New Music Reviews
The Jesus & Mary Chain, Brighton DomeMonday, 23 February 2015
“The Sun comes up, another day begins/And I don’t even worry ‘bout the state I’m in.” One of the great opening lines in rock and a motto to live by. The Jesus & Mary Chain lay into their second single, "Never Understand", with deadpan gusto, their soundman pushing the decibels up. Murky silhouettes amid dry ice under an array of strobing lights, they hammer it home. Jim Reid is at the microphone, clad in a box jacket and jeans, looking much as he ever did but with cropped monkish hair.... Read more... |
Weyes Blood, The Old Blue LastSunday, 22 February 2015
Pennsylvanian singer-songwriter Natalie Mering, aka Weyes Blood, performed her intoxicating brew of Gothic folk-tronica in Shoreditch last night, as part of a short UK tour playing the songs of her second album, The Innocents. Allusive, multi-layered (both in terms of tracks and themes), generically ambiguous and wryly humorous, she wasn’t perhaps an obvious choice for a lagered-up Saturday night crowd wanting boogie beats. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Zakary ThaksSunday, 22 February 2015
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George Ezra, O2 Academy, BrixtonSaturday, 21 February 2015
Well, the vocals were certainly formidable...but what else would you expect? As a teenager George Ezra says he would listen for hours to his dad’s Leadbelly albums, whilst gazing at sleeve notes that read: “This voice is so big you may need to turn your record player down.” That was Ezra’s inspiration. Last night his own voice was sufficient to fill Brixton Academy. Read more... |
Bob Dorough and Friends, Pizza Express Jazz ClubSaturday, 21 February 2015
Aged 91, and as frisky as a newborn puppy, the US singer, pianist and songwriter Bob Dorough is a sui generis stylist whose smart lyrics – delivered in an understated southern brogue – and nimble pianism which nods to both bebop and swing masters, combine to produce something quite unlike anything else in jazz. But what really lit up the Pizza Express Jazz Club was the joie de vivre of Dorough's performance, his humour and love of the ludic. Read more... |
CD: Carter Tutti – Carter Tutti Plays Chris & CoseySunday, 15 February 2015
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. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the DarkSunday, 15 February 2015
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Gruff Rhys, KOKOThursday, 12 February 2015
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. Read more... |
Gorgon City, Concorde 2, BrightonThursday, 12 February 2015
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. Read more... |
Amina Figarova Sextet and Isfar Sarabski Trio, Ronnie Scott'sTuesday, 10 February 2015
“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. Read more... |
The Zakary Thaks: It’s the End – The Definitive Collection
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Junk CulturePages
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