Tori Amos will promote the release of her new album Midwinter Graces [review] with a free show at the 350-capacity Jazz Café in Camden Town, London, on December 2. This is likely to be the only time that Tori plays her winter solstice-themed material in the UK, at least until next winter. Entry to the event will be by wristband only, which fans will have to collect in person from HMV Oxford Street (the one towards the Tottenham Court Road end, rather than Marble Arch), London, from 8am. Unli... Read Full Story

The fabulous Lucky Soul are to showcase new material at an intimate preview of their second album, A Coming Of Age, on December 1 at the Monarch in Camden Town. Preceded by the first single and live favourite, ‘White Russian Doll’, on January 11, the follow-up to 2007’s acclaimed The Great Unwanted is scheduled to arrive in shops in March. Produced by the band’s own Andrew Laidlaw and mixed in New York with Victor Van Vugt (PJ Harvey, Sons & Daughters, Nick Cave),... Read Full Story

In this third part of our series in honour of Remembrance Day, Katy Carr travels to Gdansk in Poland to meet the man who inspired her song, ‘Kommander’s Car’, with his bold escape from Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in 1942. Welcomed into his home, she finds that Kazimierz Piechowski’s life story is even more incredible and touched with profound sadness than even she had imagined. (The first two instalments are here and here.) * * * After arranging to travel to Gda... Read Full Story

Following on from her involvement in the ActionAid 6 Degrees recording of ‘I’m Every Woman’ earlier this year, Sinéad O’Connor has re-recorded one of her own songs in aid of anti sex trafficking organisation GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Services) to raise awareness about the rising incidence of child prostitution in the United States. The new version of ballad ‘This Is To Mother You’, originally from her 1997 EP Gospel Oak, was recorded over the sum... Read Full Story

If you missed the first instalment of this four-part series yesterday, do catch up. It won’t make much sense otherwise, y’know? In today’s blog, Katy Carr describes the chain of events that led her to travel to Poland to meet Kazimierz Piechowski, the only remaining survivor of the 1942 Auschwitz breakout in the Kommander’s car. * * * After my visit to the Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the recording of ‘Kommander’s Car’, I became obsessed with finding o... Read Full Story

Thea Gilmore Strange Communion ••• Fruitcake / Fullfill Is absolutely nothing sacred? As each year passes it feels increasingly as though there is nobody out there who is totally immune from making a Christmas album. But while we inwardly quake at the thought of what mind-blowing aberrations 2010 might bring (Björk’s Baubles? Deck The Halls With PJ Harvey?), we must first digest this year’s two most unpredictable entries, which just happen to lend themselves to obvious comparison. Having lon... Read Full Story

El Perro Del Mar Love Is Not Pop •••½ The Control Group Love is not pop, Sarah Assbring proclaims, and neither is this, the most recent offering from her alter ego El Perro Del Mar. Listen to it though and you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise; the album is replete with sharp hooks, bittersweet melodies, memorable choruses and soaring key changes. However, such traditional pop tropes are threaded through a web of complex, despondent songs to create a thematically sorrowful album that ... Read Full Story

Acclaimed singer-songwriter and occasional Wears The Trousers contributor Katy Carr releases her long-awaited third album, Coquette, today, a wildly imaginative collection that takes us back to the 1930s and ’40s, to wartime Europe, with romantic and powerful songs largely inspired by women of the era. Dodging any potential bias, we’re not going to review it; the 4* reviews in Q, Mojo and The Daily Express speak for themselves. Instead, we’ve invited the half-Polish singer ... Read Full Story

Clare & The Reasons Arrow •••• Frog Stand Records Few cities in the world can call themselves home to such an eclectic mix of musical styles as New York, a place which produces excellent artists from what seems like an unseen factory encompassing all its myriad districts. It would not be unfair or totally inaccurate to say that much of the musical output of the city has a cynical edge though, from the spiky art punk of Patti Smith to the cavernous, sepulchral Interpol, with a multitude ... Read Full Story

Rickie Lee Jones Balm In Gilead •••• Fantasy An American original, Rickie Lee Jones has quietly amassed a catalogue of serious class over the course of her thirty-year career. Whether she’s experimenting with song structure or playing it straight, Chicago-born Jones always seems to bring something unique and interesting to the table, exploring various styles from jazz and pop to gospel and R&B. Balm In Gilead, her eleventh studio album, is no different. As warm and soulful as its title w... Read Full Story