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‘I don’t want to be a legacy performer’
Why Britain’s hottest jazz star is giving up his sax for the flute

Shabaka Hutchings is at the height of his powers as a saxophonist – but has given it up to play a Japanese flute that takes years to master. In London and Brazil, the multiple Mercury nominee explains why he has to resist the easy path, even if it puts his livelihood at risk

The reader interview
Judas Priest’s Rob Halford: ‘Coming out as gay? It’s unbelievable, the elation’

‘I can guarantee Beyoncé has never stepped foot in here’
Houston’s country saloons review Texas Hold ’Em

‘In January, it was the most heard song on Earth!’
The amazing story behind Murder on the Dancefloor

Olof Dreijer on the Knife, Swedish nationalism and dancefloor activism

Music gives us energy to overcome

‘The Bene Gesserit can kill with their voices. That’s what I try to do’
The musicians mining Dune for tunes

Reviews

Album of the week
Ariana Grande: Eternal Sunshine – perceptive post-divorce album is nearly spotless

Ariana Grande: Eternal Sunshine – perceptive post-divorce album is nearly spotless

Kitty Empire's album of the week
Liam Gallagher John Squire – chippy hauteur meets six-string pyrotechnics

Folk album of the month
Various artists: Africatown, AL: Ancestor Sounds – music that defies the darkest of pasts

Album review
Discovery Zone: Quantum Web – expertly rendered synth fantasias

Album review
Faye Webster: Underdressed at the Symphony – petal-voiced power

Album review
Yard Act: Where’s My Utopia? – a leap forward for Leeds post-punkers

Spotlight

‘The internet is an alien life form’
How David Bowie created a market for digital music

Bowie’s 1999 album Hours… was the first to go on sale online before hitting regular stores – and his experimentation caused horror in the music industry

Classical

Sarah Angliss
How I built an opera from the bones of a real-life giant

Opera review
Death in Venice – Britten’s final opera soars in WNO’s captivating staging

Death in Venice – Britten’s final opera soars in WNO’s captivating staging

Classical album of the week
Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Works Vol 2 album – first-rate playing even if some of the music is less so

Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Works Vol 2 album – first-rate playing even if some of the music is less so

Concert review
Big Bruckner Weekend – there’s no escaping the challenges of his music, as well as its pleasures

Concert review
LSO/Rattle – Adams’ Frenzy debuts but Roy Harris’s Third is the real discovery

LSO/Rattle – Adams’ Frenzy debuts but Roy Harris’s Third is the real discovery

‘We’re all agog’
Behind the scenes at Welsh National Opera’s Death in Venice – in pictures

Add to playlist

‘Hit the Hague, hit the bong!’
Hear Gregg Alexander’s original demo of Murder on the Dancefloor

On my radar
Kayus Bankole of Young Fathers’ cultural highlights

You may have missed

‘I‘d rather people scratch their heads than yawn’
St Vincent on death, Dave Grohl and dividing her fans

Despite its unflinching title, the artist’s new album, All Born Screaming, is a deeply romantic record

TikTok jazz sensation Laufey

It’s no longer about genre, it’s about feeling and mood

As the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter begins a sellout world tour, she talks about how a ‘21st-century girl’ is making young fans nostalgic for a crooning jazz era they never knew

‘Elvis was as pilled up as me!’
Dan Penn on writing hits for Aretha, Otis, Dolly and more

He was the boy from Alabama who wrote a hit while still at school. And the classics just kept coming – from I’m Your Puppet to Do Right Woman. The great songwriter relives his days with the stars

‘I put the ass in blasphemy’
Lynks, the horror-drag pop star reclaiming biblical ‘abomination’

From behind a series of outlandish masked costumes, the anonymous British artist is using humour and horniness to explore queer pride and queer shame

‘I often see fans crying or snogging to it’
Cast on how they made Walkaway

‘It was used as the soundtrack when the England football team were knocked out of Euro 96. The nation wept, Walkaway was the song – and I missed the whole thing’

News
Indie record shops boom in number – but supermarkets are deserting music

Data from Digital Entertainment and Retail Association finds there are now 122 more indie record shops compared with 2014

Live music this week

Raye, Tate McRae and a bit of a rave
All the Brits 2024 performances reviewed

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