8 d. ago Ethel Cain: Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You review – a dark, Lynchian coming

The American singer-songwriter follows up her 2022 debut ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ with a concept album that’s often mesmerising

Politics

8 d. ago ‘The Welsh language has been aggressively oppressed’: Tristwch y Fenywod, the gothic trio communing with a mystical Wales

Inspired by the ‘enchanted, sapphic feeling’ of the coast and with bat sounds for drums, this Wales-obsessed band sound like no one else. They explain how queerness, neurodivergence and anti-colonialism guide what they do‘It’s often dealing with quite elemental things,” says the vocalist Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth of Tristwch y Fenywod’s music. “The sense of being in an ancient landscape; or the enchanted, sapphic feeling of being by the ocean. Our music addresses things that are simple and foundational, but very powerful.”Released last August – and now being performed live by the band across the summer festival circuit – the trio’s self-titled debut album is a lush, cathartic mix of gothic instrumentation and eldritch melody, like a lost Cocteau Twins masterpiece recorded in a cave in Eryri, stirring intense feelings even in those who can’t understand its Welsh lyrics. There’s a political dimension too. “The oppression of the Welsh language over the past 200 years was so aggressive,” ...

Politics

9 d. ago ‘Sometimes I overshare’: Adam Buxton on fear, fun, finance – and falling out with friends

The comedian has just released his debut album. He discusses songwriting, his recent memoirs, the problems with modern politics and why we all need to open upOn a muggy summer day, Adam Buxton is talking me through the songs on his debut album, Buckle Up. “There’s one on there called Standing Still,” he says, “which was written when I was feeling absolutely bleak and lost and is about opening a packet of pasta when all the pasta spills. I thought: ‘You can get a joke in there about being a fusilli billy and maybe that will distract a bit from the more earnest and pain-laden lyrics about how, every morning, I drink a cup of tea and it helps me with all the thoughts I have to smother.’”What are these thoughts? “I get overwhelmed by the world and, the worse the news gets, the harder it bites,” he says. “I get existential fear and I think I should go and join Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and work with them. But then, is that really the best use of my talents? My wife is like: ‘Please ...

Politics

9 d. ago Scottish music legend Bobby Bluebell helps 1980s school band realise debut album dream

Three pals who started a group in their East Kilbride bedrooms at 16 will celebrate hitting their retirement decade by releasing their debut album.

Culture

9 d. ago ‘I feel equally rooted in bhangra and hyperpop, queer anthems and Sufi poetry’: Pakistani star Ali Sethi on his defiant debut album

The Pakistani-American singer has fused traditional singing with Technicolor pop to express forbidden love, take down trolls and explore the confusion of our ‘monstrous world’As a child, Ali Sethi was enthralled watching Sufi whirling – a religious dance – at nearby shrines in Punjab: “There’s this collective catharsis that takes place and, briefly, your caste, class, gender, appearance, they stop mattering. You have licence in an otherwise extremely hierarchical society to just express yourself.”This is something the 41-year-old Pakistani-American singer, songwriter and composer hopes to create himself. Though he’s also a writer – be that his acclaimed 2009 novel, The Wish Maker, or contributions to publications such as the New Yorker – music became somewhere Sethi could be accepted, especially as a queer person growing up in Lahore. “I think music has this shamanic function in south Asian culture,” he says, “where things you cannot say in lay language you say in the love language ...

