumming around Europe”. Sadly, the album doesn’t sound half as much fun as the journey.

Yes, Stipe’s work is often impressively feral, pitting harsh junkyard-dog synths against mountains of reverb. Yet the songs are largely weak, paralysed by unresolved tension. They lack the explosive catharsis that made Fischerspooner’s very first single Emerge an underground classic, or the radio-friendly arrangements of their best album Odyssey.

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by Damien Morris via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, February 15, 2018

The Chainsmokers review - pyrotechnic rallying slogans and theatrical self-loathing

Alexandra Palace, London
Gimmicks, grand entrances and pop-cultural gags inhabit the DJ duo’s universe, where vague grievances attain epic proportions

Each pop era needs a critical piñata to embody all its horrifying afflictions, but few offer quite so large a target as the Chainsmokers. Derided first for their sexist videos, then their preposterous interviews, the duo have nonetheless insinuated themselves into the culture’s fabric. To their credit, the New Yorkers’ breakthrough in 2014 had substance, ushering a pensive sensibility into the rapidly expiring EDM movement. Their palette soon broadened – they’ve now settled into a sort of pop-house for soulful bros – but not as quickly as their audience, which has generated more song streams than the planet has inhabitants.

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by Jazz Monroe via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Classic Album Sundays with Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy & special guest Dom Servini on Worldwide FM

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Dom joins Colleen to discuss the award winning 1977 album, Aja, by Steely Dan.

Founded by radio host, music producer, label owner and journalist, Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy, Classic Album Sundays allows listeners to fully immerse themselves into an album by exploring its context, the making of and a full replay of the album on vinyl. This edition focuses on Steely Dan’s iconic album, Aja.

Released in late 1977, Aja was Steely Dan’s sixth, and most successful, studio album – a Grammy-winning masterpiece of jazz, disco, funk and rock. The brainchild of vocalist/keyboardist Donald Fagen and guitarist Walter Becker, brought to fruition by nearly 40 high skilled session musicians, the record audibly demonstrates the advanced performing and production techniques that Fagen and Becker had mastered and experimented with. The record is a infusion of importance in today’s musical history and remains a significant piece of work to modern music.

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Dom Servini – Unherd Radio Show #12 on Soho Radio

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Matthewdavid – PSA

Piero Umiliani – Avventura

Toshio Matsuura Group – I am the Black Gold of the Sun

Kansado – Rahpapa

Berlin Lama – Ego

Run Child Run – Stay There

The Mauskovic Dance Band – Down in the Basement

DJ Khalab – Zaire (Medlar Remix)

Soothsayers – Dis & Dat (Ben Hauke Remix)

Abstract Orchestra – New Day feat. Illa J

Edu Passeto & Gui Tavares – Sabia Na Plameira

Bocana Maiga – Koyma Hondo

Choker Campbell – Carioca (Mark Grusane Edit)

Unknown – Morning Shunt (Moton Edit)

Spaced Out – Bongo Lumbo

Buttering Trio – Cacti Juice

Buttering Trio – Refugee Song (Cohenbeats Remix)

Nostalgia 77 – Sleepwalker (Ambassadeurs Remix)

Alek Lee – Public Solitude

Garden City Movement – Garden City Affair

Hamid El Shaeri – Ayonha

The Blackbyrds – Mysterious Vibez (Sam Von Horn Edit)

Peggy Gou – It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)

Franklin Black – Gifted People (Karizma Remix)

Soulphiction – Dirty Hot

Broken Transient – Smile

Karriem Riggins – Cheap Suite 3 feat. Homeboy Sandman

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – Tear it Down

Stance Brothers – Prayer

Medasi – Children

Amnesty – Love Fades

Alessandro Alessandroni – Underground Disco

Gimmicks – Slipping into Darkness

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Resonators at WoW Music Festival on 29/06

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Resonators at Mondomix on 02/06

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Resonators at Knockengorroch World Ceilidh on 26/05

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Resonators at The Yellow Arch on 25/05

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Resonators at The Trinity Centre on 19/05

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Resonators at Small World Theatre on 18/05

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Resonators at Brighton Spiegeltent on 10/04

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Resonators at Kemp Town Carnival on 18/04

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Resonators at The Classic Grand on 20/04

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Resonators at The Cluny on 19/04

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Resonators at Upfront Gallery Arts Venue on 21/04

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Sunday, February 11, 2018

Jóhann Jóhannsson: the late Icelandic composer who made loss sublime

Best known for his film scores, Jóhannsson’s earlier electronic and classical work confronted existential horror

Despite its regular use during inspiring moments on nature documentaries, Jóhann Jóhannsson never made music that’s particularly easy listening on its own – and Lord, it’s tough listening to him now.

