Scoundrel days a-ha

It was a cruel midwinter in January 1985 when Fra Lippo Lippi stepped into ABBA’s Polar Studios to record their third album, Songs. Flamboyantly named after Robert Browning’s poem about 15th century p

In 1976, the revolutionary singer-songwriter LAURA NYRO returned from self-imposed exile. But her comeback confounded expectations, shifting away from the impassioned intimacies of her early albums to embrace more radical perspectives. Fifty years on, Nyro’s collaborators revisit her striking second act. “She was a hip American from the Bronx,” one friend and producer tells Rob Hughes. “But her soul was old.”

Mike Patton and the Avett Brothers join forces to create a work of immense beauty.

London’s post-punk seismographers pick up more weird vibrations on their third album. By Victoria Segal. Illustration by Cold War Steve.

This month…

London Shepherd’s Bush Empire