Music news

• Marnie Simpson And Lewis Bloor Give Relationship Update (And Insist They Are NOT Naked) On Instagram

  09-04-2017 17:58
  
  The on-off couple are staying off - but are glad to have revived their friendship
  
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• Marnie Simpson And Lewis Bloor Give Realtionship Update (And Insist They Are NOT Naked) On Instagram

  09-04-2017 17:58
  
  The on-off couple are staying off - but are glad to have revived their friendship
  
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• Naughty Boy Admits He Used To Spend Thousands Of Pounds Per Month Having Taxis Deliver His Mum's Home Cooking To Him

  09-04-2017 17:29
  
  The chart topping star didn't know how to cook
  
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• Yuja Wang: 'If the music is beautiful and sensual, why not dress to fit?'

  09-04-2017 17:00
  
  The Chinese piano prodigy takes no prisoners. She embraces Brahms and Beethoven as fiercely as she defends her right to wear what she likes
  There are two Yuja Wangs. Or so you might think. One is the young Chinese pianist whose virtuosity and musical intelligence place her in the top echelon of performers. The other is an elfin, spiky-haired fashionista courted by Armani and Rolex, who has a zany wit and delights in appearing before concert audiences in itsy bitsy dresses and five-inch heels. Th
  
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• Chuck Berry fans pay last respects to influential musician in his hometown

  09-04-2017 16:44
  
  Rolling Stones sent guitar-shaped flower arrangement to rock’n’roller’s funeral in St Louis, where he died about three weeks ago at age 90Fans lined up before dawn on Sunday to pay their final respects to Chuck Berry, roughly three weeks after his death at age 90 near his hometown of St Louis.Related: Chuck Berry: the rock'n'roller who wrote the soundtrack for teen rebellionContinue reading...
  
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• LPO/Jurowski review – a daring, outstanding Mahler 8th

  09-04-2017 16:25
  
  Royal Festival Hall, London
  With 400 performers under his command, Vladimir Jurowski lavished care, attention and intelligence on the sonic enormity of Mahler’s symphonyPerformances of Gustav Mahler’s most ambitious symphony remain big events in every sense. Nothing Mahler wrote exhibits his claim that a symphony must contain the world more overtly. The annoying “Symphony of a Thousand” tag was early promotional hyperbole, but Vladimir Jurowski had at least 400 performers
  
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• James Arthur Slams Justin Bieber And Zayn Malik As Copycats

  09-04-2017 16:24
  
  He also took a swipe at Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding and Sam Smith
  
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• Drake Has A Secret Romance With Up And Coming British Star Jorja Smith

  09-04-2017 15:56
  
  The pair have already made sweet music together
  
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• Lisa Kudrow Reveals What Phoebe From Friends Would Be Doing In 2017 & It Will Melt Your Heart

  09-04-2017 15:17
  
  Here's whether Phoebe and Mike are still together...
  
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• Mark Wright Says He Gives Wife Michelle Keegan Acting Advice For Her Sex Scenes

  09-04-2017 15:13
  
  He also admits he has been jealous of her co-stars in the past
  
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• Sting review – ex Policeman gets back on the beat to deliver vintage pop show

  09-04-2017 14:58
  
  Apollo, Manchester
  Looking ludicrously fit, the 65-year-old singer lays aside the lute to give the singalong crowd thumping rock, subtle funk and hurtling new-wave stompersFor a useful barometer of Sting’s career, look no further than his barnet. When the Police were in their chart-steamrollering early 80s pomp, their bass-playing frontman’s hair was blond and lustrous. In recent solo years, as his restless muse has careered alarmingly from musicals to carols to 16th-century songs ac
  
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• Les Fêtes d'Hébé review – Rameau wanted to charm and delight, and this succeeds

  09-04-2017 14:15
  
  Britten theatre, LondonThe Royal College of Music’s European collaboration brings clean-edged chic and character to the French composer’s opéra-ballet spectacleThe distinctively French form of opéra-ballet brings two genres together to make a third. For baroque composers such as Rameau, the term meant something lighter and more purely entertaining than the grander tragédie-lyrique. A hit in Paris in 1739, Hebe’s Festivities is entirely characteristic. Relat
  
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• Kylie Jenner Sizzles In Silver As A Space Cowgirl

  09-04-2017 14:13
  
  Her Saturday night was out of this world
  
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• The 8th Door/Bluebeard’s Castle review – a bloody good double bill

