Music news

• ‘Witness (1 Hope) by Roots Manuva gives me some bad girl energy’: Eliza Rose’s honest playlist

  07-12-2025 10:00
  The DJ, producer and singer likes the kind of dancehall her dad disapproves of, and her funk to be electronic. But whose songs make her feel bougie?The first single I ever boughtAaliyah, Rock the Boat. My nan sent me and my cousin to pick up some bits in Dalston and there was some change left over so I went into HMV and bought this CD for £1.99. I shouldn’t have been stealing my nan’s change but I felt so grownup. If my Jamaican dad had found out, he wouldn’t have been ha
  
  Read more

• Nick Cave’s Veiled World: the starry tale of how sometimes the devil doesn’t have the best tunes

  06-12-2025 08:00
  This documentary on the musician interviews everyone from Flea to … Rowan Williams. It’s a thoughtful take on his songs and ChristianityDevouring the new Nick Cave documentary on Sky, I am reminded how critics go wild for arty musicians who constantly change direction and dabble in everything. This is its own kind of myth. I know plenty of artists who keep moving – one week they’re sewing fish scales on to jackets, the next they’re painting mirrors or putting seaho
  
  Read more

• Kendrick Lamar review – with Doechii revving up the crowd, this is an extraordinary show for the ages

  06-12-2025 00:00
  AAMI Park, Melbourne
  Rap’s ‘swamp princess’ had the audience in the palm of her hand before Lamar dazzled with pyrotechnics and Drake dissesAside from the immediate delight that comes from seeing two of the biggest names in rap in one show, there is a pleasing asymmetry in Doechii and Kendrick Lamar performing together. Fame is still new enough for Doechii, rap’s “swamp princess” and most rapidly ascending star, that her rapid-fire lyrics mostly revel in the p
  
  Read more

• Five of the best music books of 2025

  05-12-2025 15:00
  From an enraging indictment of Spotify to Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie’s account of Parkinson’s and a compelling biography of Tupac Shakur, here are five titles that strike a chordMood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect PlaylistLiz Pelly (Hodder & Stoughton)
  Enraging, thoroughly depressing, but entirely necessary, Mood Music offers a timely, forensically researched demolition of Spotify. In Pelly’s account, the music streaming giant views music a
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Laura Cannell: Brightly Shone the Moon review | Jude Rogers' folk album of the month

  05-12-2025 10:00
  (Brawl)
  The violinist sets out on her darkest exploration of yuletide yet, giving a murky and melancholy twist on familiar Christmas standardsTraditional music finds its popular, cosy home in the carol, despite the uncanniness that surrounds the nativity story, and the fraying thread back to the past that each winter brings. A veteran explorer of the season (in 2020’s sparkling Winter Rituals EP with cellist Kate Ellis, and 2022’s starker New Christmas Rituals, with amplified fiddle-
  
  Read more

• This Is Lorelei: Holo Boy review – sweet-sad songs from a new pearl of the US alt scene

  05-12-2025 09:00
  (Double Double Whammy)
  One half of Water From Your Eyes re-records songs from the back catalogue of his other band, resulting in acoustic fare touched with regret and darknessAs one half of Brooklyn-based duo Water From Your Eyes, Nate Amos makes left-field pop that feels hypermodern: wry, memey lyricism; post-ironic genre-hopping; the kind of jilted chaos and tonal jumble that characterises a social media feed. Yet the band had actually been plugging away for seven years before their 2023 break
  
  Read more

• ‘Constant stimulation, dopamine overload’: how EsDeeKid and UK underground rap exploded on a global scale

  05-12-2025 06:00
  With an experimental and maxed-out sound, bold new MCs are emerging from all corners of the UK – and with US rap in the doldrums, the time is ripe for another British InvasionIt’s early November and London’s Electric Ballroom is heaving. The warm-up DJ drops Fetty Wap’s 2014 smash Trap Queen, and the young crowd, a fair portion of whom were in primary school when the tune first came out, roar every word. They’re clad in baggy skatewear, with distressed, monochromati
  
