Music news

• Does Marnie Simpson's Latest Snapchat Prove She Has Forgiven Lewis Bloor?

  26-02-2017 17:50
  
  The Geordie Shore babe may have been partying with the TOWIE star's mum
  
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• Adele Didn't Invite Some Of Her Family To Her Wedding?

  26-02-2017 15:44
  
  The Hello singer left some people off the guest list
  
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• Justin Bieber Works Up A Sweat (And Drives Fans Wild) On Topless Hike

  26-02-2017 15:04
  
  The Let Me Love You singer had a work out during a break from his Purpose World Tour
  
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• Looks Like Charlotte Crosby And Stephen Bear Have Reached A Major Relationship Landmark

  26-02-2017 14:34
  
  The Just Tattoo Of Us hosts are definitely getting comfortable with each other
  
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• Perrie Edward's Boyfriend Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain Is Already Worried Little Mix Might Write A Song About Him

  26-02-2017 14:13
  
  The footballed doesn't want to have a shout out if he ends up becoming Perrie's next ex
  
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• Letter: George Michael’s generosity has changed lives in Kenya

  26-02-2017 14:01
  
  Since the death of George Michael, much has been revealed about his generosity, such as the woman on the TV Show Deal or No Deal who received money for IVF treatment from him. What hasn’t been said is that after another contestant on the show mentioned that he was raising money for a project in West Kenya, Michael got in touch and made a donation of £99,000 to this small organisation working with victims of HIV/Aids, called Omwabini, which means rescue.The initiative of Mary Bunyasi,
  
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• Liam Payne And Cheryl Fernandez-Versini Officially Move In Together

  26-02-2017 13:40
  
  The 1D hunk and the former Girls Aloud star have moved into Liam's mansion ahead of their baby arriving
  
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• Ariel Winter Teases Her Sexiest Photo-Shoot Yet With Bra Flashing Taster

  26-02-2017 12:29
  
  The Modern Family beauty is celebrating her good looks
  
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• Scotty T Takes A Cheeky Swipe At Lewis Bloor Over His Twitter Fight Challenges

  26-02-2017 12:05
  
  The Geordie Shore hunk is mocking Lewis by joking he wants to fight fellow TOWIE star Pete Wicks
  
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• The Divine Comedy review – victory for the little guy

  26-02-2017 10:00
  
  Palladium, London
  Neil Hannon’s literate, underdog indie is as winning as ever, 20 years after his band’s commercial peakIt takes a certain attunement to the mood of Brexit Britain to turn up at the London Palladium – that bastion of middling light entertainment where even Wednesday night is Sunday night – dressed as Napoleon. Neil Hannon, owner-operator of the Divine Comedy, wears the breeches and bicorn hat of Britain’s original continental bete noire with pa
  
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• Stormzy: Gang Signs & Prayer review – London’s new grime lord

  26-02-2017 10:00
  
  (#Merky Records)
  Michael Omari is full of wit and rage on his swaggering debutSeveral cycles on from its inception, grime has finally begun reaping its rewards as one of the defining sounds of UK youth, a fiercely local innovation with potentially global reach. Or it had been, until the Brits inexcusably decided to ignore the genre once again.Following recent milestone LPs by scene elders – Skepta (the Mercury-winning Konnichiwa), Kano and Wiley – all eyes are now on the younger set.
  
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• Thundercat: Drunk review – mesmeric and funk-fuelled

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  (Brainfeeder)Grammy award-winning bassist and singer Thundercat is joined by Flying Lotus, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, Kamasi Washington, Wiz Khalifa, Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins on his third full-length album. Over this 23-track epic, Thundercat weaves emotional yet darkly humorous tales of alcohol dependency and heartbreak through mesmeric bass improvisations and soft vocal harmonies. There are many funk-fuelled highlights, including Them Changes, taken from his 2015 release The
  
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• Snow; Echo Rising Stars; Philharmonia Orchestra/ Salonen – review

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  Bussey Building; Milton Court; Royal Festival Hall, London
  The newly formed Opera Story made a dramatic entrance with its fairytale triple bill. Plus, rising stars and a famous sunset…
  The siren words “new opera company” and “world premiere” have lured this susceptible sailor to many a rocky shore. Dank tunnels, leaky tents, rainswept terrain. Late starts, late finishes and the assumption that sitting on the floor adds authenticity. Don’t even mention promena
  
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• Pissed Jeans: Why Love Now review – tuneful, witty filth

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  (Sub Pop)Most neo-grunge sounds pretty derivative. Pennsylvania’s Pissed Jeans, however, aren’t updating the 90s so much as peddling ear-curdling sludge laced with punk misanthropy, the kind of witty filth that can’t help but compare favourably with Sub Pop’s prime. Why Love Now, PJ’s fifth, is a surprisingly tuneful deconstruction of themes as varied as cancer (Waiting on My Horrible Warning), the modern workplace (“singer” Matt Korvette is an insurance
  
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• Los Campesinos!: Sick Scenes review – undimmed indie energy

