The Vinous 2018 Holiday Gift Guide
Beyond Wine, FAQ
, Dec 2018
Looking for that perfect gift for the wine lover in your life? We’ve got you covered with a selection of gifts ranging from new books, glasses, maps and much more.
Beyond Wine Album Review of Make My Bed EP - King Princess
Beyond Wine
, Dec 2018
Ladies and gentlemen and all those in between, I present a bona fide classic song: “1950” by King Princess. Its centerpiece is an effortlessly simple melody that you cannot believe has not been written before, one that immediately lodges itself in your brain.
Beyond Wine: Album Review of Be The Cowboy - Mitski
Beyond Wine
, Oct 2018
Mitski returns in 2018 with her fifth album Be The Cowboy, perhaps with expectations heightened after previous success and contemporaneous with St. Vincent’s rising profile. Be The Cowboy does not disappoint. Fourteen tracks, almost entirely clocking in at 150 seconds each, combine to create a cohesive, clever and affecting album.
Beyond Wine: Album Review of I’m All Ears - Let’s Eat Grandma
Beyond Wine
, Aug 2018
Let’s Eat Grandma. To be honest, I presumed it was a particularly inspired gothic name for a band. It was only when my daughter piped up that it was in fact a commonly used example à la Eats Shoots and Leaves to teach pupils how grammar can warp the meaning of a sentence that I understood its origin. I first caught the duo, Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth, who have been childhood friends since kindergarten, on Jools Holland a couple of years ago.
Beyond Wine: Album Review of Heaven And Earth - Kamasi Washington
Beyond Wine
, Jul 2018
I keep on hearing Kamasi Washington on the radio. Like many I appreciated his work with the imperious Kendrick Lamar on his epochal To Pimp A Butterfly in 2015, which led me to the tenor saxophonist/band-leaders three-hour and appropriately titled triple album The Epic. He recently released a follow-up, Heaven and Earth that clocks in at a “brief” two-hours. And you know...I like it. OMG. I like jazz. What’s happening to me? Is it because I am now working with jazz aficionado Antonio Galloni? Did he put something in my wine? Why do I feel inclined to grow a goatee beard and don a beige roll-neck jumper? Why do I wish Rihanna sang her songs on 5/4 time with a three-hour triangle solo? Dr. Music...tell me what is happening?
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Beyond Wine: Visiting Gibson Guitars’ Nashville Custom Shop
Beyond Wine
, Jul 2018
I have been playing Gibson guitars for about thirty years, so it was a thrill to have an opportunity to stop by Gibson’s Nashville Custom Shop for a visit earlier this year. The level of craftsmanship, passion and history was fascinating to experience first hand as we walked from station to station and met with the talented men and women who build some of Gibson’s most coveted instruments.
Beyond Wine: Album Review of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino – Arctic Monkeys
Beyond Wine
, Jun 2018
Since blasting onto the scene with their debut "Whatever You Think I Am, I Am Not", still one of the fastest selling albums of all time, Arctic Monkeys are almost unique in maintaining quality control whilst pushing the envelope with each release and all without losing their fanbase. Whereas in previous decades there existed say, half-a-dozen indie bands all simultaneously forging ahead and amassing audiences, Arctic Monkeys have no competition. There is nobody near them. Nobody that has embarked upon an arc of progression, experimented with something new, expanded their musical palette and building a canon of work.
Beyond Wine: Album Review of Dirty Computer – Janelle Monáe
Beyond Wine
, May 2018
Back in 2010 I saw Janelle Monáe at an intimate gig in Camden, London. The Archandroid, her debut album, had just been released to ecstatic reviews. To this day I regard it as a classic, a dizzying smorgasbord of musical genres crammed into an epic concept album. I was convinced that Monáe was up there with the greats, not least alongside her obvious muse, Prince.
Beyond Wine: Album Review of Record - Tracey Thorn
Beyond Wine
, Mar 2018
Tracey Thorn’s ascent to national treasure status is something that in retrospect was inevitable. After forming the Marine Girls in the 1980s, she is best known as the lead singer of duo “Everything But The Girl” and their chart-toppers “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” and ubiquitous mid-1990s anthem, the Todd Terry enhanced “Missing”. Together with partner/husband Ben Watt, they occupied a liminal point between fey indie band and unorthodox pop stars, loitering on the periphery of music as a niche act that stumbled upon fleeting fame every few years. Thorn herself was aesthetically the antithesis of what a pop star ought to look like: too tall and rangy, lacking the sex appeal, too intelligent to all but nerds who could imagine her stepping off the stage of Top of the Pops to cram for her upcoming English Lit exam in the university library.
Beyond Wine: Album Review of Loma - Loma
Beyond Wine
, Feb 2018
Driving down from Château Margaux towards Bordeaux, as usual, my car radio is tuned to the impeccable Nova FM, a station with a habit of throwing out tunage that stop you in your tracks. Around the entrance gates of Giscours comes a song that compels me to pull over so that I can just marinate in the sound. I cannot put my finger on exactly why I am bewitched. It sounds simple, a melody you cannot believe has never been written before. It is the mesmerizing woman’s voice that whisks me to wherever she is coming from, multi-tracked so that it resembles a small choir. It makes me think of Hope Sandoval. Lots of Sandoval’s singing in unison. There is that loose elastic bassline and the almost meditative atmosphere, something pagan about the lyrics. The song is “Black Willow”. A quick Google search identifies it as a new song by a band I have never heard of before. They are called Loma. I like the name. I make a mental note. Thank the Lord the music column is returning so I can tell the world.