Parlophone レコード& CD

Review: It's funny to think about the Blur v Oasis contest that defined British music in the mid-1990s. Then bright young things looking to shake things up after years of electronic rave dominance, the fact so much emphasis was placed on these two bands makes for an incomplete story of those times, while their individual output was not quite polar but certainly harder to compare than headlines suggested. Skip forward a few decades and differences are now pronounced. The Gallagher Brothers have pursued relatively familiar sounds in the 21st Century. Blur, or at least Damon Albarn, created a 3D animated virtual band while overseeing the first few editions of the globally acclaimed Manchester International Festival. Now, 33 years after the debut single, Blur return with studio LP number nine, and it's a stunner. Not so much growing old gracefully as tackling challenges that come with it, it's though proving, poignant and grittily woozy.

Review: .Coldplay - where on Earth do you start? On the one hand, snubbed by 'real musos' for their broad crossover appeal and uncanny ability to make every song feel like it was written for the next Richard Curtis movie. Nevertheless, when a band achieves such levels of success, you have to accept there's definitely something in their water. In this case, a deft knack for penning arrangements that invoke feelings as big as the stadiums the tracks themselves were built to fill.
Prospekt's March is a great example, but also spotlights the fact that Coldplay isn't just shorthand for rousing chart-friendly soft rock anthems. Originally released in 2008, and taking plenty of almost-made-it tracks from the studio sessions that led to preceding album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, this eight-song offering spans everything from hands in the air sing-a-long hits ('Life In Technicolour', 'Lovers In Japan') to achingly beautiful piano solos ('Postcards From Far Away'), sombre brass balladry ('Now My Feet Won't Touch The Ground') and - wait for it - high-production hip hop ('Lost+').

Review: Soulful pop trio Gabriels hail from LA and the UK and make gospel-tinged electronic music that takes you to a higher plane. After some epic singles and a recent standout performance at Glastonbury which got everyone talking - not least because of the magnificent outfits of the lead singer - they have finally put together a debut album. The first part was widely acclaimed and this seance part is no different. The music has been produced by Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar collaborator Sounwave and as well as lead single 'Angels & Queens' this is a treasure trove of warm, soul fuelled sounds that draw on the sounds of legends like Prince and Luther Vandross to cook up a throng record that will blow you off your feet.

Review: Everyone's favourite cartoon band marked Record Store Day 2020 by serving up a UK release of a collection of tunes the was previously only available in Japan, and later in the US of A. It pulls together a wealth of b-sides from the studio sessions around their first album Gorillaz, and the Tomorrow Comes Today EP. It is limited to just 2000 copies and harks back to a time when the band - lead by Daman Albarn - was at the peak of its powers. The self titled debut album was such a hit it earned the band an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most Successful Virtual Band."

Review: Who would have thought that'll these years later the cartoon band that is Gorillaz would still be going, still be popular, and still turning out great music? Well, they are. They have kept details of this new album under tight guard for a while but what we do know about Cracker Island is that it features a truly all-star lineup of heavyweight guests such as Thundercat, Stevie Nicks, Tame Impala, Bootie Brown, Adeleye Omotayo, Bad Bunny, and Beck. As always the sound is alternative indie and electronic with a playful sense of character.

Review: Autobhan, the 1974 album that began Kraftwerk's ascent to legendary status, is still capable of making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The headline attraction remains the absorbing, mesmerising, 22-minute title track, a musical whizz down an imaginary three-lane highway that's as evocative and atmospheric as they come. That said, the album's lesser-celebrated, more experimental flip-side tracks (and in particular the jaunty 'Kometenmelodie 2'), are also inspired. Here it gets the 2020 reissue treatment via a tasty blue vinyl pressing that comes packaged with a 12-page booklet of historic photos and typically utilitarian imagery.

Review: When rapper and multi-instrumentalist Mac Miller died of an accidental overdose in 2018, he left behind an unfinished two-part album project: "Swimming" (released last year) and "Circles", which has now landed on wax after getting a digital release earlier in 2020. It's a musically diverse and mostly introspective affair, with Miller shuffling between styles wearily and switching roles (singer-songwriter, rapper, multi-instrumentalist, beat-maker) seemingly at will. While such role hopping could have resulted in a sonic mess, the set sounds surprisingly coherent, not least because the thread running through it all is Miller's painful soul searching and well documented mental health issues. As a posthumous full stop to a life ended all too soon, "Circles" certainly hits home hard.

Review: Arriving some twenty years after the last Pink Floyd album proper, 1994's The Division Bell, this new offering - which stands to be their last ever - apparently functions as both a swansong for their enormously influential outfit and a tribute to late keyboard player Rick Wright. Constructed partly from demos for the aforementioned album, as well as recordings from as far back as 1968, it somehow manages to showcase the closest the band has come to the classic Floydian sound in decades. Indeed, replete with Gilmour's soaring leads and ambient dreamscapes, it frequently recalls the heralded days of 'Wish You Were Here' amidst an atmosphere of beatific melancholy. If this is the moment that the rock giants choose to bow out, their legions of fans can rest assured they're doing so with both grace and style.

Review: Ludovic Navarre aka St Germain requires no introduction, and the French house legend has literally seen and done it all ever since his first productions began to surface and influence other house artists back in the early 1990's golden era. The majority of his music has been released on F Communications, but his latest studio album drops on EMI's Parlophone sublabel. The self-titled St Germain is a proper LP, not a mere collection of house tracks put together helter-skelter. Inside, you'll hear many of Navarre's influences and inspirations, from Afro tribal melodies, to jazzy influences and even Middle-Eastern chimes. It's a house album in structure, but much more than that beneath the surface...as it always was from the legend of French dance music.