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Scotsman
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: Amy Macdonald Barry Can't Swim
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Amy Macdonald: Is This What You've Been Waiting For? (BMG/Infectious) ★★★ Barry Can't Swim: Loner (Ninja Tune) ★★★★ Wet Leg: Moisturizer (Domino) ★★★★ In an age of free music streaming, who will buy? It's an unresolved question which led singer/songwriter Amy Macdonald to take a recording sabbatical of close to five years before producing her sixth album. The title of Is This What You've Been Waiting For? sounds like something of a challenge from an old school artist who considers her albums as her creative shop window and the answer will be in the affirmative to those who want mostly more of the same from this MOR pop traditionalist. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Amy Macdonald | Contributed That said, she sings of being alive to sensory stimulation – 'light and sound it's all around, I feel the noise beneath the ground' – on the opening title track against her usual moderately driving backing, while a moment later she is straining at the leash on Trapped, asking 'can you break me out?' The fun begins with Can You Hear Me? with its engaging ABBA-via-Texas chiming disco pop intro, pattering drums and lyrics of cosmic visitations. Macdonald started her career as a teenager, if an old soul, but this is her tipping her hat to the next generation, specifically the young audience who responded with such enthusiasm to her TRNSMT set a couple of years ago. Age is on her mind as she sings with compassion from the perspective of an older, worn character in The Hope. Later, she is feeling her age over big shimmering synthesizers on It's All So Long Ago. Throughout, Macdonald upholds her admirable aversion to ballads with the skiffly drumbeat and blues guitar backing of We Survive, while One More Shot taps into slick Eighties pop territory. There is little new to report across the album's ten trim tracks but she does at least have her eyes on the prize on the appropriately named Forward, pitching herself headlong into potential salvation in a new relationship ('I just knew when I saw you') with a refreshed energy which is not always evidenced in her music. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Barry Can't Swim | Contributed Edinburgh-born Joshua Mainnie, better known and acclaimed as DJ/producer Barry Can't Swim, came up through his student clubbing days/nights along the Cowgate to be nominated for the Brit Awards, Scottish Album of the Year Award and Mercury Prize for his 2023 debut When Will We Land? Any pressure surrounding a follow-up evaporates on contact with the beautiful, easy electronica suite of Loner. The album opens with the decidedly indie gothic strains of The Person You'd Like To Be overlaid with a deadpan vocal sample of a motivational coach offering increasingly paranoid maxims such as 'try not to laugh too hard at anyone else's jokes'. Klaxons blare and engines rev on the banging tuneage of Different but elsewhere Mainnie draws more on trance traditions, from the ecstatic Afro-Cuban refrain of Kimpton via the gentle gospel invocation of All My Friends to the beatific Balearic beat of the poetically titled Cars Pass By Like Childhood Sweethearts. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The samples of satirical self-affirmation are back on Machine Noise for a Quiet Daydream while the hypnotic hands-in-the-air atmosphere of Like It's Part of the Dance should go down like a dream on his numerous summer festival dates. Childhood uses its euphoric Seventies soul sample to utterly feelgood effect while the swelling romantic strings and hazy trumpet of Wandering Mt Moon make for a thoughtful comedown. Wet Leg | Contributed The equally acclaimed Wet Leg also return with supreme confidence on their second album Moisturizer, settling into their role as the Isle of Wight's premier musical export with a collection of songs inspired, often impishly, by new and all-consuming love. Singer Rhian Teasdale diagnoses herself as lovesick on the irresistible CPR, pledges extreme devotion on Davina McCall, brushes off all-comers on Catch These Fists and celebrates cosy domesticity on U and Me At Home, all with the playful intensity of a UK Yeah Yeah Yeahs. CLASSICAL Kantos: In Your Dreams (Delphian) ★★★★★ Better known north of the border as Engagement Conductor of the RSNO, Ellie Slorach reveals herself in a significantly different light here as founder and director of the Manchester-based Kantos Chamber Choir. The a cappella content in this debut Delphian album reflects the ensemble's silken versatility, with music ranging from Vaughan Williams and Josef Rheinberger to Mátyás Seiber's whimsical Nonsense Songs and Billy Joel's Lullabye (Goodnight my Angel). Comforting contemporary voices such as Eric Whitacre (Sleep) contrast effectively with the rumbustious folksiness of Jaakko Mäntyjârvi's Pseudo-Yoik, or the chuff-chuffing of Hungarian-born Kristina Arakelyan's Train Ride. But the clincher is a format that operates as a sequential narrative what Kantos refer to as the 'reimagining of the choral album as a single immersive dreamscape' – snippets of spoken Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth and Emily Dickinson interwoven with illustrative music that is deliciously sung, artfully expressed and, for all its instant accessibility, both neatly accessible and challenging. Ken Walton JAZZ Anouar Brahem: After the Last Sky (ECM) ★★★★
Scoop
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
New Barry Can't Swim Album 'Loner' Out Now
Barry Can't Swim, one of the most exciting electronic artists in the world, releases his new album 'Loner', out today on Ninja Tune. 'Loner' is an intricate, carefully crafted project that finds Barry Can't Swim pushing the boundaries of his own sound. Throughout the twelve tracks, we journey with him as he navigates and explores the world he's found himself in, making for a highly personal album that asks profound questions of its creator and his audience. From the intense opening of 'The Person You'd Like To Be' to the ambience of the closing track 'Wandering Mt. Moon,' the record remains grounded in his roots while furthering himself as a producer, songwriter, and key force in the electronic space. The album release follows a number of impressive tracks that received early acclaim. 'All My Friends' showcased Barry Cant Swim's production prowess and followed double singles 'About to Begin,' a pulsing, fast-paced track and 'Cars Pass By Like Childhood Sweethearts,' a softer juxtaposition. Collaborative single 'Kimpton' with O'Flynn was named one of Billboard's best new electronic tracks of the week, while 'Different,' a heady slice of electronic euphoria, has become a fan-favorite at recent shows. First album single 'The Person You'd Like To Be' finds the artist moving in a new abstract direction. 'Loner' has received widespread praise so far from Rolling Stone UK, Clash, DJ Mag, The Times, The Skinny and more.
