Last modified on Fri 2 Apr 2021 04.05 EDT
The easy thing to do with Dry Cleaning is to concentrate on Florence Shaw and her laconic, subdued, spoken delivery of lyrics that are almost surreal in their quotidian blankness. But that does a disservice to the other three members of the band, because New Long Leg is the work of a terrifically focused group, whose version of post-punk is far more varied than it might at first appear. Tom Dowse has a knack for insinuating guitar lines – the cascading riff of Unsmart Lady; the simple pattern that underpins Strong Feelings – and sometimes the hooks come from the basslines of Lewis Maynard. There’s not a revolution here: the rulebook of the four-piece indie band is not being rewritten, but even with a conventional singer, singing conventional lyrics, Dry Cleaning would be a superior example of the kind.
Last modified on Wed 17 Mar 2021 02.32 EDT
Thereâs a line that gets trotted out every time a supposedly explosive celebrity documentary is released: no topic was off-limits. Of course, given the often manicured, constructed nature of these films, and the fact that theyâre often produced by the subjects themselves, gory or unpalatable details can be sanitised.
Thatâs not the case with Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil. Covering the build-up to, and the aftermath of, the pop starâs accidental overdose in the summer of 2018, which left her hospitalised and fighting for her life, the four-part series is harrowing and unflinchingly honest.
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‘We took our politics way beyond feminism’ … Ruthie Smith, Caroline Gilfillan and Marion ‘Benni’ Lees McPherson. Photograph: Janet Smith
‘We took our politics way beyond feminism’ … Ruthie Smith, Caroline Gilfillan and Marion ‘Benni’ Lees McPherson. Photograph: Janet Smith
They turned down an offer to be Bob Marley’s backing singers to write songs about toxic masculinity and speculum exams. Thirty years after breaking up, they are releasing a debut album
Mon 8 Mar 2021 10.00 EST
Last modified on Fri 12 Mar 2021 04.58 EST
There weren’t many options for women in music in 1974. Only three women – Diana Ross, Karen Carpenter and Lena Zavaroni – made it into the Top 10 of the UK album chart all year, and Broadway singer Bette Midler had just won best new artist at the Grammys. Female rock stars were starting to gain traction – Suzi Quatro was rising up the charts and the Runaways were waiting in the wings – but it was still years before fem
Sun 7 Mar 2021 04.00 EST
For anyone not yet acquainted with the caustic charms of Arab Strap, their first album in 16 years makes an excellent primer. Coming on like a union between Sleaford Mods and Leonard Cohen consummated in a Glasgow pub toilet,
As Days Get Dark serves up bleakness and gallows humour multiple ways: âdejected, deserted and drunkâ.
The callowness of the pairâs 90s youth â they were named after a sex toy â has been replaced by something altogether more lived-in and existential. The Turning of Our Bones exhorts listeners to seize the sexual day, because to dust we shall return. I Was Once a Weak Man is a prize-winning short story in miniature, following the stealth moves of a veteran adulterer.
Now 22, Owusu was born Kofi Owusu-Ansah in Ghana, then moved to Canberra, Australia when he was two. Canberra, like much of Australia, is extremely white, and although there are tight-knit non-white communities to be found everywhere, institutions like schools often remain ignorant of the experiences of people of colour. Owusu-Ansah’s brother, the rapper Citizen Kay, was five years his elder, meaning that the pair only went to school together for a year before Owusu-Ansah was on his own.
“I had to figure this shit out myself, because all the Black people I knew were the people that came to the country with me,” Owusu-Ansah recalls from his new home base of Sydney. “There [were] no real role models to get advice from. It was definitely interesting being in a white space like that, but it kind of taught me, to the [most extreme] extent, how to be myself.”