After hearing of his death, I found my notes from when I saw him at the Barbican in 2012: “He makes music for endings, shut-down mines, obsolete mainframe computers and failed utopias ... the notes fade away, the stories have already finished, everything ends.”

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by Joe Muggs via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Electronic pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto: 'My great regret is not reconnecting with Bowie'

With the Yellow Magic Orchestra, he inspired the sound of hip-hop, electro and techno. Then, the Japanese composer won an Oscar and worked many of the greats, including Davids Bowie and Byrne. Now, in recovery from cancer, his impulse to innovate is as strong as ever

On the roof of a half-built tower block overlooking Oslo’s harbour, Ryuichi Sakamoto – former global pop star, a godfather of techno and hip-hop and an Oscar-winning composer – is in a makeshift plastic shack, coaxing microscopic scratches and scrapes out of a cello, then turning them into huge tonal washes with his laptop. As the sun sets, artificial mist billows through the crowd, floodlights suspended from the construction site’s cranes swing above us and the lithe dancer Min Tanaka strikes alarming poses on the parapet of the building, disappearing in and out of the fake clouds.

This performance for the city’s Ultima festival, a collaboration with “fog sculptor” Fujiko Nakaya, is profoundly moving: elegant, nuanced, emotional, rich with cultures from across the globe. Themes of ageing and mortality emerge as Tanaka disappears into the mist; he is 72, Nakaya is 84 and Sakamoto is 65 and in recovery from the throat cancer he was diagnosed with in 2014. These themes also appear throughout the 2017 album, Async, Sakamoto’s first solo effort in seven years. Heralded as one of the year’s electronic highlights, it is now bolstered by Async Remodels, a set of remixes by the cream of the avant garde, including the Björk collaborator Arca and Oneohtrix Point Never.

Asian music influenced Debussy, who influenced me – it’s all a huge circle

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by Joe Muggs via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Dom Servini at Bussey Building on 17/02

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Dom Servini at The Jazz Cafe on 30/03

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Dom Servini at Giant Robot on 15/08

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Honeyfeet at Shambala Festival on 25/08

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James Blake review – cyborg pop warmed by human touch

Roundhouse, London
Blake tests new material for his forthcoming album with each freshly unveiled song sounding totally different from the last

A radical spectacle is taking place at this James Blake gig. Abandoning his piano and unfolding his long limbs, he’s finishing his first UK show in over a year by standing at the front of the Roundhouse stage. His cracked falsetto sounds relaxed enough, but the physical requirements of being a frontman seem new; his only concession to them is a geriatric shuffle.

Tonight is a chance for Blake to test material expected to appear on his fourth album, some of which he has to restart as he falters with his loop pedal. Recalling his dubstep-influenced early EPs, Blake’s voice on new single If the Car Beside You Moves Ahead stutters like a malfunctioning droid – apparently the result of hours of studio manipulation – yet he recreates the effect live, leaving the audience perceptibly wowed. It’s uncanny and impressive; a cyborg pop concept warmed by human touch.

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by Chal Ravens via Electronic music | The Guardian

Monday, February 5, 2018

Hookworms: are they the most cursed band in pop?

Fraud, flood, the loss of their back catalogue and all their new songs … the Leeds band reveal how they bounced back from all this and more to make knockout new album Microshift

‘It was like being in a disaster movie.” That’s how Hookworms singer Matthew “MJ” Johnson remembers Boxing Day in 2015, when the river Aire burst its banks, engulfing the band’s studio and rehearsal space. He was having lunch at his parents’ house several miles away at the time. The moment he heard the emergency flood alert, Johnson abandoned the meal and drove through rising water to the studio, which was soon five feet under. “The electricity was off and there was an eerie calm,” he says. “It was genuinely scary. I’ve got strong legs through cycling but I kept getting knocked over.”

Because the building, in the Kirkstall area of Leeds, was on a flood plain, he’d been unable to get insurance (even though the last flood had occurred in 1866). By the time he went back two days later to assess the damage, the waters had taken his car, much of the band’s back catalogue, their new recordings and – since he ran the place as a commercial studio – his livelihood. “I looked around,” he says, “and there was nothing left.”

We were being ripped off. It's a steep learning curve

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by Dave Simpson via Electronic music | The Guardian

The month's best music: Jonghyun, Marmozets, Peggy Gou and more

Our monthly playlist has camp country by Kylie, freaky funk by George Clinton, a dub odyssey by Leslie Winer & Jay Glass Dubs and more. Subscribe to the playlist of all 50 and read about our 10 favourites below

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

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Tuesday, February 27, 2018

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Sunday, February 25, 2018

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

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Monday, February 19, 2018

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

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Sunday, February 11, 2018

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

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Monday, February 5, 2018