Marisa Anderson and William Tyler‘s collaborative album, “Lost Futures”, has some of our favourite melodies of the year. The idea of “duelling guitars” has given us some enticing music over the years, but the duo’s music shines brighter when those guitars – both electric and acoustic – sound like they’re just sweetly talking to each other.
It’s starting to be too common: no matter how warm and sunny it is in the week leading up to the festival, NOS Primavera Sound (NPS) is doomed to be ruined by at least one day of rain. The first day did not look promising after the announcement of the passage of depression Miguel (no, not the rnb star who performed there a couple of years ago) through the north of Portugal. Flights were cancelled, Ama Lou and Peggy Gou could not reach Porto in time to perform, strong winds and rain showers threatened to turn Parque da Cidade into a muddy mess, the gates were opened almost an hour later than it was scheduled.
It doesn’t matter how conservative or liberal you are: people are naturally resistant to change, especially if the previous form of what’s changing was so dear to them. We get it: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Judging by the tone and content of most comments we can find online about this year’s Primavera lineup, both in Porto and Barcelona, folks ain’t happy about “the new normal”. Yes, some of the biggest pop artists in the planet have claimed most of the spots with the big font in it. Yes, there’s a shortage of loud, extreme music we often found at the long gone ATP stage, and every year there are less and less historical, cult indie rock bands reforming for a Primavera performance. But, other than that – tiny specks on a lineup of over 120 bands in Barcelona and over 60 in Porto – has it really changed that much? Is the Primavera DNA gone? (Was there really a “Primavera DNA” to begin with?)
Every week we try to focus on brand new music, if possible by newcomers that might or might not be semi-stars tomorrow. But, every now and then, we eventually cave in and cannot resist the urge to celebrate some of our favourite records’ anniversary editions. Songs: Ohia’s ‘The Lioness’ got its deluxe treatment through ‘Love & Work’, an extremely limited 2xLP boxset now sold out; in it, eleven outtakes from the same sessions that brought us one of the most heartbreaking albums of the last twenty years see the light of day for the first time.