Music news

• I’m a devout agnostic. But, like Nick Cave, I hunger for meaning in our chaotic world | John Harris

  15-09-2024 13:34
  
  The spiritual aridity of modern life can be tough to handle. Maybe that’s why the singer, and his new album Wild God, have struck a chordThere is a tension in 21st-century life that may come close to defining how millions of us now live. Whenever we want to commune with other people, we need only reach for an object the size of a Twix and there they all are: scores of acquaintances and a veritable galaxy of complete strangers, offering insights and opinions on a huge range of subjects. But
  
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• Mk.gee review – is this the world’s most exciting young guitarist?

  30-10-2024 16:35
  
  Electric Brixton, LondonAmid ​a big breakout moment, the New Jersey musician slips past definition with his blend of 80s pop and Americana,​ his wild screams matched by the audienceUnderneath the craze of Brat summer, New Jersey guitarist, vocalist and producer Mk.gee (pronounced “ma-ghee”) has been the year’s biggest word-of-mouth success after the release of debut album Two Star & the Dream Police (following various other releases dating back to 2017). He&rsqu
  
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• A forest of questions: take our quiz on the Cure!

  30-10-2024 14:18
  
  Ahead of the band’s first album in 16 years coming out on Friday, superfans can test their mettle with this trivia spanning their entire careerIt is a wonderful week for those of us with a gothic persuasion. Not only is it Halloween on Thursday, but on Friday we’ll be in love as the Cure unveil their first new album for 16 years – Songs of a Lost World. Why not whet your appetite with our fiendishly difficult quiz about one of the most consistently brilliant British bands? Ther
  
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• Laura Marling review – gently transcendent songs of motherhood and domesticity

  30-10-2024 13:13
  
  Hackney Church, LondonShe may confess to impostor syndrome, but these tender studies of the latest stage in her life show a remarkable artist in full bloomWhen Laura Marling finishes her piano-led performance of No One’s Gonna Love You Like I Can, a tender love song for her daughter, she claims to feel shy. “That was the biggest impostor syndrome I’ve ever felt singing at that piano,” the 34-year-old says. It’s both charming and ridiculous coming from this relaxed a
  
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• ‘These were tough dudes – and notoriously romantic’: why lowrider soul, LA’s music and car subculture, still thrives

  30-10-2024 12:23
  
  Lowriding cars are synonymous with rap, but their Chicano drivers prefer sweet soul music. The scene’s movers and musicians explain how they went from being police targets to esteemed cultural cornerstones‘Low rider knows every street,” chanted War on Low Rider, their 1975 hymn to the customised cars of east and south central Los Angeles whose suspension had been chopped down to allow them to run “slow and low”. Later, Black LA films (Boyz n the Hood) and music vide
  
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• This Search for Meaning review – slick reminder of radical rockers Placebo

  30-10-2024 10:00
  
  Eye-opening archive footage and a Bowie appearance are the highlights in an otherwise polite but bland documentaryThis slick unrevealing music documentary about alt rockers Placebo highlights the potential drawbacks of making a film about a band decades after their first flush. Back in the late 90s, even if you weren’t blown away by the music, you had to admire Placebo’s bravura and the feral energy of frontman Brian Molko. Today he sits in a studio with the expression of a cat that
  
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• The mysterious world of Two Shell: ‘Our pranks don’t mean we’re not sincere’

  29-10-2024 17:30
  
  They promised us an in-person interview – then sent along two decoys. So who are the enigmatic musicians who make it so hard for fans to hear their thrillingly alien music?Two Shell, a buzzy London duo who make hyperactive yet melancholy bass music, are well known for giving people the runaround. They keep themselves anonymous, and perform with scarves and sunglasses hiding their faces. Fans are sent on digital breadcrumb trails via mysterious websites and social media posts. Their first i
  
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• A history of violence: how has Chris Brown survived so much controversy?

