Features

Charity & the charts: The hits and the misses

Sunday, 7 February 2010

On its release today, the Haiti fundraiser is likely to top the pops. Nina Lakhani spins the best and worst of philanthropic singles.

Midlake - In tune with the times of others

Friday, 5 February 2010

As Midlake's great third album recalls Sixties folk-rock, Andy Gill talks to the Texas band's singer, Tim Smith, about the pull of the past

The Barometer: Surfer Blood; Joanna Newsome; Caribou; Erykah Badu; Major Lazer; 50 Cent

Friday, 5 February 2010

Surfer Blood Swim (To Reach The End)

Observations: To Cannes via 'Cosi'

Friday, 5 February 2010

William Shimell – British opera's answer to George Clooney – turns up to talk about playing the evil genius Don Alfonso in the Covent Garden Cosi fan tutte (which he's currently singing to acclaim), but the score he's nervously clutching is that of Stravinsky's Rake. The singer playing the evil genius in that show is seriously off-colour: if he flakes out, Shimell – a noted exponent of that role, and conveniently on hand – will have to step in. "Do you mind," he asks, "if I keep my mobile on?"

Cultural Life: Jamie Cullum, musician

Friday, 5 February 2010

Party Of The Week: Pre-Grammy bash keeps guests up late

Friday, 5 February 2010

Comedian Russell Brand and his fianc�e, the pop star Katy Perry, fooled around with Rihanna at Hollywood's pre-Grammy bash at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles on Saturday night.

Observations: From 'Houses of the Holy' to the culinary danger-zone

Friday, 5 February 2010

He may have eaten sheep's testicles in Afghanistan and baby seal in the Arctic, but what has really traumatised Stefan Gates, presenter of BBC Two's Cooking in the Danger Zone, is the cover of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, which was released in 1973 when Gates was just five years old. The ten blond juveniles in this cleverly constructed collage were in fact only two – Stefan Gates himself and his older sister, Samantha. It's an image that the now middle-aged food journalist describes as having "followed me around for my entire life. I am scared of it... and I do feel there is something bad in there."

All the Grammy ladies

Friday, 5 February 2010

American women were the overwhelming winners at the music industry's big shindig this week. But, says Elisa Bray, why were their British counterparts ignored?

Caught in the Net: Knife's cutting-edge opera

Friday, 5 February 2010

In the past year, Karin Dreijer Andersson of Swedish electro duo the Knife scared the bejesus out of everyone with the strange and brilliant sounds of her debut solo album made under the name Fever Ray – not to mention a recent rather weird acceptance at a Swedish awards ceremony (tinyurl. com/yg7a2ol). She also found time, though, for a return to the Knife fold to create music for an opera about Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species'. Called 'Tomorrow, in a Year', it was commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma and first staged in September. Now the studio- recorded soundtrack made by the Knife with the aid of experimental musicians Mt Sims and Planningtorock has been released. The physical CD version doesn't arrive until March but it is already available digitally at rabidrecords.com and is also streaming at theknife.net. The music is suitably weird and bizarre, but also rather spectacular and just plain great. I'm going to make a bold prediction and suggest that it's probably the best avant-garde "Darwin electro-opera" most of us will hear all year.

Owl City and the One-man wonders

Friday, 5 February 2010

Owl City is Adam Young, who wrote his debut album in a basement and is now No 1. Chris Mugan reports on how the net provides a great springboard for single-person bands like his, as well as Memory Tapes and Toro Y Moi