Miles Davis’ 1970 fusion landmark, Bitches Brew, sparked considerable controversy over definitions of jazz. However, a perhaps more important yet overlooked debate questions if Bitches Brew fits within larger Black musical traditions. For the purposes of this essay, I conclude… Read More
On their first album, Birthday (2019), Pom Poko delighted in confounding expectations and taking their brazen sounds to giddy extremes. With Cheater, the band are essentially repeating the process with even more confidence. This is a group that doesn’t believe… Read More
In the late hours of a June 2001 evening, a performance by a young, fresh-faced band was broadcast for a national audience on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show. Late-night talk shows draw in musical artists of all stripes, but at that… Read More
Dave Douglas – Marching Music (Greenleaf) <a href=”https://davedouglas.bandcamp.com/album/marching-music”>MARCHING MUSIC by Dave Douglas</a> Dave Douglas plays the trumpet, but that is becoming a relatively small part of how I experience him. Douglas composes music and brings together bands, runs the Festival of New… Read More
Stefano Mancuso loves plants. The Italian scientist is one of the world’s leading plant neurobiologists, but he also has an exceptional knack for good storytelling. In the latest of his books to be translated into English (by Gregory Conti), he… Read More
Having a number one single used to mean something. It signaled a cultural phenomenon: looped on the radio at all hours of the day, parodied and remixed and covered to oblivion, spawning a moment that would help define the year,… Read More
As a still wet-behind-the-ears English professor on a spring day in 2000, I stood completely flummoxed in front of my 19th century, British literature class. A student remarked that we only talked about representations of people of color in relation… Read More
In an interview for Rolling Stone India (2020), BTS member SUGA said: “I want to be like the ’90s folk musicians whom I’ve been listening to. I’m not trying to limit myself to a specific genre. I simply want to… Read More
Yellow Rose (2019) centres on Filipina teenager Rose (Eva Noblezada), who dreams of becoming a country music performer. When her mother is picked up by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service, she’s forced to choose between staying with her family,… Read More
“Enola Gay”, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s (OMD’s) wonderfully indulgent synthpop classic named after the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, has just turned 40. While the last 40 years have seen OMD produce multiple charting records, break into… Read More