John Calvert
John Calvert is a regular contributor to The Quietus.
52 articles
List of articles in the library
Angel Haze: Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 11 October 2012
In the latest Calvert Report, our man John Calvert starts to feel unusual as he sees Angel Haze live at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen. ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 7 June 2011
MUCH OF THE PASSIONATE RHETORIC surrounding The Antlers' affecting Hospice featured the keyword "bleeding", not only referring to the crackling artery of distortion that flowed ...
Banks & Steelz: Anything But Words
Review by John Calvert, New Musical Express, 2 September 2016
THE RAP-ROCK fusion album is a hard one to get right. Examples of success in this weird little corner of music do exist — Dälek's ...
Battles On Their "Next Level" New Album La Di Da Di
Interview by John Calvert, New Musical Express, 27 July 2015
"I DON'T KNOW… I keep coming back to the word technique…" In a pokey pizza place in Hackney, Ian Williams is failing to explain the ...
Beach House: Depression Cherry
Review by John Calvert, New Musical Express, 19 August 2015
"MAKING THE SIMPLE COMPLICATED is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." Not our words but those of jazz colossus Charles Mingus, which ...
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 13 May 2013
Caught up within the two-hour long human/machine synergy of Beyoncé's London performance, John Calvert reflects on its peculiar mix of sincerity and cynicism and the ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 5 January 2012
"WE'RE ALL made of gold!" Yay! We actually are! I can feel it. The gold, that is, IN ME! Wait, what? Are we gold? I'm ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 26 March 2010
HAVING SPENT over a decade pottering on the periphery with an air of janitorial resignation, Frank Black has finally turned in the greatest number of ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 26 October 2010
ONCE UPON A TIME Blonde Redhead were beautiful. It took a decade of suspiciously designer no wave, but with 2004's Misery Is a Butterfly they ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 24 May 2011
"And every proton and neutron in every atom . . . swollen and throbbing, off-color, sick, with just no chance of throwing up to relieve ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 26 April 2012
THERE’S HIGH comedy afoot on the old web-machine these days. Press attempts to answer the question "What are Death Grips?" have taken a turn for ...
Death Grips: Pleasure in suffering? The problem with Death Grips live
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 13 November 2012
A scholar of Death Grips, John Calvert expected to prostrate himself before the menace of MC Ride and Zach Hill. But is this the punk ...
Death Grips: Relentless Raw Movement: Death Grips Interviewed
Interview by John Calvert, The Quietus, 14 July 2011
Death Grips are the single most exciting new thing we have heard in 2011. John Calvert asks Flatlander about their methodology, hip hop, Odd Future, ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 16 February 2012
COMEDY RAP act or conceptual art project? Whatever your opinion on rave-rappers Die Antwoord, their new album is a rare treat — South African pop ...
Enter Shikari: A Flash Flood of Colour
Review by John Calvert, Drowned in Sound, 9 January 2012
JESUS. WHERE DO YOU START with A Flash Flood Of Colour? Well let's try... at the start, all the way back to Korn's Jonathan Davies ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 19 February 2010
THE BROTHERS BREWIS are natural Situationists, far too clever to take life overly seriously. This is no doubt what made Field Music's first two albums ...
Review by John Calvert, New Musical Express, 23 January 2016
Foxes' second album is the pop belter Britain needs ...
John Foxx and the Maths: Interplay
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 4 April 2011
AFTER A RUN of relatively oblique collaborations, Interplay sees John Foxx's return to the role of pop architect, ably assisted by The Maths (aka Ben ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 26 October 2011
THE SOUNDS of a lonely dock, St Elizabeth, North Carolina. It's the sound of lapping saltwater and mooring cables knocking steadily against wet wood. Slowly, ...
Gorillaz: The Singles Collection 2001-2011
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 23 December 2011
WHAT THE HELL were Gorillaz? A pop curio, maybe? Hindsight suggests they were crucial in determining the shape of British pop in the millennium. Gorillaz ...
Kendrick Lamar: Bottled Lightning: Kendrick Lamar: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 23 January 2013
John Calvert heads to a cold Hammersmith to be blown away by Kendrick Lamar — "A private epiphany, the rest is history" ...
The Klaxons: Klaxons: Surfing The Void (Polydor)
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 3 September 2010
WE AREN'T going to bore you with revelations that Myths Of The Near Future wasn't rave. There was such a thing as a nu rave ...
Lady Gaga: This Megalith Reality: Lady Gaga Live
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 11 September 2012
I KNOW IT'S COMING, but when it finally does it's different to how I expected. It's far worse. Less than real. ...
The Maccabees: Given To The Wild
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 17 January 2012
EVER SINCE THE bottom fell out of reedy-post-punk mid-last decade, fundamentally lightweight indie acts have taken to making grand statements. The efforts of say, Foals, ...
John Maus: We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 1 July 2011
IN ACADEMIA, pop enigma John Maus comes up in discussion about where hauntology meets 'utopian theory', an area of scholarly pursuit wherein blog intelligentsia will ...
Nicki Minaj: Pink Friday – Roman Reloaded
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 2 April 2012
WHO NEEDS stylistic, conceptual unity, when you have seven producers and Lil Wayne for a financier? ...
The Minutemen: An Econo History Of The Minutemen
Retrospective by John Calvert, The Quietus, 11 January 2012
John Calvert throws open the doors onto the strange and frightening world of the Minutemen. ...
