new music reviews
Barney Harsent

There’s a danger in an artist having their work reinterpreted that the end result will be little more than a rough outline of the original. Look at Metallica’s axe job on the Velvet Underground for instance. Still, on the bright side, at least they increased the band’s "reach" to include jocks and morons.

Kieron Tyler


ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK JUNK CULTURE DELUXE EDITIONOrchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Junk Culture

Jasper Rees

First there was the movie, the album, the book and the app. Now there is the tour. American Interior, Gruff Rhys’s postmodern narrative concept, has spread tentacles in any number of media. At the heart of it is the mythic story of John Evans, a young Welsh explorer who in the 1780s took himself off deep into the unvanquished heart of America in search of a myth, the lost Welsh-speaking tribe of Madog. A serpentine river odyssey that involved him in vast geopolitical forces, it has spawned a suite of songs about the solitude of adventure.

Thomas H. Green

The vibe in the Concorde last night was unbelievably up. The short version of this review is that the band are decent live but the crowd made the evening fizz with manic human electricity. Gorgon City, like a less funk-based Rudimental, performed songs that magpie about the history of electronic dance music, focusing especially on the classic house template, but attaching it all to soul-pop songwriting.

Matthew Wright

“Jazzerbaijan”, the giddy publicity tag attached to last night’s double bill of Azeri jazz at Ronnie Scott’s, was sounding soberly appropriate by the end of a dazzling display of generic shape-shifting by the young Isfar Sarabski Trio. A packed and exuberant audience thrilled to his sound, which seemed to transcend generic boundaries with a breath-taking lyricism and fluency.

Thomas H. Green

This concert is called My Life in Music and the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone seems determined to take us on a journey from his origins in Italian B pictures to inarguable and gigantic orchestral opulence. In the 1960s he put together iconic and resonant music on a tight budget, with limited ensembles and quirky instrumentation. These made his name, along with that of the director Sergio Leone. Tonight, clad in black, wearing a polo-neck, conducting the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and a mighty choir, he revels in hugeness.

Kieron Tyler

 

Martin Hannett Steve Hopkins The Invisible GirlsMartin Hannett & Steve Hopkins: The Invisible Girls

Peter Quantrill

If what you wanted to do was go out to the middle of the Mexican desert, invert the Cross and dip it in blood, screaming obscenities all the while, surrounded by a sunburnt band of fellow travellers all off their heads on mescalin, Tutuguri is definitely the music you’d want to do it to.

Heidi Goldsmith

Rarely in London do the lights rise up after a live gig to reveal eyeballs glistening with euphoria, total body sweat and a communal stitch gradually dying down among the water-guzzling herd. Indeed it’s an unusually bestial scene for Café Oto, mostly home to a more intellectual post-concert fervour. But fully-misted windows and naked midriffs, it turns out, suit their concrete Berlin-esque chic surprisingly well. 

Kieron Tyler

 

motorpsycho demon boxMotorpsycho: Demon Box