Sophie Walker    Here at Outernet LondonThey have the choreography the vocal harmonies and the nostalgia triggers but the missing element for this promising UK trio is a sense of individualityThe dynasty of the British girl group has been having a crisis of succession After Little Mix abdicated the throne

Alexis Petridis    Rooted in house jungle and working class London the monstrous basslines and warped samples of speed garage spread into both pop and the underground Its creators remember the chaos and a stoned Wesley SnipesIn the early s Omar Adimora had a curious Saturday night routine A teetotal aspirant

Ben Beaumont-Thomas    While some of this documentary following the making of the Scottish songwriter s second album falls into cliched soul baring territory Capaldi s wit and talent shine through A global pandemic is only in the top three weird things that have happened to me in the last three years Lewis Capaldi

Ammar Kalia    Buh Records There s heart thumping tension and catharsis as the musicians aim to reconnect the Peruvian percussion instrument with its slave rootsThe caj n contains a radical history The box shaped percussion instrument is now commonly used in acoustic setups but it originated in th century Peru

Jazz Monroe    Houndstooth A third album whips up a maelstrom of dislocated voices and junkyard style percussion as the US musician plots a trajectory from her daughter s imagined childhood to adolescenceWhen Katie Gately emerged in the mid s bedroom pop still felt like a distinct genre born of circumstance

Shaad D'Souza    From Lisa Kudrow s comic ditty in Friends to the supposedly world defining music of Daisy Jones amp the Six writing songs for television characters isn t easy Just ask the brains behind it Taylor Jenkins Reid s novel Daisy Jones amp the Six was practically made for television

Alexis Petridis    She made her name with Ike but her stardom became all her own As Tina The Tina Turner Musical celebrates five years in the West End we round up the best of a barnstorming performerIke and Tina Turner s s singles hit intermittently but their reputation rested on a live show they honed

Gianluca Tramontana    Fans of Rock and Roll s Biggest Failure have taken him from Top of the Pops to Cannes and keep him touring constantly in his s We head to a fan convention to find out whyIt s Sunday evening at the All s Well bar in Gibraltar and the jukebox is playing non stop John Otway songs The great

Frank L'Opez    Kampala s wildly innovative underground music scene has become a home for queer east Africans A proposed law change not only endangers them but an entire cultural movementUganda s president Yoweri Museveni in his th year of increasingly authoritarian rule has declared that his people will

Daniel Dylan Wray    As new book Dance Your Way Home explores dancing beyond nightclub confines A Guy Called Gerald Eliza Rose and more reveal their favourite unexpected places to get down from Welsh quarries to Croatian beachesSmuggled booze awkward dancing clumsy kissing and the burning stare of a watchful

Sean O’Hagan    She fled rural Ireland and hit the Big Apple just in time to capture Lydia Lunch James Chance and the post punk scene take off Now back in her home country she relives those turbulent yearsIn the Irish Times ran a profile of the film maker Vivienne Dick with the headline Stifled in

Alexis Petridis    Stones Throw The year old singer of Charles amp Eddie fame is back with a second album of tightly written melodies and abstract tracks that draw you in to a rich heady worldIt was hard not to notice a tone of amazement about the glowing reviews of Eddie Chacon s debut solo album Pleasure

Alexis Petridis    Peggy New York s Jpegmafia and Detroit s Danny Brown transmit from hip hop s hinterland in a bacchanal of inspired noise and topical chat that s the definition of not for everybody There are umpteen ways to promote your forthcoming album but the route taken by Danny Brown feels unique This

John Fordham    N F rmat Émile Parisien s soprano sax is the standout on this diverse and inventive set which blends kora with Anatolian shindigs klezmer with agile accordionWhen the light from one of the most ethereally spellbinding stars in the jazz firmament flickered out with the death of Wayne Shorter at

Ben Beaumont-Thomas    Ninja Tune The six piece s first new material without frontman Isaac Wood recorded over three nights in London proves their malleability and resilienceHaving already changed frontman once when they formed out of previous band Nervous Conditions UK indie troupe Black Country New Road have

Ammar Kalia    Polydor Yearning ballads and more uptempo tracks lots of them sit side by side in the American rapper singer s transitional third albumFive years since the release of his last album singer rapper Ricardo Valdez Valentine Jr AKA lack has undergone something of a musical transformation While

Kitty Empire    Polydor Shimmering strings meet trap beats as the songwriter looks back in languor on her richly textured ninth albumFor all the lacquer and haze of Lana Del Rey s heavily stylised albums they have often been cries of pain that cut near the bone Fuck me to death love me till I love myself

