Music news

• Mayhem: De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive review – ferociously feral

  05-01-2017 23:30
  
  (thetruemayhem.com)Few underground observers would dispute that Mayhem’s 1994 debut, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, remains the single most important album in the Norwegian black metal saga. This furious live document of the band’s first ever front-to-end performance of it, recorded in Norrköping, Sweden, at the end of 2015, is clearly not meant to usurp the source material, but it does hammer home exactly how powerful, disturbing and otherworldly songs such as Freezing Moon and Lif
  
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• Foxygen: Hang review – all kinds of ridiculous, with full orchestra

  05-01-2017 23:15
  
  (Jagjaguwar)Foxygen’s new album is barely over half an hour long, but it still manages to be all kinds of ridiculous within that timeframe. The Californian duo’s psych tendencies have blossomed here into wild glam Bowie pastiches, camp vaudeville turns and big band brass freakouts (apparently, all eight songs feature a 40-plus-piece orchestra). At first the wackiness is too much to digest, a sort of “you don’t have to be mad to review this, but it helps!” Yet agains
  
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• Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels 3 review – their time is now

  05-01-2017 23:00
  
  (Run the Jewels, Inc)“When I started this band, didn’t see no plans,” says El-P on this album’s double-headed closer. “Just run with the craft, have a couple of laughs, make a buck and dash.”Related: Killer Mike leads the pack of rappers-turned-politicians running for officeContinue reading...
  
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• Gucci Mane: The Return of East Atlanta Santa review – Christmas album with white stuff

  05-01-2017 22:45
  
  (Atlantic)Since his release from prison this summer, Gucci Mane has been unbelievably prolific. One album and three mixtapes, including the one with his fellow ATLien, Future, saw him outwork the cadre of younger rappers, such as 21 Savage, who appeared while he was behind bars.Related: Gucci Mane: ‘Being in a place full of death motivated me to change my life’Continue reading...
  
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• Thom Hell: Happy Rabbit review – heartfelt songs for a lost world

  05-01-2017 22:30
  
  (Jansen Platerproduksj)Upon turning 40 and reaching his eighth album , the Norwegian Grammy-winning singer-songwriter-producer Thomas Helland effectively sings his life, with 16 songs that reflects the artists who have most inspired him. Mostly, this seems to have been the late Beatles’ lush orchestrations, Jimmy Webb’s classic songwriting and the yearning vocals of ill-fated Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. There are also audible nods to John Grant, Supergrass and, with the sublime 1985, th
  
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• Sundara Karma: Youth Is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect review – chugging indie inevitability

  05-01-2017 22:15
  
  (RCA)While other genres shape-shift with the zeitgeist, each year brings one anointed guitar group – a gang of young blokes in leather jackets intent on dragging mid-noughties NME cover stars into the present day. Following Catfish and the Bottlemen and Blossoms, 2017’s leaders of the “real music” revival are Reading’s Sundara Karma. Their music groans with inevitability, with the Killers’ pious preachery, and the chugging earnestness of clean-shaven-era Kings
  
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• Brian Eno: Reflection review – endless techno-utopian lift music

  05-01-2017 22:00
  
  (Warp)If 2016 had you fleeing for a panic room or depopulated wilderness, this could be your perfect soundtrack: a chilly but mostly benign 54-minute piece of ambient music that gradually smothers your worried internal monologue. Bell-like tones fall jazzily on to a bedrock of sustained blurry chords like clusters of droplets, as electronic wind whistles and bass looms from the deep – all at a pace that makes La Monte Young sound like Major Lazer. Those with Apple devices can download an e
  
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• Readers recommend: share your songs with notable alliteration

  05-01-2017 21:00
  
  Make your nomination in the comments and a reader will pick the best eligible tracks for a playlist next week – you have until Monday 9 January This week’s readers recommend guru seeks songs with impressive or arresting alliteration in their titles or lyrics.You have until 11pm on Monday 9 January to post your nomination and make your justification. Regular RR contributor Scott Blair (who posts in the comments as misterbadexample) will select from your recommendations and produce the
  
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• Oddarrang: Agartha review – small band with big dreams

  05-01-2017 19:45
  
  (Edition)With an unusual lineup of guitar, cello, trombone, voices and electronics, a multi-genre sweep from rock and jazz to contemporary classical, and vocal/instrumental harmonies on singable themes that sometimes suggest a Nordic Pat Metheny group, Finnish quintet Oddarrang have sounded like a small lineup with big dreams since their emergence over a decade ago. Agartha, with its scientific and mythological undercurrents, takes the band closer to an orchestral and electronic-ambient sound, t
  
