This Year In Records 2016

What made 2016 tick, from ANOHNI to The xx.

Originally published in The Edge

Now we’ve finally reached the concluding moments of 2016, it’s time for This Week In Records to splash out a little bit. You may be familiar with our methods – trawling the web for every last morsel of new music worth your attention and delivering it promptly for breakfast every Friday, with an occasional side dish of irritability whenever someone dares to “spill” a piña colada over a marimba and ends up regurgitating a soulless rendition of a decent dance record from the last millennium. Today, to celebrate the end of all things, we’ve cast our glances right back to where it all began.

Elsewhere on this site, you will find serious collections and rankings of the year – albums, films, games, TV shows, etc. – but This Year In Records is for celebrating 2016’s music in all its delectable forms. Over the next twelve pages, we discuss one release from every single New Music Friday. Some are fantastic. Some are abominations. Some will be recalled as the releases that first caught attention from the music heroes of tomorrow. One is a miserable spawn from The X Factor.

If a rapid whiz through 366 days of music sounds appealing, allow me to be your guide. I promise I’ll only rap twice.

Continue reading “This Year In Records 2016”

Single review: Bloc Party – ‘The Love Within’

Bloc Party 2.0 slinks to the fore with a delightful display of technique and imagery.

Originally published in The Edge

The Bloc Party of 2015 is not the Bloc Party you know and love, or even the Bloc Party of Four. Since their latest hiatus began in 2013, half the band – drummer Matt Tong and bassist/backing vocalist/glockenspiel player/album art designer Gordon Moakes – have split away after being together through much of this millennium. Early 2016 will bring new album Hymns, with added Louise Bartle and Justin Harris, and ‘The Love Within’ is our first chance to gauge the transition. Continue reading “Single review: Bloc Party – ‘The Love Within’”