Music news

• Parquet Courts: Human Performance review – a New York punk state of mind

  14-04-2016 23:45
  
  (Rough Trade) Related: Parquet Courts: ‘Winning is the whole point’ Human Performance sees Parquet Courts sprucing up their sound – although that says less about any mainstream ambitions the fiercely DIY Brooklyn band may have and more about the fact their previous albums sounded like they were recorded in the kind of rusting bean can Daniel Johnston might have rejected on the grounds of poor acoustics. So while this fifth album is tighter and cleaner, it’s far from chart
  
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• Sturgill Simpson: A Sailor’s Guide to Earth review – hard-hitting country soul

  14-04-2016 23:30
  
  (Loose/Atlantic) Related: Sturgill Simpson: country music's young outlaw shifts shape again Sturgill Simpson has found a novel way to rebut all the claims that he is the future of Nashville. His third album takes a sharp turn away from the questing, metaphysical country of his second record, bringing on board the Dap-Kings to transform his songs into hard-hitting country soul. Simpson spends much of A Sailor’s Guide to Earth pondering his responsibilities to his young son, but not in a clo
  
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• Teleman: Brilliant Sanity review – terrific motorik indie

  14-04-2016 23:15
  
  (Moshi Moshi) Teleman’s brilliant second album is proof of the desirability of letting musicians develop. Three members of the quartet were previously in the unrelentingly OK indiepop group Pete and the Pirates, all jangling guitars and cloying sweetness over their two albums. As Teleman, they dropped the jangle and brought a pleasingly Anglicised version of motorik to the fore. Brilliant Sanity opens with their most explicit statement of the debt to Germany, in the form of Düsseldorf
  
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• John Carpenter: Lost Themes II review – horror maestro's creeping aural dread

  14-04-2016 23:00
  
  (Sacred Bones) Related: John Carpenter: 'I’m just this old-school person who made a score for a movie' Given that director-composer John Carpenter’s electronic scores were so integral to his classic 70s and 80s horror movies, from The Fog to Halloween, it’s a wonder that he waited so long to release an album. However, following 2015’s Lost Themes, this is his second such offering in 14 months. Made (again) with his son and godson, it pairs sinister synthesisers with chugg
  
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• J Dilla: The Diary review – another side of the late hip-hop legend

  14-04-2016 22:45
  
  (Mass Appeal)The legend of J Dilla is built around his beats. The producer, who died 10 years ago of a rare blood disease, is the object of cult fascination for his production work. But this posthumous release (the legacy of a major label deal with MCA records) sees Dilla trying to reinvent himself as a performer, and showcasing his skills as a rapper. On those terms, the album is OK. Dilla’s flow is pithy but often plain, and its limitations are put into context by a short contribution fr
  
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• Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: PersonA review – trippy folkpop with a rustic glaze

  14-04-2016 22:30
  
  (Community Music)Since restyling himself as charismatic bandleader Edward Sharpe, Alex Ebert has enjoyed considerable success – most notably with raucous 2009 single Home, on which he and now-departed vocalist Jade Castrinos sang about their feelings for one other as if they lived in an old barn, rather than 21st-century LA. Affectation is part and parcel of Ebert’s work with his band, and this fourth album sees the group continue to trowel on the rustic glaze. On No Love Like Yours,
  
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• Cate Le Bon: Crab Day review – a rubber-band-ball of energy and invention

  14-04-2016 22:15
  
  (Turnstile) Related: Cate Le Bon: how Cardiff’s finest found a California state of mind After third album Mug Museum, Welsh art-popper Cate Le Bon has turned the last of her pottery-wheel twee and, on Crab Day, creates a springy rubber-band-ball of angular guitar, squalling saxophone and elastic basslines. Single Wonderful, for example, sounds like it has popped out of a Warhol Campbell’s soup can. Mostly, though, the album has the eccentric air of an am-dram troupe who have raided t
  
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• Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop: Love Letter for Fire review – magnetic, dusky Americana

  14-04-2016 22:00
  
  (Sub Pop)Love Letter for Fire’s particular charm lies in its two creators’ hesitance to take centre-stage. Written as conversational duets, the musical magnetism between first-time collaborators Jesca Hoop, California songwriter and adopted Manchester resident, and cult folk artist Sam Beam of Iron and Wine, allows for space and nuance, more two friends lamenting late into the night than tussling theatrics. Their dusky country and Americana avoids traditional tropes or slide guitars
  
