The word underrated is often used about Róisín Murphy – she’s not keen on it. Though the Irish singer has a better command of pop absurdity than most actual pop stars right now – and has influenced everyone from...
Over the last twenty years, I have seen Foo Fighters many times: at Reading Festival as a teenager. In a Chicago baseball stadium. At a village hall in Frome when they announced their Glastonbury headline set. Never before though,...
Nobody expected an extended metaphor more blatant than Ariana Grande’s ‘positions’ this year. Then again, nobody expected Michael Jackson’s daughter to go full alt-folk with her debut solo album. To call a break-up record ‘wilted’ is one thing, but...
At some point in the last eight months, most of us have made playlists of songs we love. To feel soothed, or energised, to tell somebody our feelings, to feel less alone – to answer whatever emotional hunger rises...
Time moved strangely this year, so it’s unnerving to realise it’s already long enough since ‘bad guy’ to see the pop class of Billie Eilish begin to graduate – and with ‘Hey u x’, New Zealand’s Benee will surely...
Bree Runway’s YouTube channel description reads: ‘it’s like Lady Gaga and Lil Kim had a love child”. Writing about Bree already feels like writing about a star like Gaga, and that’s not just because she recently covered ‘Paparazzi’, though...
Ólafur Arnalds and Bob Dylan both profess to ‘contain multitudes’ on their latest records, but for those unfamiliar with the Icelandic instrumentalist, Arnalds is as far from Dylan as you could get. Words are scarce on Arnalds’ records, and...
James Vincent McMorrow – 'Gone'
The pain of hearing a dancey bop when we cannot go out does not get any easier. Irish artist, James Vincent McMorrow's, new Paul Epworth-produced track, 'Gone', is lyrically raw and immensely quotable. "I give...
According to legend, disco was born on Valentine's Day, 1970, when the eccentric New York DJ David Manusco threw a party at his invite-only club The Loft – playing an eclectic and dizzying selection of tunes designed to get...
Tunng certainly aren’t the first musical act to contemplate death. Rock star departures prompt glittery bursts of public grief, folk and blues give shelter to ghosts and spirits, electronica opts for existential stupor, while pop sticks its fingers in...