  09-04-2017 13:28
  
  Scottish Opera, Festival theatre, Edinburgh
  Bartók’s gloriously gory opera is given an electrifying update, complete with prequel by Scottish composer Lliam PatersonThe walls weep. The flowers bleed. The lake is made of tears. Bluebeard’s Castle (1911), Bartók’s one-act opera for two singers and large orchestra, lasts an hour and haunts you afresh with each encounter. It may be a grownup fairy story, steeped in Freud and Kafka, exploring that customary split &ndas
  
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• Holly Hagan Defends Geordie Shore As Being Real Reality And Not Scripted "Like Towie"

  09-04-2017 13:25
  
  The radges and tash on moments are all genuine
  
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• Vicky Pattison Furiously Slams "Offensive And Hurtful" Reports She Has Been Sacked From Xtra Camp

  09-04-2017 12:25
  
  The Geordie lass is setting the record straight about her job in the jungle
  
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• Vicky Pattison Furiously Slams "Offensive And Hurtful" Reports She Has Been Sacked From Extra Camp

  09-04-2017 12:25
  
  The Geordie lass is setting the record straight about her job in the jungle
  
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• Maren Morris: ‘Country music shouldn’t always be about the guy’

  09-04-2017 12:00
  
  Talented and outspoken, the rising country star is part of a new generation of female American singers intent on ‘being the aggressor, not the pretty scenery’On 20 January this year, Maren Morris paid tribute to the departing Obamas by posting a photo on Instagram of the couple dancing at a White House ball. For most millennials, this would be a pretty standard gesture, but the 26-year-old country newcomer might as well have left a box of matches on her doorstep. Within hours, a wave
  
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• Skepta review – grime’s top boy

  09-04-2017 10:00
  
  Islington Assembly Hall, London
  Ahead of his first US tour, the bling-free king of grime performs a brilliant charity set with an array of star helpersTen years ago, grime shows rarely happened at all, let alone in swanky places like Islington’s Upper Street. Not one, but three gluten-free bakeries trade here. To loosely paraphrase Skepta – the Mercury prize-winning grime MC leading the genre’s resurgence – grime shows were almost invariably shut down by the police back t
  
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• Father John Misty: Pure Comedy review – a despairing paean to all that is wrong

  09-04-2017 10:00
  
  (Bella Union)
  The follow-up to I Love You, Honeybear unfolds like a would-be Great American Novel, but it’s too clever by half and swamped by mid-tempo piano tracksYou could describe Father John Misty as a satirical maverick; you get the feeling he would like you to. In 2012, Josh Tillman, the former Fleet Foxes drummer, released Fear Fun, a gonzoid set of songs about a druggy Californian breakdown, the first under his pseudonym. In 2015 he followed it with I Love You, Honeybear. The funny
  
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• Me and the muse: Thurston Moore on his sources of inspiration

  09-04-2017 09:30
  
  The former Sonic Youth frontman on letting ideas gestate in his head, doing weird things to guitars and being galvanised by a new producerThurston Moore, 58, has been a key figure in alternative music since co-founding the band Sonic Youth in 1981. Now based in London, he runs the Ecstatic Peace! record label and library, publishes poetry and records as a solo artist with bassist Debbie Googe from My Bloody Valentine, guitarist James Sedwards and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley in his band.I u
  
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• Yorkston/Thorne/Khan: Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars review – improbable trio work wonders again

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Domino)The backstage encounter that led to this fusion of western folk and Indian classicism has paid off handsomely for James Yorkston, Jon Thorne and Suhail Yusuf Khan. They follow their garlanded debut with a similar mix of original and borrowed songs, blending Khan’s alluring cello with gentle acoustic guitar and thrumming bass; an improbable, but mostly seamless fit. All three sing; Khan rapturously, Thorne in plaintive cockney and Yorkston with his usual earthy intimacy. Pastoral mo
  
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• Will Joseph Cook: Sweet Dreamer review – comforting, flab-free sugar rush

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Atlantic)Recalling the airy indie pop of bands such as Phoenix and Vampire Weekend, Kent-born Will Joseph Cook’s debut album initially feels about a decade too late. The stuttering Alive and widescreen opener Biggest Fan seem unshakeably familiar, but as the album unravels, that familiarity morphs into something oddly comforting. The sun-blushed title track recalls sweaty indie discos, while the deliciously overwrought Habit (“I smell my clothes and think of you”) is perfect 0
  
