Low-Noise

This week I went to see Rickie Lee Jones at the Barbican in London. It wasn’t a concert in the usual sense. It felt more like being invited into somebody’s world for a couple of hours, a world built from jazz clubs, late-night conversations, drifting highways, poetry, memory and beautifully fractured songs.

Jones has always occupied her own corner of American music. Too jazzy for straightforward rock, too literary for pop, too restless to stay in one place stylistically. From the extraordinary run of albums that began with Rickie Lee Jones and Pirates, through to the experimental material later in her career, she’s remained an artist who follows instinct rather than expectation. In this episode we’re discussing the Barbican performance and why Jones still feels like such a singular presence decades into her career.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1F15mx4ea3/

https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

Why does Getting Away With It still sound so impossibly sophisticated? In this episode of Low Noise, we explore the debut single by Electronic, the collaboration between Bernard Sumner, Johnny Marr (and Neil Tennant) that briefly united two of the defining musical worlds of the 1980s. Released at the close of the decade, Getting Away With It feels suspended between confidence and insecurity, glamour and emptiness, sincerity and performance. With its immaculate production, layered synths and quietly devastating lyrics, the song captures a particular kind of late-night modernity: elegant on the surface, uncertain underneath. A song about confidence, alienation and possibly pretending to feel more certain than you really are.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1F15mx4ea3/

https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

What keeps Elvis Presley alive in the cultural imagination decades after his death?

In this episode we explore EPiC, Baz Luhrmann’s visually dense documentary meditation on Elvis Presley and the machinery of myth-making that surrounds him. Constructed from archive footage, fragmented memories and Luhrmann’s trademark sensory overload, EPiC presents Elvis not simply as a musician, but as an evolving cinematic symbol, one continuously reshaped by nostalgia, media and American culture itself. We discuss spectacle, authenticity, celebrity construction and the tension between the real Elvis and the performed Elvis. Along the way, the conversation drifts into analogue media, historical revision, cultural memory and why certain icons never seem to disappear. A documentary about Elvis — but also about the way popular culture endlessly remixes its own legends.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1F15mx4ea3/

https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

How can one of the most successful bands in British history become almost invisible?

In this episode, I explore the story of The Shadows, a group whose distinctive sound helped shape British popular music long before the arrival of the Merseybeat era. For a time, their influence seemed to be everywhere: in guitar shops, on the radio, and in the playing of countless young musicians trying to recreate those precise instrumental melodies and echoing tones. In this episode, I look at the group’s sound, style and cultural significance, and consider why a band once central to British pop history now feels strangely overlooked. From instrumental hits to their close association with Cliff Richard, The Shadows occupy a fascinating place in the story of post-war British music. We also reflect on the enduring appeal of the instrumental record, and the quiet power of melody, restraint and atmosphere.

In this episode I am in discussion with Keith Cheshire.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1F15mx4ea3/

https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

What does it mean for an album to sound effortless?

Released in 1988, Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars by Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians arrived at a moment when polish often equalled intent. And yet, this record seems to resist that logic, drifting between folk, jazz and pop with a looseness that feels almost accidental. In this episode, we explore how that looseness is constructed. Because beneath the offhand delivery and conversational tone, there’s something far more deliberate at work. Songs stretch, hesitate, and circle back on themselves. Nothing feels forced, but nothing is entirely casual either. It’s an album that doesn’t push for attention, and perhaps that’s why it endures. A record built on instinct, restraint, and the quiet confidence of not needing to prove anything.Sometimes, precision isn’t about control, it’s about knowing when to let things be.

I do hope that you enjoy this episode.

Mathew Woodall

https://www.facebook.com/share/1F15mx4ea3/

https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).