The biggest night in music is taking place this weekend. Music editor Roisin O’Connor goes through her predictions for who could take home the top prizes
Theo Zhykharyev, the Ukrainian wizard working low-profile under this brand since 2017 has pivoted to a new realm which blends ferocious energy with freewheeling fun
From London Recommend if you like Devo, Home Front, Snõõper Up next New album Bridge of Sacrifice released 13 March
Theo Zhykharyev is one of those brilliant weirdos capable of turning wild ideas into reality. Since starting Powerplant as a bedroom recording project in 2017, a couple of years after he left Ukraine to study in London, he has released records built around fizzing electro-punk, dungeon synth and treble-heavy hardcore, concocting Dungeons & Dragons-inspired role-playing adventures to accompany some of them, while slinging visually arresting DIY merch through his Arcane Dynamics label. Yet even coming amid an output this freewheeling, his upcoming new record is full of surprises.
(Ronin Rhythm) The composer’s first unaccompanied album turns extended harp technique into music of intimacy, restraint and conviction – inspired by the women who shaped her world
When the London jazz festival ran online only in 2020, an enthralling livestreamed performance by Swiss harpist Julie Campiche’s avant-jazz ensemble was a startling highlight, introducing UK audiences to a virtuoso instrumentalist and composer who was already turning heads in Europe. Campiche plucked guitar, zither and east Asian-style sounds from the harp, mingled with vocal loops, classical music, Nordic ambient jazz and more. You might call her soundscape magical or otherworldly if it didn’t coexist with a campaigner’s political urgency on environmental and social issues. But Campiche is too much of a visionary to overwhelm the eloquence of pure sound with polemic, as her new album, the unaccompanied Unspoken, confirms more than ever.
Campiche’s extra-musical agenda here is a celebration of sisterhood, dedicated to women in public and private lives who have inspired her. The opening Anonymous is built around a Virginia Woolf quote – “for most of history, ‘anonymous’ was a woman” – repeated by a chorus of women’s voices in different languages building to a clamour. Grisélidis Réal is named after the Swiss artist and writer who took her physical and mental life to every precipice, including sex work, expressed in gently lyrical harp lines around the spooky sounds of footsteps clicking on pavements.
Leonkoro Quartet (Alpha) The young quartet givea fiercely alert account of Berg, Webern and Schulhoff – beautifully capturing Vienna’s prewar musical fault lines
Founded in Berlin in 2019, the Leonkoro Quartet is no stranger to the UK having won first prize and nine special awards at the 2022 Wigmore Hall international string quartet competition. In their new disc they explore three composers who embody the musical cutting-edge that might have been encountered in the Austrian capital either side of the Great War.
Alban Berg and Anton Webern took Schoenberg’s theories of free atonality and the 12-tone system in rather different directions. Berg’s Lyric Suite was a fervent outpouring to his mistress, and the quartet aptly captures the moody sensuality of this intense, intricate music. The Andante Amoroso swoons; the Allegro Misterioso tiptoes on muted strings; the Presto Delirando is positively coital. The playing is unflinching and seethes with imaginative detail.
Ahead of the centenary of Davis’s birth, musicians including Terence Blanchard and John Scofield analyse his brilliance: from his soft phrasing and spiritual feel to his raspy cussing and leather outfits
The architect of the bestselling jazz album of all time, 1959’s Kind of Blue, trumpeter Miles Davis is a towering figure in the history of the genre. Possessed of a piercing tone, innate melodic sensibility and a singularly uncompromising approach on the bandstand, Davis spent his five-decade career presiding over numerous stylistic shifts: bebop to “cool” jazz, modal jazz, electronic fusion, jazz funk and even hip-hop. Always honing his ear for fresh talent, he turned his bands into incubators for rising artists, providing early starts for the pianists Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett, saxophonists Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, and drummers Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette.
With 2026 marking the centenary of Davis’s birth, I asked several of his surviving collaborators to select his greatest recordings and discuss his enduring influence, including the 95-year-old Rollins, who played with Davis in the 1950s; the guitarist John Scofield and the saxophonist Bill Evans, who both played with Davis in his 80s fusion groups; and several contemporary jazz stars.
(Nettwerk) The quartet edge away from their trademark sound with louder guitars and bolder intentions – but their reinvention is more gradual than radical
Yumi Zouma are breaking up with dream pop. After a decade together, the New Zealand four-piece have honed an airy, lush, lightly melancholic sound – but now they want change. “More extreme everything, more boldness,” guitarist Charlie Ryder has said of fifth record No Love Lost to Kindness, written during the band’s “most friction-filled creative period” to date. While it’s true that their latest singles are faster, louder and more distorted, these bright, pretty tracks will rattle only their longest-serving fans.
Bashville on the Sugar locks eyes with an ex on the subway and rushes with Olivia Campion’s breathless drumming, while Blister flips the band’s knack for whistleable melodies into pogoing, enjoyably predictable pop punk that professes “venom and rage” but is far more fun than furious. Drag begins as a genuine switch-up, with threatening bass and an uncharacteristically deadpan performance from singer Christie Simpson as she picks apart an ADHD diagnosis, but soon blossoms into billowy, even dreamy, layered vocals and luminous guitar.
Once the unassailable ‘Queen of Rap,’ Nicki Minaj has grown increasingly estranged from the music industry — and embraced by conservatives — culminating in a public show of support for Donald Trump that stunned fans. Carsen Holaday traces the controversies, feuds and fan backlash that reshaped her career
Harry Styles’s ticket prices sparked criticism from our community, who said soaring costs make live music generally unaffordable and urged fans to support smaller, local gigs instead
Catrani/Accademia Dell’Annunciata/Doni (Arcana) A sumptuous, elegant account of Barbara Strozzi’s 17th-century vocal music – performed with warmth, clarity and persuasive expressive freedom
Barbara Strozzi was a true 17th-century revolutionary. The adopted and quite possibly the natural daughter of poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi, she grew up in the bosom of the Venetian intelligentsia, taking part in debates from the age of 15. Her tally of 120 published works for solo voice was unequalled by any of her contemporaries. Despite remaining single, she managed to support four children on the income from her music alone. The quality of her output is matched only by Monteverdi.
Virtuosissima Sirena comprises a handful of cantatas and arias interspersed with effervescent trio sonatas by Legrenzi and Castello. Accademia dell’Annunciata’s lineup of two violins, cello, theorbo, double harp and harpsichord lends the music a shimmering sweetness that’s perhaps more sumptuous than the composer would have expected but is nonetheless enchanting.
The star’s urgent and to-the-point protest song is not subtle about its target and right now that’s why it works so well
Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song isn’t open to interpretation.
In Streets of Minneapolis, the Boss condemns “King Trump’s private army from the DHS” that “came to Minneapolis to enforce the law – or so their story goes”. He names Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both killed by federal agents amid protests. He rages against “Miller and Noem’s dirty lies”, referencing the faces of the Trump administration’s onslaught against immigrants.
As the superstar K-pop boyband prepare for their first album in three years – after its members completed their military service – we count down the best of their toothsome pop
At the start of their career, BTS were marketed as a cross between a Korean idol band and a blinged-out rap act: “Our life is hip-hop,” offered band member Suga early on. No More Dream is actually far tougher-sounding than you might expect: the vocals growl, the backing blares, the double-bass sample that drives the intro is great.
First live TV performance of songs from pop star’s new album, ‘Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally’, will take place at the Co-Op Arena in Manchester
Connexion