ABC News
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
nimino
London-based producer nimino serves up UKG and house vibes on the triple j airwaves! Loading You may know his best from his 2024 track 'I Only Smoke When I Drink' which nabbed the #62 slot in last years Hottest 100 but he's back and better than ever with new 2013 nimino has been crafting emotional electronic sounds and his tracks have received support from industry heavyweights such as Diplo and Pete this year he dropped his stunning Creek EP via Ninja Tune's Counter Records, which he's followed up with his most recent single 'Beside Of Me' with Irish artist Maverick Sabre. Check it out here:While there's no confirmed Aus shows a little birdy told us he's keen to hit up some stages Down Under in the near future, so watch this space! In the mean time, nimino's providing a huge Mix Up set where you'll get a sneak peak of some new music he's been working on. Expect deep and atmospheric house blended with banging garage and bass, so turn it up!
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Friday Dance Music Guide: The Week's Best New Tracks From Mochakk, Röyksopp & Robyn and More
This week in dance music: Massive Attack will headline London's LIDO festival in June with an entirely battery-powered performance, an ongoing legal battle between Sony Music and Ultra Music Publishing escalated with a new lawsuit, Carl Cox exited the Movement 2025 lineup and was replaced by Jeff Mills and Odesza made a 23-minute remix of the Severance score. And to all that we add these, the best new dance tracks of the week. More from Billboard What's Your Favorite New Music Release of the Week? Vote! Cardi B & DJ Khaled Team Up for 'Smurfs Movie Soundtrack' Cut 'Higher Love': Listen Fans Are Loving Lil Nas X's New Teaser for His 'Hotbox' Single Mochakk feat. The RAH Band, 'From the Stars' Brazil's jet-setting party starter makes his Ninja Tune debut with his From the Stars EP, a two-song project led by its title track. A collaboration with England's The RAH Band, the song is a take on the group's 1983 bop 'Messages From the Stars,' with Mochakk turning up the BPM and the far-out factor on the slinky, sexy but still muscular club update, which balances nicely with its cool after-hours B-side, 'Maria.' The mustachioed producer born Pedro Maia calls releasing the EP on Ninja Tune 'completely bananas… one of those stamp-of-approval moments' that he'll celebrate by playing a flurry of shows in his native country as Brazil celebrates carnival later this month. Closer to home, he plays EDC Las Vegas in May. Röyksopp feat. Robyn, 'Do It Again [True Electric]' 11 years after the release of the original, Röyksopp drop an edit of their Robyn collab 'Do It Again.' While the original leaned hard into urgency and flirted with heaviness, the new take adds maximum peak hours heft, dialing up the BPM, isolating the vocals in just the right moments and eventually exploding into all-out, all-encompassing dancefloor delirium. The edit is the second track from the Norwegian legends' tenth studio album, True Electric, coming April 11 on their own Dog Triumph label. Bianca Oblivion feat. Sam Binga, 'Hypnø' Los Angeles-based producer Bianca Oblivion makes her long-form debut with a heater of an EP, Net Werk. The four-track project spans bass, grime, Jersey club and more, with 'Hypnø' (a collab with British artist Sam Binga) fusing squelchy strings, a hectic beat and waves of low end into a delicious kind of chaos. Oblivion says she 'never wanted to rush into an EP or album until I fully understood myself as a producer and felt that my music could stand alongside the tracks I play in my sets.' The title reflects the global network of friends and collaborators I've connected with over the years, all of whom, alongside the many music influences from my childhood, have helped shape this release.' Net Werk is out on the U.K. imprint LuckyMe. Tripolism & Nandu, 'Sunrise' Danish trio Tripolism and producer Nandu link for the hypnotic 'Sunrise,' a track that says right there in the name what part of the set it should be played at. It's recently been rinsed by acts including the ever chic Keinemusik and has gotten support from other tastemakers, with key ears apparently in thrall with the track's balance of sunlight-like falsetto and a chant that implores what those of us still dancing at dawn might already feel: 'You're never going home, you've got to keep going.' The heater is out on Ultra Records. Hiver, 'Dreamachine' Be transported to the '90s afterhours of your mind with this electronica-era influenced dreamscape of a track from Milanese duo Hiver. Out on CircoLoco Records, the track pairs pristine production and clean, soaring strings with a feeling of undertow embodied by the beat and the emotive vocals. Hiver says the song is 'a testament to our growth as producers. We've invested countless hours in honing our studio skills, experimenting with sound design, and perfecting the production process to craft something that feels authentic and unique. The track reflects our love for the electro sound while pushing boundaries to create something unique.' Also: Do not sleep on the uptempo edit by Romanian master Gerd Janson. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