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• New York Met Opera's music director James Levine to retire after 40 years

  14-04-2016 21:59
  James Levine, the music director at New York's Metropolitan Opera for 40 years, will retire this year for health reasons, the Met announced on Thursday. Levine, 72, who has battled Parkinson's disease and other health issues in recent years, will step down at the end of the current 2015-16 season in May. He will be named music director emeritus and will continue to work with the Met's young talent development program, the Met said in a statement. With his wild hair, portly figure and bespectacle
  
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• James Levine to retire as Met music director after 40 years

  14-04-2016 21:45
  
  NEW YORK (AP) — James Levine will retire as the Metropolitan Opera's music director at the end of the season because of Parkinson's disease, ending a 40-year run that lifted the company to a golden era but became increasingly problematic as his health declined.
  
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• Readers recommend: share your songs about feminism

  14-04-2016 21:00
  
  Our regular column asks you to nominate songs on the theme of feminism for next week’s playlist. You have until Monday 18 April
  Readers recommend has tackled hundreds of topics over the years, but never feminism. We’re asking you to nominate the tracks you think should be on next week’s playlist on the theme – and tell us why, bearing in mind a tune that’s featured in a previous blog is ineligible. You can find a list of all songs previously picked here.
  You have un
  
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• Metropolitan Opera says James Levine to retire as music director at season's end

  14-04-2016 20:48
  NEW YORK (AP) — Metropolitan Opera says James Levine to retire as music director at season's end.
  
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• Fuck It Friday: Ryan Coogler

  14-04-2016 20:13
  
  Celebrating the power of just saying "ah...F**K IT"
  
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• Various artists: Northern Edition, curated by Fiona Talkington review – jazz from the roof of the world

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  (Edition) Jazz and contemporary music from Europe’s northern climes have often been saddled with stereotypes – Jan Garbarek’s lonesome sax laments, or the ambient nu-funk of Bugge Wesseltoft or Nils Petter Molvaer. This perceptively compiled collection, curated by BBC Radio 3’s Fiona Talkington, tells a bigger story. The dark, pulsating folk-fusion music of Finnish group Oddarrang is here, with its twangy guitars and rocking buildups, as is the looping, sonically startlin
  
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• 26 Incredible Things Emma Watson Has Achieved At 26

  14-04-2016 19:53
  
  Emma is SLAYING life.
  
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• PJ Harvey to the Beatles: five songs that accidentally started a scrap

  14-04-2016 18:17
  
  Her new single has angered residents of Washington DC, but PJ Harvey’s not the first artist to have caused a scandal without trying. Here are the stories of The Community of Hope and four other songs that kicked offArtists don’t always get inspirations from their own pulsating, whirlygig brains, but from real-life sources. Sometimes, these real-life sources have no idea what they’re doing. A few years ago, Washington Post reporter Paul Schwartzman was put in touch with war phot
  
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• Little Mix Show Us Their Undies In An Exclusive Behind The Scenes Look At Their 'Hair' Video!

  14-04-2016 17:49
  
  WE WANT TO WATCH IT NOW.
  
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• Here's How Suicide Squad Links To Batman v Superman

  14-04-2016 17:38
  
  So that's why they're the bad guys.
  
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• Andrew WK: join the party. The Party Party

  14-04-2016 17:21
  
  The musician, motivational speaker and ambassador has a new message: he has set up a political group intended to refocus the US election on the biggest issue – partying. Read his manifesto hereOur two-party system is broken. I’ve always said that if there’s a force that is destroying the world, it’s the belief of one side that the other side is the one doing the destroying. The complexities of the human experience can’t be summed up this binary, “us v them&rdq
  
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• Gears of War 4's New Trailer Will Make Every Hair On Your Body Tingle

  14-04-2016 17:18
  
  This cinematic trailer is awesome.
  
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• 10 Crazy Road Rage Videos That Prove Humans Shouldn't Be Allowed To Drive

  14-04-2016 16:40
  
  People drive each other nuts, espesh when they're driving a car!
  
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• You Literally Won't Recognise Taylor Swift On The Cover Of Vogue

  14-04-2016 16:21
  
  WHO IS THIS PERSON AND WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH TAYLOR SWIFT?
  
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• Wrap Up Radar: Vital

  14-04-2016 16:06
  
  After the success of his standout track ‘Love For Grime’, which gained a significant number of YouTube views back in 2014, Vital has now returned with some brand new material and ‘Dead Or Dying’ is his latest solid effort.
  