  Read more

• The 20 best songs of 2025

  03-12-2025 09:00
  This year’s outstanding tracks – from post-punk rap to indie-disco and operatic pop – as voted for by 30 Guardian music writers***20 Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Cameron Winter review – Geese wunderkind whittles confident rearrangements in an intimate show

  01-12-2025 11:47
  Albert Hall, ManchesterWith two of the most-feted albums of the past 12 months under his belt, the New York singer-songwriter puts fresh spins on songs from his solo debutHearing Cameron Winter croon of God, Jesus and the devil in the former Methodist chapel of Manchester’s Albert Hall may seem appropriate, but this superficial link belies the 23-year-old’s talent for the secular and absurd. Winter works primarily in contrasts: poppy instrumentation with off-kilter song structures; l
  
  Read more

• Wolf Alice review – indie chameleons sparkle on a glam-rock bender

  30-11-2025 12:14
  Manchester Arena
  With 70s rock references, tinselly backdrop and some full-on cabaret-theatre vibes, the four-piece have undergone their most fun and complete reinvention yet‘If I want to wear my sparkly knickers, I will!” Ellie Rowsell giggles into the mic as she struts into The Sofa, a stylish 70s slow-burner about making guilt-free decisions and watching “reruns on the TV” without judgment. Tonight there is no sign of a settee-induced slumber, as the sparkling singer w
  
  Read more

• ‘I sang karaoke with Novak Djokovic – a surreal experience’: Jacob Collier’s honest playlist

  30-11-2025 10:00
  The musical prodigy discovered Stevie Wonder aged two and danced to Brazilian jazz at a Grammys afterparty. But what song does he think is the best in the world?The first song I fell in love with
  So many songs hit me as a child, they were like windows opening up new worlds. But the first I truly loved was Did I Hear You Say You Love Me, by Stevie Wonder, which I remember clearly when I was around two years old.The first single I bought
  I bought an iTunes single by Take 6 when I was 13. They are
  
  Read more

• ‘It has made me live life more’: Jessie J on cancer, comebacks and cracking China

  29-11-2025 07:00
  Endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, suicide and gaslighting … they are all laid bare on the singer-writer’s new album. But just as she finished recording it, she got a shock diagnosis. She explains why it’s made her determined to be in the momentYou couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler having struggled to conce
  
  Read more

• ‘An engineering feat’: the 26-year-old Australian making costumes for Lady Gaga

  28-11-2025 15:00
  Samuel Lewis had to push his limits for the pop star’s global tour, set to hit his home town Melbourne next weekGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailIt starts in a flood of red: a red-curtained stage, red flashing lights. It’s Lady Gaga, so theatrics are par for the course. As the lights go up it becomes clear she’s not standing on a giant stage but, in fact, wearing it.A militaristic bodice extends into the swooping velvet drapes of a 7.5-metre-high gown. “It&rsquo
  
  Read more

• Add to playlist: Storefront Church’s cinematic baroque pop and the week’s best new tracks

  28-11-2025 13:00
  Californian singer-songwriter Lukas Frank is picking up rave reviews for his second album’s epic choruses and lush orchestrationsFrom Los Angeles
  Recommended if you like John Grant, Scott Walker, Father John Misty
  Up next A cover of Duran Duran’s The Chauffeur is out now, with another single due in FebruaryAfter several years of perseverance, things are happening for Storefront Church. The audience at this month’s sellout gig at St Pancras Old Church in London included Perfume
  
  Read more

• Ikonika: Sad review – vocal-led new direction is a hit for the Hyperdub veteran

  28-11-2025 09:30
  (Hyperdub)
  The dancefloor producer weaves seductive and steely lyrics with their trademark production in a convincing embrace of popSad represents a total reinvention for Ikonika, the producer, songwriter and singer also known as Sara Chen. Putting their own vocals at the forefront of their music for the first time, Chen becomes a charismatic and haunting pop presence. Sometimes, they play the role of warm R&B vocalist (Listen to Your Heart); at other times, such as on the nervy, hypnotic Wh
  