Neil Spencer    No Format This stellar quartet featuring kora cello accordion and saxophone channel a multitude of influences to irresistible effectThe French cellist Vincent Segal is one of those peripatetic players who shows up across the musical frontier on albums by Sting or barefoot diva Ces ria

Shaad D'Souza    Polydor The songwriter s ninth album is heavy and disarmingly truthful yet expands its close lens thanks to her wide ranging alluring aesthetic loosenessYou could describe Lana Del Rey s career thus far as a Benjamin Button type situation the more hushed insular formally experimental and self

Kitty Empire    O Arena London The rapper drawls his way through his greatest hits and some cheesy near misses in this long delayed show Shame about the unreconstructed objectificationJust over years have passed since Snoop Dogg then known by his full name Snoop Doggy Dogg first appeared on a record a

Adrian Horton    State Farm Stadium Glendale ArizonaThe electrifying start of the singer songwriter s first tour in five years saw a mammoth fan pleasing song set and extravagant stagingBy Friday afternoon there was a new destination in Arizona Swift City population fans in town for the first stop

Jazz Monroe    Barbican LondonPerformed by the London Symphony Orchestra Hynes new compositions had a gravitas absent from his pop music and plenty of discordant energyFor the best part of the st century Devonté Hynes has built bridges between alt rock and R amp B After terrorising mid s indie with

Kitty Empire    Eventim Apollo LondonFrom daddy issues to violent crime the south London rapper s thoughtful set is distinguished by its emotional candour and vulnerability I broke the cycle declares south London rapper Loyle Carner savagely but happily He s talking about HGU one of the most hard hitting

Huw Baines    Cardiff International ArenaHis stagecraft and star quality may still be coming together but the everyman Bedfordshire singer can still energise a crowdTom Grennan is a hard sell in a world as cynical as this As family photos scroll on giant screens he climbs into the syrupy Here having dedicated

Phil Mongredien    From jazz prodigy to Sharon Van Etten co writer the Oregon musician gets personal on her catchy new album of melodic indie rockIt was of all things a viral YouTube cover of Meghan Trainor s All About That Bass that launched Oregon native Kate Davis on her current career trajectory It

Alexis Petridis    Asylum Atlantic Teaming with Taylor Swift s recent producer Aaron Dessner of the National Sheeran strips things back but only a little and the chorus of this new single is as insistent as everEarlier this week on a day when the former prime minister of the UK faced the House of Commons

Shaad D'Souza, Katie Goh, Alim Kheraj, Owen Myers, Alexis Petridis, Laura Snapes, Joe Stone, Amelia Tait and Jenessa Williams    Nashville prodigy teen pop voice of a generation panto villain who is your favourite Swift As the pop juggernaut launches her Eras tour to celebrate her albums so far our writers present the argument for each oneIn a pair of cowboy boots year old Taylor Swift stepped into Nashville s

Laura Snapes    Killer hooks and lyrical intrigue have made this young girl band one of the hottest names in K popWhen K pop newcomers NewJeans released their superb single Cookie last August an effortless combination of Jersey club and Ariana Grande cool R amp B fans immediately highlighted the innuendo in

Ben Beaumont-Thomas    Songwriter behind psychedelic s masterpiece A Whiter Shade of Pale had been receiving cancer treatment for two yearsKeith Reid the lyricist for Procol Harum whose poetic vision on Whiter Shade of Pale made it a defining song of the s has died aged He died in a London hospital after

John Lewis    Emahoy who has died aged was a classically trained musician and society girl who turned towards faith and cultivated a style of playing like no otherThe music of the pianist Emahoy Tsegué Maryam Guèbrou who has died at the age of seemed to reflect every area of her extraordinary life A

Adrian Horton    The soulful singer known for his hit What You Won t Do for Love died after a long illness according to a statement from his wifeBobby Caldwell the influential singer and songwriter behind such R amp B hits as Open Your Eyes and What You Won t Do for Love has died at the age of The singer

Will Butler    The band s former bass player who collaborated with the late Pulp musician on album Everything Now pays homage to his generous engaged friend Steve Mackey bass guitarist for Pulp dies aged I knew Steve Mackey mostly as a producer I suspect I was exposed to about one tenth of his

Laura Snapes    As she releases an album inspired by Girl Interrupted the US indie icon reveals how a childhood kidnapping and her repressive southern childhood left her with PTSDIn Los Angeles it s early and overcast It has that six in the morning feel says Aimee Mann eternally droll from a home office