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• PJ Harvey: The Hope Six Demolition Project review – potent, beautiful songs and minor lyrical missteps

  14-04-2016 16:00
  
  A few unconvincing moments aside, Polly Harvey’s latest is a raucous and powerful set of highly memorable songsThe Hope Six Demolition Project is an album with quite a story attached. Preparations for the follow-up to 2011’s Mercury prize-winning Let England Shake involved Polly Harvey travelling to Afghanistan, Kosovo and the grimmer parts of Washington DC in the company of film-maker and photographer Seamus Murphy, the better to record the effects of war and poverty. The field trip
  
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• Wrap Up Radar: Streets Made Innovators (SMI)

  14-04-2016 15:49
  
  SMI dismantle the original and add a wandering bassline, some slick drums and some intermittent and gruff electric guitar, turning the track into a Jazz-meets-Grime crossover with their charismatic live instrumentation.
  
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• Deftones: ‘It took a tragedy for us to really reconnect’

  14-04-2016 15:40
  
  The alternative metallers have made it through their ‘dark days’, with new album Gore expected to go top five. But could their singer’s electicism lead to more trouble ahead? Related: Deftones: Gore review – metal that seduces instead of assails “No, I don’t listen to those two records,” says Chino Moreno, of the albums – Deftones and Saturday Night Wrist – from the era in the first half of the last decade that his band, Deftones, hold within
  
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• Mirga takes the baton: the CBSO music director on her new job

  14-04-2016 15:39
  
  After the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s speed dating-style search for a new director, 29-year-old Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla prepares to immerse herself in British musical lifeElfin, fast-moving, with a wide mouth, noisy laugh and clear, piercing blue eyes, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla manages to exude calm while crackling with energy. You see immediately how the 29-year-old Lithuanian music director-elect of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra might command some 80 o
  
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• Kid Bookie Asks Some Big Questions On His Heavy New Track

  14-04-2016 15:16
  
  Taken from his forthcoming EP, ‘WTGWB’ sees Bookie discuss the work he’s put into the scene so far and how he will continue to do so until he achieves his dreams.
  
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• Avelino Demonstrates His Lyrical Prowess On Superb New EP ‘FYO’

  14-04-2016 14:41
  
  Entitled ‘F.Y.O’, which stands for ‘F*ck Your Opinions’, the project is full of powerful and hypnotically addictive tracks
  
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• BBCSO/Oramo review – surging Bax and intense Elgar

  14-04-2016 14:13
  
  Barbican, London
  Sakari Oramo kept Bax’s colours crystalline and delivered a fine Elgar First while Brett Dean showed the lyrical power of his Viola ConcertoDiehard admirers of Arnold Bax’s music maintain that he is one of the neglected greats of 20th-century British music, a composer whose time will come again. More sceptical admirers find that some of his works, the symphonies particularly, never quite deliver on what they promise, and that the best of Bax is to be found in some of
  
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• Macklemore and Ryan Lewis review – broiling agitprop and goofball braggadocio

  14-04-2016 14:12
  
  Hydro, Glasgow
  Worthy political numbers hold centre-stage, but a sprint of escalating goofiness finally takes this two-hour set over the top
  Macklemore – AKA Seattle rapper Ben Haggerty – wants to celebrate and skewer high-rolling hedonism while raising social awareness. It’s a tricky balance. At this uneven show, there’s a brisk trade in T-shirts that solemnly declare: “Health Care Is a Human Right.” Equally, there’s a doolally reaction from 6,000 fans
  
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• Animal Collective review – joyful oddity becomes wilful wackiness

  14-04-2016 14:12
  
  The Ritz, Manchester
  Touches of the sublime that could be expected from the makers of Merriweather Post Pavilion are lost in this troubled performanceThe late Factory Records boss Tony Wilson once said that bands never turn in anything good after their fifth album. Baltimore’s Animal Collective proved him wrong, producing their masterpiece with their eighth. Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009 was a marvellous record, in which the group turned collages of everything from jungle beats to win
  
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• Ruby Rose Talks DJing And Turning “Straight Women Gay” In Galour Interview

  14-04-2016 14:07
  
  WERK
  
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• Brooklyn Beckham Made Kanye West Beam With Happiness When They Bumped Into Each Other

  14-04-2016 13:47
  
  Grinning from EAR TO EAR.
  