  Read more

• HTRK: String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK) review – friends from Liars to Kali Malone rework their noisy gems

  28-11-2025 09:00
  (Ghostly International)
  Sharon Van Etten, Stephen O’Malley, Perila and more transform the duo’s gloomy, sensual songs on an album of covers and remixesHTRK have been making their gloomy, sensual brand of music, at the intersection of electronic pop and noise rock, for 22 years. To mark the milestone comes String of Hearts, a collection of covers and remixes featuring an all-star cast of friends and collaborators, from next-gen underground favourites like Coby Sey to fellow old-school
  
  Read more

• Peaches: ‘We need lube to smooth out the friction of the world’

  27-11-2025 16:00
  The Canadian electroclash icon on No Lube So Rude, her first album in a decade, the state of global politics, the ‘punk energy’ of the older generation and her love of ping-pongWhy is your forthcoming album your first in over a decade and who is/are the “you” in comeback single Not in Your Mouth None of Your Business? k4ren123
  I’ve been very busy – touring, working with dance troupes, performance art, sculptures, playing the lead role in a production of Bertol
  
  Read more

• The Durutti Column: The Return of the Durutti Column review – fragile classic that echoes far beyond its time

  27-11-2025 15:49
  (London)
  The delicate experimentation of the band’s debut may not have chimed with the post-punk 1980s, but its durability makes this deluxe reissue thoroughly deservedThe Durutti Column’s debut album does not have an auspicious origin story. The band whose name it bore had split acrimoniously just before they were supposed to record it. Their guitarist Vini Reilly was so poleaxed by depression that he was virtually unable to leave his house: 12 different attempts were made to sectio
  
  Read more

• ‘I watched him doing Fool’s Gold and thought: how’s he playing that?’ New Order’s Peter Hook on his friend Mani

  26-11-2025 12:49
  One Mancunian bassist remembers another: Hook pays tribute to the ‘wonderful soul’ Gary Mounfield, the Stone Roses and Primal Scream musician who has died aged 63I first met Mani when the Stone Roses’ manager asked me to produce them. We did Elephant Stone and they were lovely. Then as Manchester turned into Madchester I got to know them really well. I went to the great gig they did in Blackpool; I went to Spike Island. It was a fantastic time to be together and the Haçi
  
  Read more

• Doja Cat review – ignore the headlines, this is a pop provocateur at the top of her game

  26-11-2025 06:34
  Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
  The US pop-rapper is a ferocious and cheeky stage presence, backed by a fantastically tight band who bring an 80s funk to her biting songsWhen Doja Cat’s Ma Vie world tour kicked off in Auckland last week, some fans immediately complained – not about her voice (pristine) or her band (ferociously funky), but about the lack of costume changes. This is the way of modern pop stardom: spectacle, not music, is what gets phones in the air, with footage that then g
  
  Read more

• My Bloody Valentine review – shoegaze pioneers find prettiness in pulverising noise

  25-11-2025 15:03
  Aviva Studios, Manchester
  Earplugs safely distributed, the band proceed to rattle ribcages with a two-hour show that showcases their unique ability to mesh the dreamlike with the apocalypticWhen every entrant is handed earplugs it begs the question: why not just turn things down? Lessening their legendary volume, though, would reduce the impact of the My Bloody Valentine live show as a multi-sensorial, physical and musical experience. You wouldn’t experience every bass drum like a heartbea
  
  Read more

• Jimmy Cliff’s charisma and fearless creativity expanded the horizons of reggae | Lloyd Bradley

  25-11-2025 14:42
  Cliff, who has died aged 81, took every opportunity that he was presented with, and created plenty more himself. It resulted in a career path like no other• Jimmy Cliff: A life in picturesWhen Jimmy Cliff died, reggae and the music world in general lost one of its most accomplished opportunists. The less sympathetic might have called him a chancer, but from the very beginnings there was little he wouldn’t try if he thought it would advance either himself or the music. Over the years I
  