  29-10-2024 16:22
  
  A shocking new documentary lays out the many allegations of abuse against the star, from attacking Rihanna to a claim of sexual assault on Diddy’s yachtOn 30 December 2020, Jane Doe, a professional dancer who had just moved to Los Angeles, was invited by a friend to a New Year’s party on a yacht in Miami. The yacht was owned by the now-disgraced rap mogul Diddy; of course she should attend as someone trying to break into the music industry, she recalls thinking in the new ID document
  
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• Iron & Wine review – shadow puppets and folk-pop combine in singular gig

  28-10-2024 14:07
  
  Queens Hall, Edinburgh
  Emmy award-winning puppeteers Manual Cinema occasionally pull focus from Sam Beam’s rich songwriting, but mostly enhance it with eerie and intricate stagingSam Beam, better known as his stage name Iron & Wine, is holding court on a crowded stage. Although Iron & Wine is a one-man musical project, Beam is joined by seven collaborators tonight: there are the musicians – covering strings, keys and drums – and then there are the puppeteers: two artist
  
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• ‘Julian Cope told me: you’re unemployable in the real world’: David Wrench, the Welsh studio wizard behind pop’s A-list

  28-10-2024 13:00
  
  Wrench has mixed music for Frank Ocean, FKA twigs, Blur and dozens more – all drawn to what have been called ‘the finest ears ever’. He explains how he went from the dole to the big timeIn 2009, David Wrench was close to giving it all up. He was working as an engineer in a recording studio in north Wales but wasn’t getting enough work and was struggling to pay the rent each month. An offer to do some lecturing came in and he thought: why not? When he ran this past his fri
  
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• Nonclassical at 20 review – synths, screams and bubble wrap as record label celebrates with the LSO

  28-10-2024 12:04
  
  Hackney Empire, London
  Gabriel Prokofiev’s avant garde record label marked its 20th birthday with an engaging and energetic scaled up showcaseEven seasoned aficionados of avant-garde music are unlikely to have witnessed a musician playing a mini concerto for bubble wrap. But that’s what the composer Tonia Ko is playing tonight. She’s at the front of the stage, miked up, rhythmically rubbing and rustling various sizes of plastic packaging while the string section of the London S
  
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• Sum 41 review – hugs and lasers as emotional pop-punks go out with a bang

  27-10-2024 14:02
  
  First Direct Arena, Leeds
  Gleefully raucous anthems give way to heartfelt goodbyes on the Canadian band’s triumphant farewell tour ‘God knows, Sum 41 have had our share of ups and downs,”, frontman Deryck Whibley observes with a grin. The Canadian pop-punks’ 28-year history has seen near fatal car crashes, assaults, alcoholism and even pneumonia. Meanwhile, their fortunes have veered from platinum sales to struggling to fill smaller venues before a triumphant return to ar
  
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• The Cure: Songs of a Lost World review – as promised, ‘very, very doom and gloom’

  26-10-2024 15:00
  (Fiction)
  The band’s first album in 16 years finds Robert Smith and co on reliably melancholy form – with the exception of one out-and-out pop bangerThe Cure have long dwelled in a kind of rarefied artistic blue zone in which the years pile up but the end of the band is serenely defied – maybe due to a diet rich in red wine, combined with a dogged aversion to modernity. Band leader Robert Smith does not own a smartphone; the band’s consumption of polyphenols in the 1980s
  
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• One to watch: Kofi Stone

  26-10-2024 13:30
  
  The Birmingham rapper’s compelling second album, featuring the late Benjamin Zephaniah, confirms his place among Black British storytellersWhen Kofi Stone was a kid he was already doing rap battles in the playground. The Birmingham artist’s dedication to his craft meant he started recording songs aged 13, soon Sellotaping his image on to cassette tapes, then taking to the streets to try and sell his CDs. He released his debut album in 2019, the gleaming Nobody Cares Till Everybody Do
  
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• The return of Hope of the States: ‘There will be no tantrums. I’m a grown man now’

  25-10-2024 15:00
  
  The artful square pegs of the early-00s indie scene saw their careers upturned by the death of a band member. Now 18 years later they’ve reunited, finding their youthful spark still intact“Let the healing begin,” says Sam Herlihy the moment I turn on my tape recorder. He’s joking, but not entirely. In December, Herlihy’s band Hope of the States will reform for a series of shows – the first time they have played together live for more than 18 years. The gigs, a
  