Politics

1 week ago The 35 greatest debut albums of all time, from Joy Division to Oasis

These records serve as statements of intent and have the power to change or reshape the industry, inspire fellow musicians, and drive essential conversation about our understanding of music. Roisin O'Connor picks the best of the bunch

Politics

2 w. ago AraabMuzik: Electronic Dream 2 review – the return of a maximalist MPC wizard

(Genre Defying Entertainment/D Production)This sequel retains the original’s generation-defining mix of dread and debauchery, although it is overshadowed by recent bolder versions of the soundCould there be a better time for AraabMuzik – the Rhode Island MPC wizard also known as Abraham Orellana – to return with a sequel to Electronic Dream, his generation-defining 2011 debut? The original album was confounding and exhilarating in equal measure, thanks to its canny fusion of EDM rave-up synths and blown-out hip-hop beats. Alongside the rise of producers such as Clams Casino, it spoke to a post-financial crisis millennial generation finding much-needed euphoria in electronic maximalism. Now, gen Z-beloved artists such as Bladee and Nettspend are reviving an even bigger, bolder version of that sound, and finding huge cult audiencesBut perhaps that’s why Electronic Dream 2 – while engrossing and atmospheric, capturing AraabMuzik’s trademark fusion of dread and debauchery – almost feels...

Politics

2 w. ago DJ K: Radio Libertadora! review – explosive freedom and skilful cacophony

(Nyege Nyege Tapes)Kaique Vieira’s latest ‘bruxaria’ album is even bolder and louder than his 2023 debut, as he brings revolutionary spirit to the funk sound of São PaoloOver the past two years, Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K, has been crafting a new sound of São Paolo. Influenced by local favela street parties, the 24-year-old producer takes the distorted bass, Afro-Brazilian rhythms and vocal melodies of baile funk – a dance genre that originated in Brazil in the 80s – and adds a darker palette of reverb-laden vocal lines, rave sirens and buzzing synths to create a style he calls bruxaria (witchcraft). Vieira’s 2023 debut Pânico no Submundo was a 15-track introduction, harnessing the sound of blown-out speaker cones. Radio Libertadora! moves into even bolder and louder territory, developing his nascent genre into a source of dancefloor chaos.Opening with a sample of a 1969 radio speech by the revolutionary Carlos Marighella, which called on people to act against Brazil’s military dictato...

Events

4 w. ago Tenor Russell Watson awarded honorary degree by University of Greater Manchester

This year marks a quarter of a century since the release of Watson’s acclaimed debut album, The Voice.

Events

4 w. ago Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight review | Jude Roger's folk album of the month

(River Lea)Masters of atmosphere, Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody contrast hauntological synths with robust noise on this playful debutThe latest gorgeous release from the fecund Irish folk scene doesn’t begin with bassy dread in the Lankum mode, but a mood of gentle, haunting psychedelia. Adieu Lovely Erin starts by evoking Broadcast swirling around a maypole; then it’s as if Cocteau Twins had been transported to a traditional music session. Its sweet, high female vocals also evoke the improvisations of sean-nós singing, while simmering, krautrock-like drums build drama.Poor Creature comprises three musicians expert in heightening and managing atmosphere: Landless’s Ruth Clinton, Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada plus live Lankum drummer John Dermody. Their debut album steeps cowboy songs, Irish ballads, bluegrass and other traditional songs in a misty, playful lightness that somehow also carries an eerie power. Bury Me Not is a 19th-century American song about a dying ...

Politics

4 w. ago ‘People lashed out because she wasn’t a guy’: Linkin Park on nu

After the death of lead vocalist Chester Bennington in 2017, the rap-rock icons have reformed, aiming to cultivate ‘good vibes’ for a new generation of fans. Mike Shinoda and Emily Armstrong discuss backlash and rebirthIt’s been almost 25 years since Linkin Park released their debut album, Hybrid Theory. An irresistible fusion of metal, hip-hop, electronica, industrial rock and infectious pop melody, it established the Californian sextet as instant nu-metal icons and laid the groundwork for the group to become, by many metrics, the biggest US rock band of this millennium: Hybrid Theory ended up the bestselling album of 2001; its follow-up, Meteora, would also go on to rank as one of the bestselling albums of the 21st century.It’s been just 36 hours, however, since the band played their biggest headline gig to date, at a steamy and rapturous Wembley stadium. Outside, it’s still scorching, but in an icily air-conditioned hotel overlooking the Thames, Linkin Park’s co-founder, co-vocal...

Politics