  Read more

• Inseparable, sensuous and confident, the Kessler twins were pioneers of variety show culture

  21-11-2025 14:09
  Alice and Ellen Kessler, who died by joint assisted suicide this week, entertained – and occasionally scandalised – Europe with their glitzy and subversive pop music and classically informed dance• The Kessler twins die together aged 89 – newsWhen Dean Martin announced the Kessler sisters’ appearance on his show in 1966, he remarked that he had been desperate to book them not just because the German-born dancer-singers were “so pretty and so talented”, bu
  
  Read more

• Mani’s writhing, relentless bass was the Stone Roses’ secret sauce – it taught indie kids how to dance | Alexis Petridis

  20-11-2025 20:07
  His love of ‘good northern soul and funk’ was always in evidence and had a lasting impact on alternative musicGary ‘Mani’ Mounfield dies aged 63Mani: a life in picturesBy any metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and remarkable thing. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were just a local cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional outlets for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan.
  
  Read more

• Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

  20-11-2025 13:00
  (Warp)
  Made using a cache of Y2K sample CDs that Daniel Lopatin salvaged from the internet’s fringes, the kaleidoscopic result speaks to contemporary information overloadIt should come as no surprise that the new album by Oneohtrix Point Never comes with a concept attached. They usually do. When not composing film soundtracks, or producing an eclectic range of other artists – the Weeknd, Anohni, Charli xcx, Soccer Mommy – Daniel Lopatin has released a string of acclaimed works,
  
  Read more

• ‘Anastacia is a big inspiration for me – raspy, raw and heartfelt’: Ella Eyre’s honest playlist

  09-11-2025 10:00
  The singer was inspired by her mum’s love for Basement Jaxx and spent 69p on Jamiroquai, but what does she put on when she’s feeling down?The first song I fell in love withThe first song that I remember really feeling inspired by was Good Luck by Basement Jaxx. My mum had all their CDs. Good Luck was the first song I sung for my managers before they took me on board, so I still have a big love for it.The first single I bought
  My mum gave me money to go and buy Feels Just Like It Shou
  
  Read more

• Guitar Hero at 20 – how a plastic axe bridged the gap between rock generations

  08-11-2025 11:00
  Guitar Hero’s controllers let anyone become astar in their own living room – and made the bands featured in the game household names againIt is 20 years since Guitar Hero was launched in North America, and with it, the tools for the everyday gamer to become a rock star. Not literally of course, but try telling that to someone who has nailed Free Bird’s four-minute guitar solo in front of a packed living-room audience.Developed by Harmonix, published by RedOctane and inspired by
  
  Read more

• Grammy awards 2026: Kendrick Lamar leads nominations with nine nods

  07-11-2025 18:53
  Rapper receives nominations in all top categories while Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter and Leon Thomas are also major nominees• Grammys 2026: the nominations in all the major categoriesThe Grammys’ love continues for Kendrick Lamar. The rapper, who took home the most trophies at the 2025 music awards with five, leads the nominees for the 2026 awards.Lamar is up for nine awards, including album of the year (for his most recent, GNX), best rap album, record of the year and song
  
  Read more

• ‘I was the only out queer guy in rock’: Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum

  07-11-2025 14:13
  The keyboard player on his heroin overdose, how Kurt Cobain wanted to be gay and why his memoir will ruin his Christian relatives’ Thanksgiving dinnerWhen Roddy Bottum began work on his remarkable autobiography The Royal We, the Faith No More keyboard-player knew exactly the book he didn’t want to write. “The kind that has pictures in the middle,” he says, via video-call from Oxnard, California, where he’s completing a new album by his group Imperial Teen. “I&
  
  Read more

• The Mountain Goats: Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan review – shipwreck songs from a master storyteller

