Page 42 - Daniel Avery News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Like locked-down people the world over, I took up a few new hobbies in 2020: amateur epidemiology, amateur immunology, amateur statistical analysis and amateur pandemic-response planning. These are brain-melting pastimes for brain-melting times – if I’ve relied on music for one thing this year, it’s been to drown out my rational mind for a moment. Luckily, this track – a sparkling, saccharine love song adorned with glinting synths, airhorn blasts and a belching bass line – has the power to override almost all conscious thought. Between the in-joke lyrics (Harle wrote the original fo...

Last modified on Wed 30 Dec 2020 05.32 EST “A balm to your soul” – so went the Observer review of Julianna Barwick’s album this July, which was inspired by the musician’s move from New York City to the wellbeing mecca of Los Angeles. Her one-woman choir of celestial vocals is as calming as the bit at the end of a yoga class where you get to shut your eyes and lie under a blanket, and the album, along with its title Healing Is a Miracle, had extra resonance in 2020. Music is so often a communal experience, but with those possibilities snatched away this year, many of us have looked t...

Sleaford Mods – Spare Ribs The title of Sleaford Mods’ sixth album is apparently an oblique reference to the fatalities in the first wave of coronavirus: “Human lives are always expendable to the elites,” in the words of vocalist Jason Williamson, “we’re in a constant state of being spare ribs.” The presence of a track called Shortcummings suggest events of the last 12 months figure heavily, although lead single Mork n Mindy offered a grim look back at 80s childhood. Released on 15 January Bicep – Isles Belfast duo Bicep’s eponymous 2017 debut was an impressively eclectic ...

This Week’s Livestreams (KISS, Patti Smith, Thursday, Jason Isbell, Broken Social Scene, more) LAST UPDATED: 12/31 at 11:20 AM ET HERE ARE THIS WEEK'S LIVESTREAMS (Sunday, 12/27 - Saturday, 1/2): Thursday, December 31 KISS are streaming their "biggest concert ever" from Dubai at 12 PM ET, with a live audience and "numerous world record attempts for largest ever pyro display." Tickets are on sale now. Melvins stream "Melvins TV: Volume 1, New Year's Evil," featuring five songs, interviews, and extras, at 3 PM ET. Tickets are on sale now. Mike Birbiglia is streaming pair of New Year's Eve ...

December 27th, 2020 If you head over to our new Substack newsletter, you can read much more about these records, see a longer list, and keep in touch with DiS by subscribing - as from January I'm sending out weekly album recommendations. There was no poll involved in creating this list. It's just my personal favourite, the ones that cut the deepest. As the lone voice of the site nowadays, these were the records that were stuck on repeat on our ghost-ship... and I hope you find a new favourite from these (as that's the only point of listing season, right?!)