The Independent
 
Independent
Google+
i Newspaper
 
TheIPaper
The Independent around the web

Exclusive album stream: James, 'The Night Before'

With a career that includes 10 studio albums, twenty UK Top 40 singles and 12 million album sales so far, James have stepped into the digital age with their new mini-album 'The Night Before', released on Monday and exclusively available to stream in full in conjunction with The Independent, below.

Album: Mountains, Choral (Thrill Jockey)

The Independent's chief rock critic gives an exclusive preview of this month’s releases

Album: Fever Ray, Fever Ray (Rabid/V2)

In the eerie video for Fever Ray’s debut single “If I Had A Heart”, Karin Dreijer Andersson’s face appears only briefly.

Album: Vetiver, Tight Knit

The Independent's chief rock critic gives an exclusive preview of this month’s releases

Album: Beirut, March Of The Zapotec (Pompeii)

The Independent's chief rock critic gives an exclusive preview of this month’s releases

Album: Mugison, Mugiboogie (Mugiboogie)

For his third album, Icelandic maverick Mugison has abandoned the laptop troubadour approach of previous releases for an all-out assault on retro-rock authenticity.

Album: Various Artists, Independents Day '08 (Independents Day)

A sterling affirmation of the creative vitality of independent music, Independents Day 08 is a two-stage expression of how the baton of inspiration gets passed from one era to another.

Album: Polar Bear, Polar Bear (Tin Angel)

Sometimes described as post-jazz, for their affinities with post-rockers such as Tortoise and Godspeed You Black Emperor, Seb Rochford’s quintet adopt a disarmingly postmodern approach to jazz, drawing from its vast library of styles with scant regard for the historical rivalries that have traditionally riven the genre into competing cliques and movements.

Album: Joe Tex, First On The Dial (Shout!)

Joe Tex will always be known primarily for his mid-Sixties’ successes, when Atlantic Records took over distribution of his Dial Records material, and scored a top 10 hit with “Hold What You’ve Got”.

Album: The Tubes, Goin' Down (Cherry Red)

Since the deaths of Frank Zappa and Warren Zevon, satire has become a vanishingly small part of the rock music scene – though lord knows, there’s far more to be cynical about in the current music biz than ever before.

Album: Ratatat, LP3 (XL)

For their third album, New York techno duo Ratatat (guitarist Mike Stroud and keyboardist Evan Mast) decamped to the Old Soul Studio of their friend White Flight, up in the Catskills, where they found a trove of old analogue keyboards that provide many of the textures and timbres of LP3.

Album: She & Him, Volume One (Double Six)

After Minnie Driver and Scarlett Johansson, Zooey Deschanel is the latest actress to release an album.

Album: Various Artists, Rockin' Memphis (Proper)

Most Memphis heritage compilations focus either on the city’s R&B or rockabilly scenes, but there’s plenty of room on this four-disc, 118-track box set to cover all bases, offering a detailed account of how rock’n’roll, the miscegenate offspring of blues and country, came crawling out of the South in the early Fifties.

Album: Blue Blokes 3, Stubble (Fledg'ling)

As members of 3 Mustaphas 3, Ben Mandelson and Lu Edmonds were playing footloose and fancy-free with blended roots music “forgeries” as far back as the Eighties, so the string-band crossovers done in cahoots with folk-blues guitarist Ian Anderson on Stubble should come as no great surprise.

Career Services

Day In a Page

Is Ridley Scott the most macho man in movies?

Ridley Scott: The most macho man in movies?

His cinematic CV is unparalleled. Yet the Alien director is still obsessed with beating his rivals.
Being Gary Lineker: The clean-cut anchorman is this summer's Mr Sport

Being Gary Lineker

The clean-cut anchorman is this summer's Mr Sport...
Gallic gourmets are putting French cuisine back on the culinary map

Gallic gourmets put France back on culinary map

Overdone, out of touch and old-fashioned: French cuisine has never been at a lower ebb...
So Moorish: Mark Hix offers his own take on classic Moroccan dishes

So Moorish: Mark Hix's Moroccan dishes

Why not create a north African-inspired feast to share with your friends?
Sin and the single mother: The history of lone parenthood

Sin and the single mother

Maureen Paton explores the history of lone parenthood.
The outsider: Margaret Howell is British fashion's queen of minimalism

The outsider: Margaret Howell

The designer tells Susannah Frankel why she has never felt part of the fashion industry.
The 50 Best luggage

The 50 Best luggage

From chic cases to compact baggage, pack it all in this summer
For men only: A pilgrimage to Mount Athos in Greece

For men only: A pilgrimage to Mount Athos

On a secluded peninsula in north-east Greece lies an enclave that's way off the tourist map, especially for women...
48 Hours In: Faro

48 Hours In: Faro

More than just the gateway to the Algarve, this city has much to tempt you off the beach.
Here, the coast is always clear: Celebrating sixty years of Pembrokeshire's National Park

60 years of Pembrokeshire's National Park

Mick Webb reveals a land of puffins, tanks and Hollywood blockbusters.
Free Range: Meet the designers of tomorrow

Free Range

Meet the artists of the future
Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?

Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?

As scientists at Rothamsted's GM trials plead with activists not to sabotage their work, Michael McCarthy visits the battle field
Monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV

Monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV

Deep in Cameroon's rainforests, poachers are killing primates for food. Evan Williams reports from Yokadouma on a practice that could create a pandemic
Catcalls, whistles, groping: just another day for a young woman

Catcalls, whistles, groping: just another day for a young woman

Government urged to take abuse more seriously as London study shows 41 per cent are harassed
Jailing of Maori separatists stirs colonial-era resentment

Jailing of Maori separatists stirs colonial-era resentment

Militant Tuhoe tribe members defiant amid claims race relations had been set back 100 years