Janelle Monáe: A New Pioneer Of Afrofuturism
Comment by John Calvert, The Quietus, 2 September 2010
Against a pop climate beset by fraudulent marketing plans on two shiny legs, John Calvert argues that Janelle Monáe brandishes the acetylene torch for radical ...
Morrissey, The Smiths: The Cult Of Steve: Morrissey Live At Wembley Arena
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 17 March 2020
John Calvert is dragged by his lifelong Smiths fan girlfriend to Wembley — but will he finally see what all the fuss is about? ...
My Bloody Valentine: The Echo Of Youth: My Bloody Valentine live
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 30 January 2013
John Calvert takes his teenage dreams down to the Brixton Electric for a rare intimate gig by My Bloody Valentine. ...
Nitzer Ebb: Industrial Complex
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 24 February 2010
WITH A quick turn on Nitzer Ebb's YouTube channel, a scroll down the comments section yields a profile of the zealots who comprise the industrial ...
Frank Ocean: The Future's Bright: Frank Ocean's Channel Orange Track-by-Track
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 3 July 2012
John Calvert heads along to a London studio for a first listen to the forthcoming album (much anticipated round these parts) from Frank Ocean ...
Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All: Odd Future: Youth and Young Manhood
Guide by John Calvert, The Quietus, 8 March 2011
After Tyler The Creator signed to XL recently, John Calvert decided to sift through hundreds and hundreds of tracks to bring you the best — ...
OK Go: Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 18 January 2010
SO, YOU got the email. Treadmill ballet = instant viral penetration. Grammy award, Simpsons parody, legions of advertising 'creatives' ripping off the idea — the ...
Lana Del Rey: An American Nightmare: Lana Del Rey Live
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 27 September 2012
I MET HER last year. She talked about loneliness and how she never had any time for religion, until she got into some trouble in ...
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 30 January 2012
ALL THAT FUSS over one song? You'd think there'd been a murder at the White House. ...
Interview by John Calvert, The Quietus, 4 October 2011
Even though her song 'Video Games' emerged a couple of months back, Lana Del Rey has already experienced equal parts adulation and suspicion. Here, John ...
Skrillex: 100% Shock & Awe: Skrillex Blasts Tiny Venue
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 29 August 2012
THE SCENE IN the Shacklewell Arms is fairly typical of any gentrified boozer in the Hackney precinct, come Sunday night. ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Siamese Dream (Reissue)
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 6 December 2011
FOR ALL its resonance amongst the youth of the day, the voice of grunge was old before its time and world-weary. Although their chagrin and ...
The Streets: Computers and Blues
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 9 February 2011
YOU'LL HAVE TO meet us halfway on this, but Mike Skinner's swansong plays like a cracking old wake – Skinner's of course. ...
Suicide: Requiem For A Scream: Suicide's 'Punk Mass'
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 16 July 2015
IN HIS PRE-SHOW ADDRESS, frothy punk minotaur Henry Rollins is telling a story, which of course he's pretty good at. A formidable, not to mention ...
Summer Camp: Welcome to Condale
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 14 November 2011
GRANTED, the memory will play its tricks, but wasn't being a kid in the 80s a simple affair? ...
Swans: My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 29 October 2010
SWANS WILL ALWAYS be a draw for life's spiritual derelicts, a certain constituency in peaceful agreement that the world is cruel, human nature is animal, ...
Tame Impala: Inside the mind of a psych-pop shaman
Interview by John Calvert, New Musical Express, 14 July 2015
"I THINK five years ago," says Kevin Parker, the man who to all intents and purposes is Tame Impala, "the thought of sitting in a ...
Tame Impala's Danceable New Album Currents: Track By Track First Listen Review
Review by John Calvert, New Musical Express, 23 June 2015
"I REALISED we'd never seen people dancing to our music," Tame Impala's Kevin Parker told NME earlier this year. ...
TV On The Radio As Soundtrack To Bush & Obama's America
Essay by John Calvert, The Quietus, 3 August 2011
Don't Let The Devil In: John Calvert takes a look at the work of TV On The Radio through the prism of a turbulent decade ...
Washed Out: Within and Without
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 22 July 2011
AS THE chillwaver least inclined to confection, on his introductory EP — complete with genre-iconic artwork — Ernest Greene's one dimensional wares trod a precarious ...
The Weeknd: Overview Of A Vampire: A Closer Look At The Weeknd's Lyrics
Essay by John Calvert, The Quietus, 12 October 2015
John Calvert is a "guilt-ridden ultra-fan" of "misogynist" Canadian R&B star The Weeknd and here, instead of brushing the themes of his music under the ...
Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 11 December 2012
John Calvert gets hot under the collar at an intimate gig at the Lexington from Wild Beasts, as they play their great album Smother and ...
Amy Winehouse: Lioness – Hidden Treasures
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 14 December 2011
LIONESS: Hidden Treasures is an appropriately muted set, with Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi producing an honourable and moving tribute to the Amy Winehouse. In ...
Wu Lyf: Go Tell Fire to the Mountain
Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 27 June 2011
THERE’S NO DOUBT that "blind faith" is the metier of the emphatically idealistic Wu Lyf. If as a fan you're to join them in remaining ...
Xeno & Oaklander: Sets and Lights
Review by John Calvert, Drowned in Sound, 13 October 2011
UP TO NOW, the problem with coldwave has been an atmospheric one, in that the music has none. If the various players are to successfully ...
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