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• Schlippenbach Trio: Warsaw Concert review – enthralling improv from jazz supergroup

  05-01-2017 19:30
  
  (Intakt)The European trio of pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens are a unique all-improv group whose balance of conversational spontaneity and personal contrarianism has kept them fresh for more than four decades. Across a 51-minute single track and a short coda, they enthrallingly fuse their jazz enthusiasms (Coltrane’s hurtling virtuosity, muscular lyricism and tonal range in the saxophonist’s case, Thelonious Monk’s chords and
  
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• Ex On The Beach Series 6 Competition: Win A Trip To Crete And £500 Cash!

  05-01-2017 19:28
  
  Got the winter blues? Enter our competition to win a trip to Crete, the home of this series of Ex On The Beach...
  
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• Alistair Anderson and Northlands album review – a fine debut of folk instrumentals

  05-01-2017 19:15
  
  (White Meadow Records)Alistair Anderson is one of the British folk scene’s finest instrumentalists, a concertina virtuoso and Northumbrian piper who worked with the High Level Ranters before moving on to a solo career. On this self-titled debut album, consisting largely of instrumentals, he is joined by three excellent younger musicians – guitarist Ian Stephenson, fiddler Sophy Ball and the singer and flautist Sarah Hayes, from Glasgow’s Admiral Fallow. Anderson is the veteran,
  
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• Celebrity Big Brother 2017: Speidi Are Plotting Against Calum And Angie Best: “They Don’t Know Our Game”

  05-01-2017 18:38
  
  No one does, guys.
  
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• Streaming overtakes U.S. digital music sales for first time - Nielsen

  05-01-2017 18:22
  Canadian rapper Drake helped music streaming services explode in 2016, rising by 76 percent in the United States to overtake digital sales of music for the first time in history, Nielsen Music said on Thursday. Americans used on demand streaming platforms, such as Apple Music, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora and Amazon Music, to listen to 431 billion songs in 2016, led by hip hop and R&B artists like Drake, The Weeknd, Kanye West and Rihanna, Nielsen said in its 2016 U.S. year-end report.
  
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• Austra: ‘How psychedelic would our world be if technology wasn’t just about making someone money?’

  05-01-2017 18:20
  
  Depressed at the state of the world, Canadian vocalist and producer Katie Stelmanis dove into Naomi Klein, Star Trek, cyborgs and Latin American dance music to find inspiration for new album Future Politics. Fittingly, it’s due on the day Donald Trump becomes US presidentIt’s a chilly December day in New York and the fifth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art is full of future visions from the past century. There are combinations of the technological and the human that range f
  
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• Gaz Beadle's Naked Bath Time Sexy Pose Is A Thing Of Both Dreams And Nightmares

  05-01-2017 18:07
  
  Our eyes, OUR EYES.
  
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• Lady Gaga And Katy Perry Are 'Involved' In Kesha Vs Dr Luke Legal Battle

  05-01-2017 17:42
  
  A text between Lady Gaga and Kesha has been submitted in the Kesha/Dr Luke case
  
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• You Won't Believe Scarlett Moffatt's Weight Loss Transformation In This Throwback Thursday

  05-01-2017 17:22
  
  Wow!
  
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• What You Missed In Music: will.i.am On Why ‘The Voice’ Winners Flop, Free The xx Tickets & More

  05-01-2017 16:27
  
  Also, Bon Iver have cancelled their European tour. Cry.
  
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• This Could Be What's To Blame If You Suffer From Severe PMS

  05-01-2017 16:10
  
  Bummer tbh.
  
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• 14 Of The Most Shocking Celebrity Big Brother Moments Ever!

  05-01-2017 16:07
  
  From Stephen Bear and Chloe Khan to Marnie Simpsons boobs. We almost couldn't watch. Almost...
  