  07-11-2025 10:30
  (Cadmean Dawn)
  The latest themed album from John Darnielle’s band – with some help from Lin-Manuel Miranda – takes them on a sumptuously crafted and surprisingly upbeat voyage to a desert islandJohn Darnielle’s penchant for a concept album has already produced the likes of Beat the Champ (about wrestling), Bleed Out (action movies) and Goths (alternative music in his teens). Now, the 23rd Mountain Goats album tackles – but of course – the story of a small crew
  
  Read more

• Sara Ajnnak and the Ciderhouse Rebellion: Landscapes of the Spirit, Parts 1-4 review | Jude Rogers' folk album of the month

  07-11-2025 09:30
  (Self-released)
  The Ume Sámi vocalist and British folk duo complete their four-part cycle with a dark, dazzling finale that blends ancient song with fearless improvisationJust released at a fittingly ghoulish time of year is the final part of this collaboration between Ume Sámi vocalist Sara Ajnnak and British folk-improv duo the Ciderhouse Rebellion. The artists’ joint Landscapes of the Spirit project, delivered in four releases over 2025, has cycled through life from Ge&aum
  
  Read more

• ‘It’s impossible not to have contradictions in a contradictory world’: Catalan pop visionary Rosalía on critics, crisis and being ‘hot for God’

  07-11-2025 06:00
  With a towering new album about female saints in 13 languages, she’s pop’s boldest star – and one of its most controversial. She revisits her spiritual breakthroughs, and explains why we need forgiveness instead of cancel cultureRosalía Vila Tobella is just as bored as you are of pop music functioning as gossip column fodder, with lyrics full of hints of rivalries and betrayal. “I’m tiring of seeing people referencing celebrities, and celebrities referencing
  
  Read more

• Hatchie: Liquorice review – dizzying dreampop with welcome flashes of depravity

  06-11-2025 15:00
  Eschewing the fairyfloss hooks of her earlier work, the Australian’s third album is both more mature and less immediately palatableGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailAlmost all of Hatchie’s music could slot frictionlessly into a coming-of-age film. Her songs, mostly, are misty-eyed ruminations on puppy love and its ensuing devastation; they yearn for a redamancy that feels both fated and vexingly out of reach. You can imagine Harriette Pilbeam’s mille-feuille harmonies
  
  Read more

• ‘A shot of adrenaline’: readers pass on 90s club classics to new generations

  05-11-2025 08:00
  With the latest John Lewis Christmas ad sparking nostalgia, readers share which 90s hits are worth partying toIn the new John Lewis Christmas ad, a young son gifts his dad a vinyl copy of the track Where Love Lives by Alison Limerick, which transports the father to the dancefloor of his youth. Powerful stuff.Of course, that record wouldn’t be everyone’s choice, so we asked readers to tell us which 90s club tracks they would pass on to the next generation. Here are some of them. Conti
  
  Read more

• Radiohead review – bards of the apocalypse return for a brutal bacchanal

  05-11-2025 02:19
  Movistar Arena, MadridPowered by a pounding rhythm section, the crowd dance to even the tricksiest drum patterns at Radiohead’s first gig in seven years – one that demonstrates the pure joy this band can bring
  Almost 10 years have passed since Radiohead released a new record, and more than seven since they were last seen on stage. Living through that period has felt like moving further and faster into the future that their songs often sounded so worried about. Animal-borne diseases a
  
  Read more

• Donna Jean Godchaux supplied steel and soul to the Grateful Dead in their prime

  04-11-2025 18:53
  Godchaux sang on classics by Elvis and Otis Redding and had a long solo career, but it’s as a member of the Dead’s classic, acid-drenched 70s lineup – and as the band’s only female member – that she will be remembered• Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, Grateful Dead singer, dies aged 78By her own admission, Donna Jean Godchaux was not a fan of the Grateful Dead when she arrived in California – then Donna Jean Thatcher – in 1970. Already a music industry v
  
  Read more

• ‘I want to ride out on a unicorn every night’: swords’n’sorcery heavy metal band Castle Rat