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• Haydn: The Seasons review – glorious

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  Sampson/Ovendon/Foster-Williams, National Forum of Music Choir, Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort & Players/McCreesh(Signum)This successor to Haydn’s Creation has often felt in the shadow of the earlier masterpiece, but this recording brings it thrillingly to life. Avoiding the early-music tendency to small forces, Paul McCreesh assembles a massive throng of singers and players, the numbers that might have performed the piece in 1801. And what a noise they make! From the
  
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• Future Islands: The Far Field review – an accomplished follow-up

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  (4AD)Before becoming unlikely stars in 2014 on the back of frontman Samuel T Herring’s extraordinarily impassioned performance of Seasons (Waiting on You) on David Letterman’s show, Baltimore three-piece Future Islands had released four well-received albums of synth-driven indie. Their fifth doesn’t deviate greatly: Gerrit Welmers and William Cashion create lush soundscapes that owe much to the more muscular end of 80s AOR, while Herring adds the vocal bombast. Although they co
  
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• Erin Dickins: Vignettes review – 10 stunning duets

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Sizzle & Swing)Ten tracks, 10 duets, each with a different partner – not showbiz names, just startlingly good musicians. And Erin Dickins, New York session superwoman and founder member of the Manhattan Transfer, knows the difference. Some, such as drummer, vocalist, harmonica player Paul Jost are multi-instrumentalists; others,such as bassist Bruce Hamada and vibist David Friedman, are straightforward virtuosi. With a mixture of technical brilliance and stylistic instinct, Dickins bu
  
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• Chainsmokers: Memories… Do Not Open review – simpering, shallow Trump-pop

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Columbia)If the Chainsmokers know anything, it’s that no one ever died from hearing a chorus too often. It’s why the American duo were the only bulwark against an all-Sheeran UK top 10 last month. This debut doesn’t dare vary their formula: instantly memorable yet completely forgettable music, with all the personality and passion of an invoice. The female singers all sound like a Sia guide vocal for Rihanna; the men mostly simper shallow emo-EDM cliches about failing relations
  
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• Brahms: Piano Quartet; Schumann: String Quartet No 1 CD review – restless and eloquent

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  Pacifica Quartet/Menahem Pressler(Cedille)The pianist Menahem Pressler was a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, a fabled name in chamber music from 1955 until 2008. Now 93, he is still playing. Inevitably, each new recording has particular value. Here, he thunders and dances through Brahms’s huge F minor quintet Op 34, embracing the grandeur of the opening, the poignancy of the Andante, the turbulence of the Scherzo and the impassioned high drama of the Finale. All goes at such a lick
  
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• Alexandra Savior: Belladonna of Sadness review – too much monkeying with raw talent

  09-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Columbia)Record company scouts spotted Alexandra Savior at 16 but she balked at plans to turn her into the next Katy Perry. The arty Portland teenager decamped to LA where she met her songwriting soulmate, Arctic Monkey’s Alex Turner. With producer James Ford, they have created a debut that captures Savior’s preternatural self-possession. Blessed with a crystalline, intimate voice – think a less cabaret Lana del Rey – she channels the outsider cool of the cult 70s Japane
  
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• Arca: Arca review – strange worlds to enjoy, if not fully understand

  09-04-2017 07:59
  
  (XL)A working knowledge of Spanish will illuminate the Venezuelan-born, London-based digital auteur’s self-titled third album. His previous work, influenced by hip-hop and club culture, occasionally featured Arca’s treated voice. But Björk and Kanye contributor Alejandro Ghersi has now begun singing in his native language. On songs like Anoche or Reverie, the effect is Björk-like; on Desafio, it is borderline conventional – until you grapple with the lyrics. Understan
  
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• 'I'm like a secret assassin': Poo Bear on writing for Justin Bieber, Skrillex and Sam Smith

  09-04-2017 00:19
  
  The songwriter aka Jason Boyd has been writing hits for more than 20 years, but his collaboration with Bieber on Where R Ü Now? made him an overnight sensation. ‘It literally changed music,’ he tells Elle Hunt
  You may not have heard of Jason Boyd, better but not widely known as Poo Bear, but you’ve heard him.After more than two decades as a songwriter and producer of mostly R&B and pop, his fingerprints are on hits for an array of artists including Usher, Chris Brown,
  
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