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• Lady Gaga: Disease review – a return to form, and to her classic sound

  25-10-2024 14:33
  
  After a run of power ballads and jazz standards – plus the mega-flop Joker sequel – this synthpop single is a reminder of the Gaga of old, while still fitting into today’s Brat eraThus far, 2024 has proved a decidedly mixed bag for Lady Gaga. On the plus side, her duet with Bruno Mars, Die With a Smile was a huge global hit: nine weeks after its release, it is still resident in the UK Top 3 and is the second most-streamed song in the world on Spotify. But then there was the deb
  
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• Pixies: The Night the Zombies Came review – an echo of an echo of past glories

  25-10-2024 13:00
  
  (BMG)
  The Boston band’s slide towards mediocrity continues, with the high point a song about a headless chickenIs there an act that has had a second coming as underwhelming, yet at the same time as long-lasting as that of the Pixies? The astonishing run of albums from 1987’s Come On Pilgrim to 1990’s Bossanova still stand as one of the cornerstones of modern-day indie rock. Yet the records released over the past decade – of which this is the fifth – have been notewo
  
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• Laura Marling: Patterns in Repeat review – a tender love letter to motherhood

  25-10-2024 12:30
  
  (Chrysalis/Partisan)
  Domestic contentment radiates through the singer-songwriter’s eighth album celebrating the circle of life
  Patterns in Repeat is not the first time Laura Marling has written music for her child, but it is the first time she’s done so as a mother. 2020’s Song for Our Daughter was directed at an idea, and as such rippled with possibility. Its successor is a far more grounded thing, recorded in snatched half hours and imbued with considered, lived experience.Fr
  
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• Underworld: Strawberry Hotel review – sweet bangers and sad laments

  25-10-2024 12:00
  
  (Smith Hyde Productions/Virgin)
  The techno giants’ 11th album finds them ranging from cut-up dancefloor fillers to gentle experimentationAfter 2019’s 52-week audiovisual creative marathon, Drift, recent tunes with Irish producer Kettama and a busy touring schedule, the implacable Underworld return with a more conventional album – their 11th. Of course, Strawberry Hotel defies easy definition, veering from Born Slippy-indebted bangers to a simple closing guitar track via Ottavia
  
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• Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Paul Motian: The Old Country review – a delightful return to a cherished jazz venue

  25-10-2024 10:00
  
  (ECM)
  Full of blistering bebop and entrancing swing, this 1992 recording showcases the pianist’s love of the Deer Head Inn, the clapboard 1840s hotel where he cut his teeth
  When he first played the Deer Head Inn, a romantic 1840s clapboard hotel on the edge of a Delaware national park, Keith Jarrett was 16, just out of high school and making $48 a week as a shipping clerk. But he was also a piano prodigy from the age of three, a classical recitalist before he was 10 and an intuitive improv
  
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• Fievel Is Glauque: Rong Weicknes review – teetering song-towers that never quite topple

  25-10-2024 09:00
  
  (Fat Possum Records)
  Brilliant melodies, poetic lyrics and quick-change time signatures elevate this quirky jazz-pop release to a level all its ownHalfway through the Dr Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, our young protagonist bursts out of a dull cul-de-sac and into a Technicolor tent of music “where boom bands are playing”. You get a similar feeling listening to this album by surrealist US-Belgian duo Fievel Is Glauque, a jazz-pop LP that yanks you into its own world, full
  
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• ‘Who am I voting for? America!’ Chris Stapleton on patriotism, politics and being country’s great crossover star

  25-10-2024 06:00
  
  With southern-gothic storytelling and a soulfully diverse sound, the Kentucky singer revolutionised the double-denim country scene. But as the US election hots up, he’s staying out of the culture warsChris Stapleton has played five arenas in the UK over the past week, on a tour dubbed the All-American Road Show. Posters depicted his grandly bearded, cowboy-hatted visage framed by hills and skies in colours of red, white and blue. At first listen, his country music seems just as all-America
  
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• Just like heaven: the Cure’s 20 greatest songs – ranked!