  04-11-2025 11:00
  Wielding fantasy weapons and splashing fake blood, the New Yorkers have even learned how to make chainmail outfits – and they’re already aiming to conquer stadiumsWhile many a rocker has cribbed from high fantasy, few have truly walked the walk. Sure, they might bedeck their album sleeves with ghouls, goblins, manacled maidens and brawny barbarians, but did a member of Cirith Ungol ever have to retrieve a missing unicorn horn from a snowy field in the depths of winter? Has Yngwie Mal
  
  Read more

• Ravyn Lenae review – art-school dreamer at ease with her own melancholy

  03-11-2025 14:06
  Albert Hall, Manchester
  The Chicago musician’s fans are delighted by her alt-R&B, but for all the adventurous new songs tonight’s show does not quite live up to its ambitionChicago-born Ravyn Lenae has been a cult darling of alt-R&B since the mid-2010s, an art-school dreamer whose whimsical, pop-tinged sound first drew notice when indie-slacker wunderkind Steve Lacy produced her Crush EP back in 2018. Tonight in Manchester, her kooky on-stage persona is mirrored by a surprisi
  
  Read more

• Rosalía: Lux review – a demanding, distinctive clash of classical and chaos that couldn’t be by anyone else

  03-11-2025 14:00
  (Columbia)
  The Catalan star’s monumental fourth LP features lyrics in 13 languages, references to female saints, the London Symphony Orchestra – and Björk on ‘divine intervention’Last week, Rosalía appeared on a US podcast to discuss her fourth album. At one juncture, the interviewer asked if she didn’t think that Lux was demanding a lot from her listeners: a not entirely unreasonable question, given that it features a song cycle in four “movements
  
  Read more

• Richard Ashcroft: ‘Why not Sir Liam and Sir Noel?’

  03-11-2025 12:28
  The former Verve singer talks about his supporting role in the big Oasis reunion shows, his AI fears and what he thinks of fans who Shazam his songsRichard Ashcroft is the man of the moment. Fresh from supporting Oasis as the self-proclaimed “only man for the job”, the former Verve singer is back with an (almost) sold-out arena tour for 2026, and some more Oasis dates in South America, not to mention a seventh solo album, Lovin’ You. We caught up with Ashcroft to chat about lov
  
  Read more

• ‘I took mushrooms before my audition’: Smiths drummer Mike Joyce on wild gigs, Marr’s jim-jams and Morrissey’s genius

  03-11-2025 06:00
  Breaking dancefloors, recording in the dark, crying at I Know It’s Over, winning in court, splitting over chips … the musician relives his tumultuous years in ‘the best British band ever’‘It was terrifying,” says Mike Joyce, sitting in the palatial suite of the Stock Exchange hotel in Manchester. The drummer is talking about his favourite gig with the Smiths: the night in July 1986 when The Queen Is Dead tour hit Salford Maxwell Hall. “They weren’
  
  Read more

• Romesh Ranganathan: ‘I Want Your Soul by Armand Van Helden is so relentlessly catchy I’m sick of it’

  02-11-2025 10:00
  The comedian and presenter would do LL Cool J at karaoke – if his family’s lives depended on it. But what song would make his funeral ‘pop off’?The first song I fell in love withGrowing up, every weekend we’d visit a different Sri Lankan family’s house in London. One kid had Thriller by Michael Jackson, and I fell in love with Billie Jean. I then ripped my brother’s Michael Jackson Bad poster in a retaliation move, for which I now formally apologise.The
  
  Read more

• Add to playlist: the long-lost lo-fi pop of Australian nun Sister Irene O’Connor and the week’s best tracks

  31-10-2025 13:00
  Far from being the preserve of ecclesiastical listening, the reissue of O’Connor’s 1973 album is a compelling feast of drum machine, acoustic guitar and synth organFrom Sydney, Australia
  Recommended if you like Shirley and Dolly Collins; Efficient Space’s Sky Girl compilation
  Up next Fire of God’s Love reissued by Freedom to Spend on 14 NovemberAs any nun worth her salt might tell you, revelation can come from the most unlikely places. Such is the case with Fire of God&rs
  
