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Music

  • Tobias Jesso Jr

    Interview
    ‘Justin Bieber is an insanely courageous artist’: Tobias Jesso Jr on how he became the songwriter to the stars

    He has penned hits for Adele, Dua Lipa and Bieber, but the sought-after Canadian pop songwriter has only ever released one album himself. Now, 10 years on, comes a second –and it’s a scorching account of a breakup
  • Ellen Kessler;Alice Kessler, Paris, FrancePlease contact your Account Representative for licensing use on merchandise and/or resale products; fine art prints, wall décor, gallery, nonprofit or museum displays. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Loomis Dean/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock (11998995a) Editorial Premium Content. Special rates apply. Dancer twins Ellen & Alice Kessler of English Bluebell Troupe. Ellen Kessler;Alice Kessler, Paris, France

    Tribute
    Inseparable, sensuous and confident, the Kessler twins were pioneers of variety show culture

  • Pollyfromthedirt.

    Add to playlist
    Pollyfromthedirt’s grey-skied Anglo ambience and the week’s best new tracks

  • F&M: why Ireland has the most exciting indie music scene in the world right now

    Feature
    ‘We’ve got to release the dead hand of the past’: how Ireland created the world’s best alternative music scene

  • Delia Beatriz AKA Debit.

    Global album of the month
    Debit: Desaceleradas – Afro-Latin club sounds slowed to a seductive crawl

Interviews

  1. ‘He championed social justice so powerfully’ … Dick Gaughan in 1996.

    ‘I never wanted to sing into a vacuum’: Scottish folk pioneer Dick Gaughan’s fight for his lost music

  2. New York City Ballet in the world premiere of Rotunda, February 2020 – choreography by Justin Peck, music by Nico Muhly

    Moving beyond bar lines: composer Nico Muhly on dancers reimagining his music

  3. Australian musician Nina Wilson, who performs as Ninajirachi

    Ninajirachi started making music because of YouTube. Now she’s up for eight Aria awards

Album reviews

  1. Daniel Lopatin AKA Oneohtrix Point Never

    Alexis Petridis's album of the week
    Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer – uncanny ambient music for an agitated era

  2. Celeste

    Alexis Petridis's album of the week
    Celeste: Woman of Faces – from chanson to prewar jazz, this timeless song cycle defies the easy sell

  3. أحمد [Ahmed], featuring (l-r) Antonin Gerbal, Seymour Wright, Pat Thomas and Joel Grip.

    Jazz album of the month
    أحمد [Ahmed]: Sama’a (Audition) – a wild, world-spanning act of musical devotion

  4. A portrait of musician JJJJJerome Ellis.

    JJJJJerome Ellis
    Vesper Sparrow – shape-shifting composer taps the musical potential of their stutter

Live reviews

  1. Mulatu Astatke at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

    Jazz
    Mulatu Astatke – father of Ethio-jazz still innovating during farewell tour

  2. Lorde at the AO Arena, Manchester.

    Pop
    Lorde – viscerally kinetic theatrics and euphoric abandon

  3. AC/DC on stage

    Rock
    AC/DC – a thrilling show stuffed with classics … and your eardrums will never be the same

  4. Radiohead's Thom Yorke

    Rock
    Radiohead – bards of the apocalypse return for a brutal bacchanal

Add to playlist

  1. A DJ mixes tracks.

    Not Mariah again!
    New music playlists for the Christmas party season

  2. Suggs of Madness sitting in an empty theatre.

    Honest playlist
    ‘I once said there’s no way I’ll still be playing Baggy Trousers at 30’: Suggs’s honest playlist

  3. Oral Habit.

    Add to playlist
    The ear-rattling psychedelia of Brighton’s Oral Habit and the week’s best new tracks

From the archive

  • Grace Jones in a black dress, black gloves and black hat, her head on one side with wild staring eyes

    This much I know
    Grace Jones: ‘Even if I stand on my head, I still can’t do it. How these young girls twerk, I don’t know’

    As her album Slave to the Rhythm turns 40, revisit our interview with the actor and singer on working as a go-go dancer, hanging out with Keith Haring and dropping LSD

Obituaries

  • Man in T-shirt

    News
    Todd Snider, alt-country singer-songwriter of Alright Guy, dies aged 59

  • Donna Jean Godchaux with the Grateful Dead in 1975.

    Donna Jean Godchaux supplied steel and soul to the Grateful Dead in their prime

    Alexis Petridis
  • A black man with grey hair closes his eyes as his plays drums

    Jack DeJohnette was more than a jazz drummer – his staggering range made him a superhuman force in music

    Philip Clark
  • Dave Ball fn Soft Cell in the group’s 1980s heyday.

    Dave Ball was not some bloke in the background of Soft Cell – he drove their startling, subversive sound

    Alexis Petridis
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You may have missed

  1. James Blades in 1975

    ‘Two more broomsticks please!’ Was James Blades the greatest percussionist ever?

  2. A man in makeup, sunglasses and sparkly outfit performs on stage.

    Film
    Michael Jackson is moonwalking back, but after the Springsteen flop is the pop biopic still relevant?

  3. One Shot With Ed Sheeran.

    Film review
    One Shot With Ed Sheeran – well-planned spontaneity from all-smiling singer

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