Music news

• Taylor Swift Says Her Friends Will Never Use Her

  08-11-2015 20:07
  
  The singer really values her besties...
  
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• The Kardashian-Jenner Clan Have Recorded A Music Video For Kris's 60th Birthday

  08-11-2015 19:21
  
  Cos it woudn't be a Kardash-Jenner birthday without something, um, different...
  
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• LSO/Gaffigan review – Nicola Benedetti does her best with unrestrained Marsalis

  08-11-2015 18:08
  
  Barbican, London
  Wynton Marsalis’s violin concerto squanders its better ideas. The evening was retrieved with snappy Stravinsky and sweet Bernstein under Gaffigan’s batonWynton Marsalis is a very busy musician. On the night Nicola Benedetti was premiering his violin concerto in London, Marsalis was in Princeton, on tour with his Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra. So one could understand if he feared he might not get the time to write another violin concerto. Perhaps that’s why h
  
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• Arditti Quartet; Nash Ensemble reviews – Julian Anderson shines amid debuts

  08-11-2015 17:38
  
  Wigmore Hall, London
  After Berio and Feldman there was disappointing work by Jarrell and Birtwistle, but Anderson’s new and old pieces were fierce and immaculateRecitals by the Arditti Quartet seem to have become pleasingly regular at the Wigmore Hall. The group’s latest appearance there was a typical mix of 20th-century classics – Luciano Berio’s Sincronie and Morton Feldman’s Structures – alongside two pieces composed especially for the group. In Veräst
  
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• X Factor Finalists Only The Young Have Split Up And It's All Kicked Off

  08-11-2015 17:13
  
  All good things and all that...
  
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• Mötley Crüe review – LA's hedonistic hairspray rockers spark with brimstone in farewell gig

  08-11-2015 15:24
  
  Wembley Arena, London
  The epitome of 80s soft-metal gurning excess, Mötley Crüe upstage bonfire night and Alton Towers on their truly, legally final tourBlame Kiss, the Who, Elton John, the Quo or a dozen more, but nobody takes a farewell tour seriously any more. Unless they die, they all come back. It’s standard practice: as soon as ticket sales dip, you announce a high-profile bow-out jaunt, then reform once the money offers get insane. Right, One Direction? Yet, arguably for t
  
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• Ed Sheeran Has Given Away His Underpants To Raise Money For Charity

  08-11-2015 14:25
  
  Maybe he'll be going commando from now on...
  
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• Little Mix Hilariously Try To Explain Rude-Sounding Words And Things Get Filthy

  08-11-2015 13:48
  
  We never knew these sweet girls knew such dirty words...
  
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• Simon Cowell Says Sorry To One Direction Over Zayn Malik Joke

  08-11-2015 12:55
  
  We never knew 1D could stay so cool and composed...
  
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• Eska Mtungwazi: 'I deferred my life for years'

  08-11-2015 11:00
  
  Her debut album has been nominated for a Mercury prize. So why did Eska Mtungwazi, 44, take so long to make the leap from backing singer to solo artist?Glance at the credits on Eska Mtungwazi’s Mercury-nominated debut album ESKA, and you’ll wonder if she’s perfected the art of self-cloning. She’s written all the songs, with a few co-writers here and there, and performs lead and backing vocals, but then that’s the deal with singer-songwriters. But supplying wurlitzer
  
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• The Popularity of Musical Instruments, 2004-present

  08-11-2015 10:15
  
   
  From Google’s beta-stage measurement analysis of topics, designed to accurately measure overall interest in a broader topic area, not just one specific search term.
  Results are relative to previous interest, but Google doesn’t offer absolute search volumes.
  The post The Popularity of Musical Instruments, 2004-present appeared first on Digital Music News.
  
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• Jenny Hval: ‘I had to chase a guy to get my yoga ball back’

  08-11-2015 10:15
  
  The Norwegian avant garde pop singer on stolen wigs, the pain of listening to old albums, and bringing a performance art feel to her shows...Born in Oslo in 1980, Jenny Hval sang in other people’s bands, and studied creative writing and performance in Melbourne, before she started recording under her own name (she has also traded as Rockettothesky). Her music, though often disjointed and elliptical, can be disarmingly frank, funny and heartfelt. The third Jenny Hval album, Apocalypse, girl
  
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• Grimes: Art Angels review – renegade seeks a place in pop heaven

  08-11-2015 10:00
  
  (4AD)Unless you explicitly set out to play authentic bluegrass, for instance, categorisation is the bane of every musician. Hailing from the Montreal digital underground, producer Claire “Grimes” Boucher initially combined impressionistic loops and processed cooing with a penchant for melody. She looked like a renegade – candy-coloured hair, self-tattooed hands, mountains of gear. But in the circles into which her first two albums – 2010’s Geidi Primes and Halfaxa (
  
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• John Lennon's guitar sold for $2.4m at auction

  08-11-2015 09:43
  
  The Gibson acoustic was stolen in in 1963, and used on the recordings of Love Me Do and PS I Love YouA guitar stolen from the late John Lennon in the 1960s sold for $2.41m (£1.6m) on Saturday at an auction in Beverly Hills, California, and a Beatles drum head went for $2.1m, fetching some of the highest prices ever for items of rock and roll memorabilia.The 1962 J-160E Gibson acoustic guitar had for decades been in the possession of John McCaw, a novice musician who bought it in the late 1
  
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• Acis and Galatea; Philharmonia/ Salonen; CBSO/ Wellber review – the sweet smell of success

  08-11-2015 09:30
  
  St John’s Smith Square; Royal Festival Hall, London; Symphony Hall, BirminghamIt was a week of truly fragrant Handel, some exhilarating new music and a notable debutOpera houses in the 18th century must have been pretty noisome places. Malodorous bodies, stale clothes and the stench from dung-strewn streets would have made sitting through hours of arias and recitatives an olfactory endurance test. It became so bad that managements resorted to perfuming their theatres to keep audiences swee
  