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• The KLF are back (sort of) – and it’s exactly what 2017 needs

  05-01-2017 16:03
  
  The rumours that Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty are reforming after 25 years appear to be true. If we ever needed someone to shake up a staid music industry, it’s nowThis year began with good news: the KLF, the duo formed in 1987 by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, and also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, were returning after a 25-year hiatus. The joy was short-lived. News of the comeback centred on a mediocre YouTube collage featuring the duo’s previous videos, which turned o
  
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• Flo Morrissey and Matthew E White: Gentlewoman, Ruby Man review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

  05-01-2017 16:00
  
  On a wildly eclectic set of cover versions – everything from the Velvet Underground to the Bee Gees – the duo warp the originals into something new, strange and wonderful
  Gentlewoman, Ruby Man is an album born of a moment of serendipity. Virginia-based auteur Matthew E White first encountered 21-year-old London singer-songwriter Flo Morrissey when the first track taken from his 2015 album Fresh Blood was reviewed next to her debut single, Pages of Gold, in this newspaper. Intrigued b
  
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• Stephin Merritt on his musical memoir: 'People who could be insulted, I cleared with them first'

  05-01-2017 14:42
  
  The prolific Magnetic Fields songwriter has just unveiled his latest epic work – a track for each year of his life. He talks about how he sorted through the ‘mess’ of his past“We made the Cramps sound orchestral / That’s an achievement I guess. / As for rehearsal, we made the Shaggs sound like Yes.” Lines this smart and funny don’t appear on pop records too often – and ones that refer to demented outsider artist band the Shaggs never do. Outside th
  
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• Is Jonathan Cheban Headed Into The Celebrity Big Brother House To Face-Off With Ray J Over BFF Kim Kardashian?

  05-01-2017 14:05
  
  Dramaaaaa.
  
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• Kylie Jenner Rocks A See Through Swimsuit with Jordyn Woods on Exotic Getaway

  05-01-2017 13:49
  
  Kylie Jenner and Jordyn Woods show off their swimwear
  
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• Tanya Burr And Jim Chapman Are Complete Holiday Goals On Romantic Maldives Trip

  05-01-2017 13:18
  
  Where was our invite, guys?
  
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• Mass Effect Andromeda Release Date Revealed & IT'S REALLY SOON

  05-01-2017 12:57
  
  And it looks sexy AF.
  
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• Which Of These Young Actors Will Win The 2017 Rising Star BAFTA Award?

  05-01-2017 12:10
  
  Could Tom Holland take home the award?
  
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• Fans Want Chloe Ferry To Enter The Celebrity Big Brother House And So Do We

  05-01-2017 12:07
  
  IMAGINE.
  
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• Celebrity Big Brother 2017: Speidi Are Already Plotting Against Their Biggest Threat: ‘She Scares Me’

  05-01-2017 12:02
  
  And it's not who you'd expect!
  
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• Louis Tomlinson's Ex Briana Jungwirth Hits Back At Instagram Hacker

  05-01-2017 11:45
  
  Briana Jungwirth responds to Insta hackers
  
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• Jesy Nelson Declares Break-Ups 'Horrendous' As Little Mix Talk Empowering Their Fans

  05-01-2017 11:29
  
  We hear ya, Jesy.
  
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• A Diplo TV Show Starring James Van Der Beek Is Coming

  05-01-2017 11:05
  
  The new show is being described as "Louie meets WorldStar HipHop crossed with This Is Spinal Tap"
  
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• Andrew Garfield's Best Birthday Involved Getting High At Disneyland With Emma Stone

  05-01-2017 10:47
  
  Pot brownies were involved.
  
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• Zayn Malik Was Beaten To Best-Selling UK Debut Artist Of 2016 By A TV Presenter

  05-01-2017 10:20
  
  Plot twist.
  
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• Kylie Jenner's Calendar Had One Job But Still Got Her Birthday Wrong

  05-01-2017 09:33
  
  Awks.
  
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• Music you missed: 10 Australian underground releases from Peep Tempel to Corin

  05-01-2017 04:44
  
  Our quarterly music column returns to dig up the best under-the-radar Australian releases from the end of 2016These nine albums share something. A line from Anthrocene on Nick Cave’s record Skeleton Tree kept coming to me as I wrote this column: “Animals pull the night around their shoulders.” These are albums you can pull around your shoulders. None have singles that tower above the rest but each has succeeded in making and maintaining a distinct universe; a space you can &nda
  
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• AP FACT CHECK: Album sales not up much despite Trump tweet

  05-01-2017 00:25
  
  NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that the album sales of Jackie Evancho, the teenage classical singer, have "skyrocketed" since the announcement that she would perform at his inauguration.
  
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