New Music Reviews
Josienne Clarke, Across the Evening Sky, Kings Place review - celebrating Sandy DennyTuesday, 18 February 2025
On the first date of a 17-concert tour that had its preview at Celtic Connections in January, Across the Evening Sky begins with the liminal, predatory dangers of associating in any way with the sly “Reynardine”, with Matt Robinson on piano and electronic keyboards and Alec Bowman-Clarke’s bass evoking the twilit murk of the magical faerie song, recorded by Sandy on Fairport’s Liege & Lief. Read more... |
Patrick Duff, The Mount Without, Bristol review - sacred music for the soulMonday, 17 February 2025
There is an atmosphere of otherworldly stillness within the stony womb of a large dilapidated church in Bristol, at the bottom of St Michael’s Hill, the winding road that climbs up to what used to be the favoured place of execution, where the city’s sombre gibbets stood. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Sharks - Car Crash SupergroupSunday, 16 February 2025
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the band spilt in 1974. A 2017 reunion album featured former Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums. “Sophistication,” from Sharks' 1974 second album Jab It In Yore Eye, had an insistent riff Mick Jones repurposed for The Clash's “Should I Stay or Should I go.” Read more... |
Fat Dog, Chalk, Brighton review - a frenetic techno-rock juggernautSaturday, 15 February 2025
Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people. Their manic energy blew her head off. Vanessa and Al K first caught Fat Dog at the Rockaway Beach Weekender in Bognor Regis Butlins in January ’24. The tightly choreographed, manic show was the best thing all weekend. Read more... |
Northern Winter Beat 2025, Aalborg review - The Courettes, Dungen and Lubomyr Melnyk confront ideas of how to playWednesday, 12 February 2025
The exhortations don’t seem necessary as the audience is already letting off the steam which has built up in anticipation of a full-bore show. Nonetheless, The Courettes’ Flávia Couri knows higher levels of excitement are there to be tapped, that it’s possible to get the crowd to liberate themselves from any restraint they may have left. Limits are there to be pushed. Read more... |
Bowling For Soup, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton review - nostalgic, celebratory funTuesday, 11 February 2025
Bowling For Soup are celebrating their iconic album, A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, on a fun-filled, energetic tour for its 20th anniversary. Their sold out stop at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall was a joy to experience from start to finish, the light-hearted essence of the band evident from the minute we walked in. From comical merch to on-stage banter, the fun was infectious and made for a special evening executed by clear well-seasoned professionals. Read more... |
Cyndi Lauper, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - still having chaotic fun after all these yearsMonday, 10 February 2025
Cyndi Lauper was preceded onstage by a brief video that zipped through her career, which she drily declared was just in case someone was at the gig by mistake. It’s tempting to wonder what an unexpected visitor might have made of this farewell tour, given it shifted from Rabbie Burns mentions to gestures of support for the LGBT+ community, wig changes and, at one point, Lauper climbing up from a trap door wrapped in what looked like percussive body armour. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Beggars Arkive - The Lurkers’ 1978 John Peel sessionSunday, 09 February 2025
On its own, the second session The Lurkers recorded for the BBC’s John Peel show on 18 April 1978 is arguably a curio, a footnote. Four tracks of bracingly straight-ahead Brit-punk with a headstrong freshness undiminished by time. But whatever the impact, The Lurkers were never a main-agenda band, and the Peel session was an adjunct to their discography. Read more... |
Album: Rats on Rafts - Deep BelowFriday, 07 February 2025
Deep Below’s first track is titled “Hibernation.” “A winter breeze blows through my mind,” intones a colourless, dispirited male voice. The ensuing lyrics are similarly bleak. “Trying to warm myself with the memories you’ve left behind, Deep inside this hole bitterness consumes my soul, One day I might wake up but I know it won’t be today.” Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: You Got Me Hooked! - More Marylebone Beat GirlsSunday, 02 February 2025
After co-fronting Vinegar Joe with Robert Palmer, Elkie Brooks first charted as a solo artist in 1977 with “Pearl’s a Singer.” Yet there was more to her musical past than the 1971 to 1974 spell in the blues-rock outfit. Her contributions to You Got Me Hooked! - More Marylebone Beat Girls are “He's Gotta Love me” and “Stop the Music” – both released a decade before “Pearl’s a Singer.” Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
The English Concert, Bezuidenhout, Mass in B Minor, St Marti...
If not quite his last will and testament, the work now known as Bach’s Mass in B Minor represents a definitive show-reel or sample-book...
Light of Passage, Royal Ballet review - Crystal Pite’s cosmi...
“Cry sorrow, sorrow, but let the good prevail”. The refrain of Aeschylus’s chorus near the start of the Oresteia is alive and honoured in...
Otherland, Almeida Theatre review - a vivid, beautifully wri...
“Who’d be a woman?... Who in their right mind would choose all that?” The question comes towards the end of a conversation where two former lovers...
I'm Still Here review - powerful tale of repression and...
Just like Britain’s ‘stiff upper lip’, that indominable spirit in the face of adversity,...
Album: Panda Bear - Sinister Grift
Sinister Grift is Panda Bear’s first album since his 2022 Reset collaboration with Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom. Anyone anticipating...
Zero Day, Netflix review - can ex-President Robert De Niro s...
It seems that esteemed former US President George Mullen is...
Much Ado About Nothing, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - th...
Over the last few months, celebrity-driven West End productions have suffered some inglorious crashes. So there was a certain degree of...
Noah Davis, Barbican review - the ordinary made strangely co...
In 2013 the American artist, Noah Davis used a legacy left him by his father to create a museum of contemporary art in Arlington Heights, an area...
Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Theatre - Luke Thallon triumphs as...
The date, projected behind the stage before a word is spoken, is a clue - 14th April 1912. “Why so specific?” was my first thought...