New Music Reviews
Culture Club, HeavenWednesday, 22 October 2014
In the time that Culture Club have been planning reunions, bands, movements, whole musical eras have come and gone. And still, once every couple of years, a rumour circulates, and a demo is aired. Generally, nothing comes of it, and those memories of dancing drunkenly to “Karma Chameleon” grow a little fainter. Now, with last night’s taster gig at Heaven (where the band gave their first big London performance in 1982), we can definitively say, they are back. Read more... |
Nick Mulvey, Komedia, BrightonWednesday, 22 October 2014
The humming is rising. Only three songs in and already a large section of the crowd is swaying, tranced out, from side to side, like southern Baptists, swept along by an extended version of “Meet Me There” from Nick Mulvey’s 2014 Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut album First Mind. The Komedia’s basement is an odd venue. It has a very low ceiling and takes exact ratios of performance energy, visual impact and audience goodwill to make it work. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: MadnessSunday, 19 October 2014
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Sandra Nkaké and Jî Drû, Pizza Express Jazz Club - "mesmerising, leonine"Saturday, 18 October 2014
A first live experience of the French-Cameroonian singer Sandra Nkaké leaves many questions unanswered. Once the immediate bewilderment has passed, the most pressing question for a British audience should be: why is this extraordinary performer not block-booking the festival circuit? Read more... |
The Buzzcocks, Concorde 2, BrightonFriday, 17 October 2014
Apologies, I missed nearly half the concert. I turned up at 9.00 when I’d been told the gig began but they started half an hour early. Apparently it was a last minute decision. There we go. When I crushed into the back of the Concorde 2, a space jammed mostly with men between 35 and 55, Buzzcocks guitarist Steve Diggle, clad in a polka dot shirt, was singing “Sick City Sometimes” from their eponymous 2003 album. It’s no classic but Diggle was throwing his every ounce of zest at it. Read more... |
Björk: Biophilia LiveWednesday, 15 October 2014
From David Attenborough’s spoken introduction to the blonde, robed backing singers, Biophilia Live sees Björk in full experimental flow. Sometimes the film seems almost as if documenting the ceremonial workings of a science-based cult rather than covering an avant-garde pop show. Musically it is reverent, the atmosphere is cerebral, and, above all, Björk’s persona is shamanistic. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Bevis FrondSunday, 12 October 2014
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Caro Emerald, Brighton CentreFriday, 10 October 2014
Towards the end of her set Caro Emerald performs “History Repeating”, a hit song from 1997 that revived Shirley Bassey’s cool quota when she sang it with successful big beat duo, the Propellerheads. It’s perfect for Emerald, just the right ratio of hip electronic touches and classic showbiz pizzazz. This is where she lives, musically, dipped in swing-era vintage, but lathered in modernist sonic frolics. Read more... |
Bebel Gilberto, BarbicanWednesday, 08 October 2014
Bebel Gilberto seemed very tentative when she first appeared onstage; dressed in semi-Goth black, she kept saying how nervous she was. “Calm down, Bebel. It’s only the Barbican,” she muttered and we did get a sense of the terror and exhilaration of performing live to a big crowd. Her shambolic approach is in some ways, though, preferable to some slick operators who have their stage patter timed to the second. There’s a problem with a wire, she goes off-stage. Read more... |
Stacey Kent, Ronnie Scott's - 'sublime miniaturism'Tuesday, 07 October 2014
“Were we leaving Rio, or were we in New York?” Stacey Kent sings in “The Changing Lights”, the title song of her latest album, before moving on seamlessly to “Les Invalides, or Trafalgar Square”. The prosperous, wistful ennui that some of her recorded songs exude, propelled by her impeccable enunciation and glistening tone, is cosmopolitan with a slightly laminated, departure-lounge sameness. It can feel a little bit like a global franchise in polite enervation. Read more... |
Madness: One Step Beyond - 35th Anniversary Edition
The Bevis Frond: MiasmaPages
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