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• Drake's Secret Snapchat Is Amazing And Needs To Be In Everyone's Lives

  14-04-2016 13:43
  
  Still don't know his username though.
  
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• Bum Contouring Is A Thing Now And It Just Looks Impractical

  14-04-2016 12:55
  
  This is getting OUT OF HAND.
  
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• Cruz Beckham Is Basically The Next Justin Bieber In This Video Posted By Mum Victoria

  14-04-2016 12:36
  
  SO CUTE.
  
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• Oi Oi! Meet The New Geordie Shore Lad Marty McKenna… And He's Already Bucked One Of The Lasses

  14-04-2016 12:23
  
  The Newcastle lad makes his debut in Geordie Shore next week and we are absolutely BUZZIN' about it...
  
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• No direction: have boybands hit the end of the road?

  14-04-2016 12:00
  
  With One Direction on hiatus and the latest manufactured outfits tanking, the future looks bleak for pop’s permabuffed princelings. Perhaps it’s time to bring back the dance routine …During the 11th series of the UK X Factor in 2014, a tried and tested formula was being played out with thudding familiarity. Eight similarly bequiffed teenage mannequins called things like Barclay, Reese and Casey – each one having been dumped out of the competition – were told their
  
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• Selena Gomez Really 'Doesn't Give A F**k' What You Think About Her Childhood

  14-04-2016 11:58
  
  She actually appreciates her start in life.
  
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• The Proms' David Pickard: Evolution not revolution

  14-04-2016 11:52
  
  Will the arrival of a new director mean radical changes for the Proms? Stephen Moss meets David Pickard as he announces details of the 2016 seasonA darkened bar at the Royal Albert Hall has been chosen as the location to photograph David Pickard, the new head of the Proms, who is going to be living in this place (the hall, not the bar) for much of the summer. He is positioned in front of an array of spotlights. “You’ll look like a rock star,” the BBC publicist tells him. &ldquo
  
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• These Messages From Rihanna To A Fan Struggling With His Sexuality Will Make You Love Her Even More

  14-04-2016 11:45
  
  What a woman.
  
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• Justin Bieber Wasn't Actually Being Choked By Post Malone, FYI

  14-04-2016 11:16
  
  NO DRAMA HERE.
  
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• Malta! We'll See You Again This Year With...Wiz Khalifa!

  14-04-2016 11:12
  
  Wiz will be celebrating Isle Of MTV's 10th anniversary with us this June!
  
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• Selfies Of The Week Featuring Zoella, Ariana Grande & Loads More!

  14-04-2016 10:55
  
  All the best celebrity selfies from the week that was...
  
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• A Kylie Jenner Fan Has Got An Actual Tattoo Of Her Lip Kit On His Arm

  14-04-2016 10:22
  
  Bold. Move.
  
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• Black Keys regret inducting Steve Miller into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

  14-04-2016 09:35
  
  After Miller’s angry tirade mars ceremony, singer Dan Auerbach tells Rolling Stone ‘the whole process was unpleasant’ and that he and bandmate Patrick Carney left while Texan’s band was still playingBlack Keys frontman Dan Auerbach has said he regrets that he and his bandmate Patrick Carney agreed to induct Steve Miller into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last Friday night. Miller caused controversy at the often staid event by laying into it during interviews after the ce
  
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• Win Tickets To See Chase & Status, Kaiser Chiefs, Tom Odell & More At MTV Crashes Coventry!

  14-04-2016 07:36
  
  Start thinking about who you're going to take...
  
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• Ruling Clears Way for Katy Perry to Buy Hilltop Convent in L.A.

  14-04-2016 02:35
  
  LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Wednesday voided the sale of a former Catholic convent to a Los Angeles businesswoman, clearing the way for Katy Perry to purchase the hilltop property.
  
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• Beatboxer Tom Thum and BBC Proms take leap into the unknown

  14-04-2016 02:05
  
  The living sound effects library is bringing his prodigious mimicry to the world of classical musicMichael Jackson’s Billie Jean, a didgeridoo, a mournful trumpet solo and a hi-NRG remix of that trumpet solo. This is just a fraction of the sounds the Australian beatboxer Tom Thum, armed with nothing but a microphone, can emulate. In an era of vocoder-heavy, synthesised pop, he is a compelling reminder of the extreme limits to which the human body can be pushed. Related: The Avalanches upda
  
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