New Music Reviews
theartsdesk on Vinyl 31: Psychic TV, Kendrick Lamar, Brian Eno, Stan Getz and moreFriday, 11 August 2017
August is often a quiet month on the release front but theartsdesk on Vinyl came across a host of music deserving of attention. Now that even Sony, one of the biggest record companies in the world, are starting to press their own vinyl again, it’s safe to say records aren’t disappearing quite yet. On the contrary, the range of material is staggering in its breadth. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Fairport ConventionSunday, 06 August 2017
According to Pete Frame’s book Rock Family Trees, Fairport Convention had 15 different line-ups between 1968 and 1978, the period covered by the new box set Come All Ye – The First 10 Years. Fairport Convention #7, extant from November 1971 to February 1972, featured no one from the first three iterations of the band, which had taken them up to June 1969. Evidently, the actuality of Fairport Convention is fluid. Read more... |
Goat/Moonlandingz, Brixton O2 Academy review - a feast of modern psychedelic rockThursday, 03 August 2017
Representing the best of the current psych revival’s many faces, the scuzziness of The Moonlandingz and overwhelming groove of Goat all seem initially out of place amongst the mock-Greek décor of the O2 Academy Brixton. With an audience that doesn’t stop bopping through both the bands and stellar DJ sets in between, however, the night feels far more transcendental than awkward. There is a... Read more... |
Camp Bestival 2017 review - family festival drenched but exuberantWednesday, 02 August 2017
Camp Bestival 2017 was defined by the weather and how everyone reacted to it. DJ-impresario Rob Da Bank’s family festival, which reached its tenth edition this year, took place, as ever, on the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. However, where the previous nine have cast the grassland surrounding the rebuilt 17th Century castle in balmy, blissful sunshine, the tenth most certainly did not. Read more... |
WOMAD 2017, Charlton Park review 2 - utopian globalist festival dances through the rainTuesday, 01 August 2017
Arriving on Thursday for the opening act Orchestra Baobab’s instantly recognisable mellifluous tones spreading out from the main stage over the Wiltshire countryside, it was clear that a high standard had been set for the rest of WOMAD. Read more... |
Kendal Calling, Lowther Deer Park review - a mini-Glastonbury of the border landsTuesday, 01 August 2017
Kendal Calling is a lovely festival. Charmingly misnamed – it’s set 30 miles from Kendal in Lowther Deer Park, a couple of miles from Penrith, in the northern Lakes – it takes place over four days in spectacularly beautiful Cumbrian countryside. Read more... |
Indigo Girls, Islington Assembly Hall review - exhilarating and generousMonday, 31 July 2017
For an act that hasn't visited the UK since 2009, the Indigo Girls might have been surprised at the audience's familiarity with their work. It’s now a given that artists have to tour to sell records, but judging by the vigour with which the audience in Islington joined in with the songs, sometimes in an informal call-and-response, the UK must provide a good flow of royalties. And no doubt absence makes the heart grow fonder. Read more... |
WOMAD 2017, Charlton Park review - multicultural nirvana transcends mud-bath conditionsMonday, 31 July 2017
Now in its 35 year, Womad is embedded into British festival culture, flying the flags of a musical multiculturalism that is about breaking down barriers and building new relationships. It’s not something you want to lose. Read more... |
Silver Birch, Garsington Opera review - gritty drama in the ChilternsMonday, 31 July 2017
"Everyone suddenly burst out singing"’ wrote Siegfried Sassoon in his paean to humanity amidst the horror of war, "Everyone Sang". And sing they did, all 180 of them, crammed onto Garsington’s modest stage for its new community opera Silver Birch by Roxanna Panufnik to a libretto by Jessica Duchen. Here were primary school children, teenagers, professional singers, members of a women’s refuge, ex-military personnel, and a waggy-tailed dog. Read more... |
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cadogan Hall review - peace, love and harmoniesSunday, 30 July 2017
On a dreary evening in what passes for summer, the news unutterably grim, an evening in the company of South Africa’s greatest export can’t help but lift the spirits. Read more... |
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