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  (Wichita)Raw-nerved, bare-souled and sharp enough to draw blood with those glockenspiels, Los Campesinos! were one of the keepers of the mid-2000s indie glut. As they enter their uncertain 30s, the former tweecore enfants terribles continue to grow up disgracefully, balancing a warmer, mature sound with a still-angry energy. “Not right to call this old age, but it certainly ain’t youth,” admits Gareth David on the punchy, rousing Hung Empty, while reflecting that “depress
  
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• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Flying Microtonal Banana review – potent acid rock

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  (Heavenly)They may look like a bunch of dope-smoking slackers, but King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are Australia’s hardest-working band. The first of five albums scheduled for this year – and their ninth since 2012’s debut – this is as trippy as the title intimates, its head-spinning acid rock reinforced by traces of 60s-style raga pop played at the pace of punk. It’s potent and audacious, if a little too far out, though Sleep Drifter shows they can write a mel
  
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• Jan Lundgren: Potsdamer Platz review – unmistakable sparkle and lightness

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  (ACT)Jan Lundgren must have just about the broadest stylistic range of any musician in jazz. It extends from timeless, straight-ahead swing to the contemporary “sound of Europe”, as typified by his two successful Mare Nostrum albums. But there’s no mistaking the sparkle and lightness of spirit that illuminates his piano playing, wherever you hear it. It’s there in his composition too, as this set amply demonstrates. It opens with the title piece, tuneful and jaunty, featu
  
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• Alison Goldfrapp: ‘Artists are private people, observers’

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  Ahead of the release of Goldfrapp’s new album, Silver Eye, the singer discusses creativity, sexuality, fame and Desert Island DiscsAs one half of the shape-shifting electronic pop duo that bears her surname, Alison Goldfrapp has been releasing iridescent, intriguing pop music since 2000 (and before that, appearing on 90s classics such as Orbital’s Are We Here?). In recent years, her photography has made her a huge hit on Instagram (she’s now in charge of her group’s visua
  
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• Alasdair Roberts: Pangs review – folk that rocks

  26-02-2017 09:00
  
  (Drag City)One never knows what’s going to arrive from the prolific Scots singer; bleak antique balladry, self-penned songs, austere acoustics or, as here, a full band that combines cello, fiddle and flute with bass, drums and flashes of electric guitar. Roberts’s elaborate writing style – winding melodies, dense imagery, internal rhymes – means it’s folk that rocks rather than “folk rock”, though the group storm through The Angry Laughing God and The Do
  
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• Mieczysław Weinberg: Chamber Symphonies, Piano Quintet CD review – bold, restless, eclectic

  26-02-2017 08:24
  
  Kremerata Baltica, Gidon Kremer/ Gražinytė-Tyla(ECM) (2 CDs)The prolific Polish-born Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96), who suffered oppression in Stalin’s regime, is only now being widely appreciated. His output includes 26 symphonies, 17 string quartets and seven operas (The Passenger got a mixed reception when ENO performed it in 2011). This album features the four chamber symphonies written near the end of Weinberg’s life: tonal, restless, sharing his f
  
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• Handel: Catone CD review – lively two-act pasticcio

  26-02-2017 08:20
  
  Prina, Invernizzi, Hammarström, Novaro, Cirillo, Auser Musici/Ipata(Glossa) (2 CDs)A lost Handel opera? Not quite: during his London years, Handel quite often arranged the music of other composers and compiled them into pasticcio operas. In this case, arias from Leonardo Leo’s Catone are woven with Vivaldi, Porpora and Hasse numbers and short bursts of recitative to create a lively two-act drama. What this shows vividly is how baroque opera really worked: the choices are determin
  
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• Fricker: String Quartets CD review – superb throughout

  26-02-2017 08:15
  
  Villiers Quartet
  (Naxos)With impeccable timing, the Villiers Quartet have captured the current mood of edgy, querulous uncertainty with their release of the three magnificently bracing string quartets of Peter Racine Fricker (1920-90). Though separated by several years, each is distinctly in Fricker’s unique voice, never quite atonal; always charged with a vital, questing energy. No 3 from 1976 is the most spectacular, with a tautly syncopated allegro feroce, a Shostakovich-like adagio and
  
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• The day I saw John and Yoko’s 'bed-in' peace demonstration

  26-02-2017 07:00
  
  Amsterdam, 1969, and Rick Wilson, a young magazine reporter, hears of unusual goings on at the Hilton…It must have been lunchtime at the pub on one of my first days of my dream job: making an English-language magazine in the magical city of Amsterdam.We were enjoying some refreshment when, swaying a little, my editor slurred: “There’s been a communication to the office about some happening at the Hilton. John Lennon’s holding court about something or other. Sounds a bit
  
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• Did Beethoven’s love for married aristocrat and a doomed son colour his darkest work?

  26-02-2017 01:05
  
  British music scholar claims composer’s sorrow at separation inspired masterpieces including his ninth symphonyTowards the end of his life, in the depths of introspective melancholy, Ludwig van Beethoven created some of the world’s most intensely emotional music. The ninth symphony, the Missa Solemnis and some of his greatest piano sonatas are works that still communicate a uniquely concentrated darkness of thought. Now a British Beethoven scholar believes she can explain the German
  
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