  24-10-2024 16:00
  
  Ahead of the release of Songs of a Lost World – their first album in 16 years – we rate the best of a band who combine light and dark like no otherA little overshadowed by Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’s pop masterpiece Just Like Heaven, Catch nevertheless has a lovely, shambolic charm all of its own: its pattering drums, violin, unexpected bursts of wah-wah guitar sound as if they were recorded live, and Smith’s vocal as if it was recorded when he was half asleep. Continue r
  
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• ‘The most important DJ in the UK’? Live streamer takes music to streets

  24-10-2024 13:28
  
  DJ AG has built a huge audience by inviting performers such as Skepta to join him in London and elsewhereDJ AG knew he was on to something after Daddy Freddy’s performance.The DJ, real name Ashley Gordon, has garnered more than 385,000 followers by doing something incredibly simple: playing music outside and allowing people to perform alongside him while he livestreams the results. Continue reading...
  
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• Amyl and the Sniffers: Cartoon Darkness review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

  24-10-2024 13:00
  (Rough Trade)
  With their swearing and flashing, Amy Taylor and co’s return might seem like business as usual – but new melodic depths and lyrical concerns reveal themselvesAnyone unfamiliar with Amyl and the Sniffers could learn a lot about them from the fact that when an acoustic guitar appears nine songs and 20 minutes into their third album, it feels genuinely jolting. Thus far, the Australian quartet have dealt in a brand of punk that carries with it the distinct whiff of the pub
  
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• ‘Maybe I am bizarre to some people …’ The unique, underrated mind of 70s singer Dory Previn

  24-10-2024 11:40
  
  After a painful childhood and marriage, the US singer-songwriter used writing to understand her schizophenia. A new film explores the wondrous music she then madeJulia Greenberg was in a friend’s car, driving through New England, when a playful ballad about a Hollywood down-and-out came on the stereo. Who is this, she wondered. “She sounded so wholly unique,” Greenberg says, 15 years later, on a video call from her home in New York. Googling the song’s title, Holy Man on
  
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• Liam Payne: the heady rise and tragic death of a One Direction star – podcast

  24-10-2024 04:00
  
  Oritsé Williams of JLS and the Guardian’s head rock and pop critic Alexis Petridis reflect on the life of Liam Payne, including the extraordinary success of One Direction, and his struggles with the fame that came with itWhen Liam Payne was found dead last Wednesday after falling from a third-floor balcony at his hotel in Buenos Aires, fans around the world were left shocked.As the Guardian’s head rock and pop critic Alexis Petridis explains to Helen Pidd, the 31-year-old Payn
  
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• The Cult review – hard rock survivors blast through a beefy 40th birthday party

  23-10-2024 12:27
  
  Swansea Arena
  Displaying the lean mean belligerence of artists half their age, the band bring a brutish level of distortion and energy to a tight 90 minute setIan Astbury is annoyed. There are hurt feelings, perhaps the makings of a fight, among some fans at the lip of the stage and the Cult’s frontman isn’t having it. “This is a celebration,” he sneers. “If you can’t handle that, go sit in the OAP section, and I fuckin’ mean that.”There is no sugg
  
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• ‘Young women from the ghetto were taken advantage of’: the power and pain of R&B’s ‘new jill swing’ era

  23-10-2024 11:43
  
  The female counterpart to new jack swing, which exploded in the late 80s by fusing hip-hop, pop and R&B, was thrilling – but held back by sexism, racism and dodgy contractsA flash of Technicolor fills the screen, as four women spin and glide in perfect unison. The bouncy crunch of drum machines collides with slick, soaring vocals, as the women then jump over one another’s heads. “I broke my ankle doing some of this stuff,” says Stacy Francis of the lively music video
  
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• ‘There’s vomit on my sweater already!’ Barack Obama raps Eminem’s Lose Yourself at Detroit rally

  23-10-2024 10:08
  
  Former president is introduced by rapper, who cites freedom of speech as he backs Kamala HarrisUS politics – live updatesBarack Obama rapped Eminem’s signature hit Lose Yourself to a crowd in Detroit during a campaign rally for Kamala Harris.He was preceded by Eminem himself, who told the crowd in his home city: “It’s important to use your voice, I’m encouraging everyone to get out and vote, please … I don’t think anyone wants an America where people ar
  
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