Zeena Parkins: Lace review – delicately woven patterns of intricate beauty | Music

Zeena Parkins Lace artwork.

Detroit-born Zeena Parkins is best known as a maverick harp player, who has worked with everyone from Björk to Yoko Ono, Courtney Love to John Zorn. This album, however, foregrounds her role as a composer […]

20 factoids from the top movies of the ’60s

20 factoids from the top movies of the '60s

Stacker compiled 20 facts about popular 1960s movies from articles and interviews with filmmakers as well as from the Oscars, the Smithsonian, and IMDb. – Silver Screen Collection // Getty Images Lian Parsons-Thomason The 1960s was […]

‘I wanted to play but my hand wouldn’t move’: making an album with Parkinson’s | Country

Pianist Matt Rollings agreed to play on Samuel Smith’s album In the Springtime because he really connected with it.

It was 3 December 2020 when I found out. For months I had been battling stiffness in my right arm. Now, the test results had come back from the lab. “You do know what’s going […]

PJ Harvey: I Inside the Old Year Dying review – a disquieting escape into the wilds of Dorset | PJ Harvey

The artwork for I Inside the Old Year Dying.

The last time the world of music heard from Polly Harvey was more than seven years ago, in the spring of 2016. Brexit had yet to happen, Barack Obama was still president, and the 53-year-old […]

Iron Maiden review – showstopping rock theatre and tantalising live rarities | Iron Maiden

Thunderous punishing basslines … l to r, bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Janick Gers.

Tick … Tock … The lights dim and a ticking clock echoes through Glasgow’s Hydro. It heralds the arrival of Iron Maiden, theatrical stalwarts of British metal, and their new show themed on the passing […]

Kim Petras: Feed the Beast review – a missed opportunity for a groundbreaking figure | Kim Petras

The artwork for Feed the Beast.

These are high times for Kim Petras. Previously a marginal figure in the world of pop – she attracted a degree of notoriety for 2022’s spectacularly potty-mouthed EP Slut Pop – she was catapulted into […]

‘We’ve only played in a pub to 50 parents!’: meet Askew, one of Glastonbury’s youngest ever bands | Glastonbury 2023

‘Music is a form of therapy’ … Crossley.

At this time of the year, most British 16-year-olds are focused on GCSE revision and how to spend their long summers. But for Eli Crossley, who alongside Alfie Lewis, Freddie Wormleighton, Jay Guru-Murphy and Will […]

Christine and the Queens review – phantasmagoric drama and musical transcendence | Christine and the Queens

Manifesting life … Chris.

“This is going to get more dramatic than I anticipated,” Chris proclaims after his drummer showers him with roses midway through the show. But it’s hard to tell how much of the dialogue between songs […]

Duran Duran to release feature-length docu-concert film ‘A Hollywood High’ – Music News

Duran Duran to release feature-length docu-concert film ‘A Hollywood High' - Music News

Duran Duran have announced further release details for their feature-length docu-concert film, ‘A Hollywood High’, which will premiere exclusively on Paramount + later this month in the US, UK, Canada, Italy and France, alongside physical […]

Indiepop veterans Heavenly: ‘We saw the world of grownups and we didn’t like that very much’ | Indie

Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher as their recent project the Catenary Wires.

Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey met a little under 40 years ago, when they were both students at Oxford. Fletcher (later awarded the CBE for her services to the economy) and her friend Elizabeth Price […]

‘Work is therapy’: synth-pop icon Johnny Jewel on David Lynch, Chromatics and near-death experiences | Music

Johnny Jewel.

“Art is not a hobby, it’s a necessity,” says Johnny Jewel. “I have an unquenchable thirst for sound and tone.” Jewel has been thirsty for two decades. He has produced shimmering and dreamy synth-pop, slick […]

Arctic Monkeys review – a mirrorball vision of what rock music can be | Arctic Monkeys

Alex Turner and Jamie Cook.

‘Very good,” Alex Turner exhales after delivering the final crunching note of Teddy Picker, hitting the nail on the head. The Arctic Monkeys frontman, dressed like a Laurel Canyon troubadour in a wide-collared denim shirt […]

Water From Your Eyes: Everyone’s Crushed review – style-hopping indie duo find focus in chaos | Music

Everybody’s Crushed album artwork.

We live in an environment that encourages rock and pop artists to make an immediate splash, to cut through the digital noise and the plethora of musicians jostling for attention on streaming services by appearing […]

‘I couldn’t outrun my grief’: Julie Byrne on the death of her musical partner | Music

Profound connection … with Littman at SXSW in 2017.

Julie Byrne precisely remembers the day she met the man who would change her life. “I loved him right away,” she says. It was the 2014 SXSW festival in Austin, Texas and Eric Littmann had […]

Andy Rourke was the other melodic genius in the Smiths: spry, funky and masterful | The Smiths

‘Sophistication’ … (L-R) Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce (drums), Morrissey, Johnny Marr performing on The Tube.

The creation myth of the Smiths is well-known: inspired by a South Bank Show documentary about the songwriting partnership Leiber and Stoller, Johnny Marr turns up unannounced on Morrissey’s doorstep, meets with the singer’s approval […]

‘It’s not a pop-the-champagne moment any more’: is the UK album chart broken? | Music

Ellie Goulding’s Higher Than Heaven went to No 1 … then dropped to No 84.

Last week, Ed Sheeran secured the fastest-selling album of the year so far with his latest release, – (Subtract). The achievement comes as little surprise. Indeed, after six consecutive No 1 albums (a combined total […]