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• Ryan Wigglesworth: Echo and Narcissus CD review – you need to hear this

  08-11-2015 09:00
  
  Booth, Stephen, Padmore, Kelemen, RSVP Voices, Hallé/Wigglesworth
  (NMC)Ryan Wigglesworth (born 1979) is composer, conductor and pianist here, which tells you something about his multitudinous talents. He has just become principal guest conductor of the Hallé, is composer-in-residence with English National Opera (with an opera due for 2017), and has just been nominated in the 2015 British composer awards. He has also won Gramophone awards for his recordings as a conductor. That&rsqu
  
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• Katy Carr: Polonia review – a singular creation

  08-11-2015 09:00
  
  (Deluce) Related: Katy Carr: 'I fell in love with old‑school glamour' The Anglo-Polish singer (and aviator) Katy Carr follows up 2012’s justly admired Paszport with a companion piece that likewise honours overlooked Polish heroes of the second world war and its aftermath. Among her inspirations are Krystyna Skarbek (Churchill’s favourite spy and Fleming’s Vesper Lynd), the exiled general Stanislaw Maczek, and Enigma codebreakers of Bletchley Park. If the historical subjec
  
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• Jamie Woon: Making Time review – back with soul and pared-back purpose

  08-11-2015 09:00
  
  (Polydor)Nobody quite knew where to place Jamie Woon when his debut album, Mirrorwriting, came out in April 2011. Associated with the fragmenting dubstep scene (he had collaborated with Burial) but possessing a fully fledged soul voice and an exploratory approach to musical styles, he fell between several cracks. This long-awaited follow-up should place the London-born singer on firmer ground. Making Time moves with economy and purpose: the production is pared back throughout but the sound is fu
  
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• Floating Points: Elaenia review – a creeping, soaring debut

  08-11-2015 09:00
  
  (Pluto)Every so often, a wordless electronic record turns up that genuinely doesn’t sound like much else around, mixing digitals with real instruments, and vestigial dance cadences with a restless jazz feel. James Holden’s The Inheritors was that record of 2013, and Elaenia, the debut of neuroscience PhD-cum-DJ Sam “Floating Points” Shepherd, joins Holden, Four Tet and a few others in this recherché fraternity. These seven elegant tracks have Persian rug-level
  
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• Derek Nash Acoustic Quartet: You’ve Got to Dig It to Dig It, You Dig? review – fizzes with energy

  08-11-2015 09:00
  
  (Jazzizit)If you’ve heard Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, you’ll have heard Derek Nash. He’s a prominent member. But to get some idea of the sheer breadth of his accomplishment as a saxophonist, composer and bandleader, you should hear this. From smooth cool to groovy funk, to ingeniously recast standards, to one quite gorgeous ballad, the music fizzes with energy, even at its most restrained. Pianist David Newton, bassist Geoff Gascoyne and drummer Sebastia
  
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• Debussy: Préludes Books 1 & 2 CD review – made for Piemontesi

  08-11-2015 09:00
  
  Francesco Piemontesi (piano)
  (Naive)Among the emerging generation of pianists, Francesco Piemontesi has been highly praised as a keyboard poet to set alongside Igor Levit’s intellectual rigour. The Debussy Préludes, which originated as a tribute to Chopin, are made for Piemontesi: he revels in the characterisation and deft colouring of the individual portraits, while always maintaining momentum and flow. There is an odd drawback, however, which is that the piano sound is very confin
  
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• Bill Ryder-Jones: West Kirby County Primary review – from strength to strength

  08-11-2015 09:00
  
  (Domino)Not one to stand still, former Coral guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones has adopted a far more muscular sound on his third solo album. His vocals are still relatively hushed, but where once the backing was equally subdued, now the likes of Two to Birkenhead and Satellites are unapologetically rock, albeit of the skew-whiff type at which Pavement once excelled. The more introspective moments (Wild Roses, Seabirds) are equally strong. Lyrically, Ryder-Jones once again proves himself a compelling s
  
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• Gabrieli 1615: Gabrieli in Venice review – pristine surround sound

  08-11-2015 08:59
  
  The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge(KGS)The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge is marking two milestones this year: the 500th anniversary of the completion of its great chapel and the 400th anniversary of the posthumous publication of Giovanni Gabrieli’s magisterial music for St Mark’s, Venice in the Symphoniae Sacrae. By way of celebration, King’s has used the latest Dolby Atmos technology – favoured by Hollywood – to mix and release this disc, the f
  
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• Ellie Goulding: Delirium review – straight for the pop jugular

  08-11-2015 08:59
  
  (Polydor)Since scoring her first UK No 1 single with 2013’s none-too-subtle Burn, Ellie Goulding has moved away from the folk-tinged, wispy-voiced lilt of her past. Featuring production from A-listers Max Martin and Greg Kurstin, third album Delirium goes straight for the pop jugular, unleashing a relentless barrage of bangers that almost always hit the spot. Around U is a deliciously catchy, synth-laden ode to new love, while Don’t Panic and Codes turn relationship issues into shimm
  
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• John Lennon guitar sells for over $2.4 million at California auction

  08-11-2015 03:31
  
  The 1962 J-160E Gibson acoustic guitar had for decades been in the possession of John McCaw, a novice musician who bought it in the late 1960s without knowing it had been stolen from the legendary Beatle several years before, said auctioneer Darren Julien. Half of the proceeds from the sale of the guitar, which was stolen from Lennon at a December 1963 Christmas concert, will go toward the Spirit Foundation, a charitable organization that he and his widow, Yoko Ono, created, Julien said. The buy
  
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