For somebody who wasn’t much into school, on his second record ‘Tyron’, Slowthai hands in a project spanning subjects from history to psychology and philosophy: the Northampton rapper could earn A-grades for his breadth of references alone. Not just...
Less than a year ago, Hayley Williams lightened the first weeks of lockdown with 'Petals for Armor', two powerful, experimental EPs exploring her vulnerability and loss. She accompanied the release with a series of videos tracing themes of death...
Cardi B – 'Up'
Cardi B is back and the monster success of ‘WAP’ certainly hasn’t changed her. ‘Up’ is exactly the kind of follow-up you’d expect: bold, braggadocious and delightfully provocative. Cardi’s first solo release in some time weaves...
“I’m in my room and that’s all there is.” It’s hard not to give a wry chuckle upon hearing the final line of ‘Trying’, the first single from The Staves’ new record, ‘Good Woman’. Though it was written and...
“I’ll be your mirror,” wrote Lou Reed in 1966, capturing the role of musical artist in four words. On the cover of her fifth record ‘Ignorance’, Tamara Lindeman, the Canadian musician behind The Weather Station, embodies Lou’s line. She...
Trigger warning: domestic & sexual abuse, violence, self-harm
Raised to mainstream prominence in 2017, the #MeToo movement is one that has brought all manner of uncomfortable truths to light, not least for the entertainment industry. For many, that journey to...
‘For the first time’ is not a considered, conceptual album, say Black Country, New Road, but “a true document of what we were doing in our first year” – or as they put it in the final track, “what...
When blues pioneer Jessie Mae Hemphill finally found fame in the 1980s, she wasn’t hard to spot. By then she was almost 60, but Jessie’s fabulous stage wear would give The Cramps’ high priestess of animal print, Poison Ivy,...
Would any artist take on the mantle of “next big thing” if they had the choice? There’s a certain alchemy at play when music critics bestow this honour – part wisdom, part taste, and more often, sheer luck –...
Today the world has lost a once-in-a generation artistic titan who changed the face of pop music forever. Early this morning, the artist and music producer SOPHIE died in a sudden accident in Athens, aged 34. “True to her...