  Read more

• Florence + the Machine: Everybody Scream review – alt-rock survivor surveys her kingdom with swagger

  31-10-2025 01:00
  (Polydor)
  On her self-deprecating, viscera-flecked sixth record, Florence Welch picks apart the compulsions and contradictions of fameThe title track of Everybody Scream provides a suitably striking opening for Florence + the Machine’s sixth album. A sinister organ and a choir of voices harmonise in the style of a horror theme, replaced in short order by the sound of screaming and a stomping glam rock rhythm; instead of the shouts of “Hey!” that traditionally punctuated a glitt
  
  Read more

• Anna von Hausswolff: Iconoclasts review – exhilarating, euphoric goth songcraft

  30-10-2025 13:00
  (Year0001)
  The Swedish experimental musician pivots from drones to spectacular pop melodies, with guest spots from Iggy Pop and Ethel CainAnna von Hausswolff’s sixth studio album is being trailed as the 39-year-old Swede’s pivot towards pop, which you could say is all relative. For the last decade, Von Hauswolff has dealt in music that is solemn, echo-laden, heavy on the drone of her beloved pipe organ and fully deserving of the adjective gothic.Her work has elicited comparisons to N
  
  Read more

• Jack DeJohnette was more than a jazz drummer – his staggering range made him a superhuman force in music

  27-10-2025 17:06
  With a complex playing style that was nevertheless generous towards other musicians, the US musician was in a category all of his own• Jack DeJohnette dies aged 83My interview with Jack DeJohnette didn’t start well. It was the summer of 2000 and DeJohnette was in London to play with Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. Referring to him in my first question as a “drummer” felt reasonable enough, but DeJohnette didn’t appreciate being pigeonholed and shot back instant
  
  Read more

• Sananda Maitreya review – the former Terence Trent D’Arby returns in astonishing vocal form

  27-10-2025 16:14
  O2 Academy, Liverpool
  Pop’s lost prodigy returns for the first time in 23 years with a dazzling, genre-hopping show – and a falsetto that still floors the crowdThe 63-year-old American on stage tonight was one of the biggest stars in the firmament at the end of the 1980s. Back then, his debut album Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby went multiple-platinum, he was seen as the new Prince and told the world he was a genius. However, D’Arby’s car
  
  Read more

• Gillian Welch and David Rawlings review – perfectly paired talents at the peak of their powers

  26-10-2025 13:14
  02 Apollo, ManchesterThe guitar duo cast a spell over a rapt audience with wistful songs evoking open skies and yearning that even the final house lights can’t dispelThe Apollo’s huge stage contains nothing more than a stool and a table, upon which are placed two drinks and a very tiny amplifier, but Gillian Welch and David Rawlings don’t need showbiz trimmings. Later, when Rawlings straps on a harmonica, his musical partner quips: “That’s all you get by way of cost
  
  Read more

• Dave Ball was not some bloke in the background of Soft Cell – he drove their startling, subversive sound

  23-10-2025 18:53
  Far more than a mute foil to Marc Almond, Ball brought his love of northern soul and strange electronics to bear on some of Britain’s most uncompromising pop• News: Dave Ball, synth-pop hitmaker as one half of Soft Cell, dies aged 66By common consent, Soft Cell’s first Top of the Pops appearance, on 13 August 1981, ranks among the show’s most striking performances. It was impactful enough to send their single Tainted Love first into the Top Ten, then to No 1 – it ult
  
  Read more

• D’Angelo’s music was imbued with the influence of Black women

  21-10-2025 14:16
  Female collaborators, muses and ministers shaped D’Angelo’s voice, arrangements and emotional acuityThe first time D’Angelo reached me, he wasn’t alone. His voice was entwined with Erykah Badu’s on Your Precious Love, a duet that felt like an offering being passed between sweethearts. I was 14, the edge of adolescence, opening to my own life. Their voices sounded delicate, blooming – almost shy. A cover of a classic Motown record written by Ashford & Simps
  
  Read more

Follow @MusicUKnws on Twitter!