After overcoming a two-year creative paralysis, Kendrick’s new album is like peering into an unsettling and refracted kaleidoscope lens on our own time.
Author: Caspar Latham
LIVE: Portico Quartet @ KOKO, London
Sumptuously cinematic, Portico Quartet’s KOKO comeback marked how far they’ve come from their earlier experimentalism.
LIVE: Matthew Halsall @ Union Chapel, London
Gentle and hypnotic, Halsall’s Union Chapel performance evoked a sense of reconnection with the natural world and the spiritual life.
LIVE: Mdou Moctar @ Komedia, Brighton
Tuareg guitar hero Moctar showcased why he is at the heart of desert blues’ western popularisation.
LIVE: Stereolab @ Roundhouse, London (Pitchfork Festival London)
Seamless and in sync, Stereolab’s Roundhouse performance exhibited their art rock influence with characteristic ease.
In Review: BADBADNOTGOOD – Talk Memory
The Toronto jazz group’s latest full-length flourishes from the strength of its guest appearances, and rewards as a result of re-listening.
Drug Store Romeos: “When I am travelling deep into myself, I need to feel like I am completely alone.”
With a creative process seemingly tied to the seclusion of the countryside, The Buzz speaks to the dream-pop wunderkinds from Fleet about transitioning from the solitude of their bedrooms, back into the ‘new world’.
In Review: Connan Mockasin & Ade – It’s Just Wind
Collaborating with his dad after a near death experience, Mockasin returns to his hectic, mischievous musical laboratory with his father in tow, indicating that irreverence runs in the family.
In Review: The Black Keys – ‘Crawling Kingsnake’
In a 21st century tribute to their influences, the blues duo have electrified the track made famous by John Lee Hooker, without sacrificing any of the power of its raw simplicity.
LIVE: The Cinematic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall
Enduring and ever-eclectic, The Cinematic Orchestra drew strength from the strangeness of the show’s setting: seeing the musicians alone onstage within this vast, empty shell of a building seemed to give expression to the collective experience of a year marked by more silence, space, and solitude.