New Music Reviews
Brad Mehldau, Wigmore HallSaturday, 19 December 2015
Contemporary jazz is a world full of magpies – artists who flit between genres and build glittering nests of disparate musical influences. Rock up to a so-called jazz night today and the repertoire can come from anywhere, you’re as likely to hear Jimi Hendrix or J. Dilla as Jerome Kern, and pianist Brad Mehldau has played a role in making that happen. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 12 - SWANS, Sparks, Edith Piaf and moreWednesday, 16 December 2015
As theartsdesk on Vinyl concludes its first year of existence, vinyl is on the rise. There are justified moans that the boom is being taken over by predictably-curated, low quality, major label reissues aimed at 50-something men, causing the likes of Tesco to announce they’re entering the vinyl market. There’s truth in these claims, but “taken over” is too strong. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Comsat AngelsSunday, 13 December 2015
The Comsat Angels’ debut single for Polydor, July 1980’s “Independence Day”, was an instant classic. After setting a rhythmic bed, each subsequent instrumental contribution is measured out: a guitar string's harmonic; a spare keyboard line; drop-outs drawing from dub. The melody was anthemic, yet not overbearing, and the forward momentum unyielding. It still sounds fantastic. Read more... |
The Puppini Sisters, Ronnie Scott'sFriday, 11 December 2015
It’s more than ten years since Marcella Puppini invited current “sister” Kate Mullins and a third singer, who has since been replaced twice with unsisterly ruthlessness, to form her eponymous close-harmony sorority. The trio’s slick, switchback harmonies, generally retro repertoire, and glossy vocal finish, have carved them a distinctive niche in the scene, even as that era has been dragged back into the mainstream by a glut of burlesque tribute acts. Read more... |
Absolutely Me, Caro Emerald, Brighton CentreSunday, 06 December 2015
Caro Emerald first appears, spotlit, in one of the aisles of the Brighton Centre’s eastern balcony. Clad in a pleated knee-length black skirt and an eye-jarring yellow and red shirt that brings to mind Russian expressionist art, she kicks things off with the doleful, show tune-style paean to being a mistress, “The Other Woman”. It is a striking beginning and her concert grips the capacity audience by the scruff of the neck from thereon in. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Velvet UndergroundSunday, 06 December 2015
How many live versions of “Heroin” are necessary? The new four CD set The Complete Matrix Tapes includes, yes, four. One per disc. Read more... |
I'm Not in Love: The Story of 10cc, BBC FourSaturday, 05 December 2015
10cc were the closest the Seventies came to a Fab Four. They were multi-talented vocalists and instrumentalists, came from Lancashire, were technologically ahead of the curve, wrote classy, inventive pop songs in a bewildering array of styles, suffered from dodgy management, were lucky to find one another and calamitously split up far too soon. Since when they’ve cast a very long shadow indeed. Read more... |
Ronnie Spector, BarbicanFriday, 04 December 2015
Their songs are some of the most joyous of the Sixties, their glistening doo-wop close harmony and pealing early rock 'n roll guitar sound heady with innocent romance and youthful energy. Read more... |
Duran Duran, Brighton Centre, 2015Thursday, 03 December 2015
The arrival of Duran Duran is announced by a barrage of strobes, dry ice creeping about the stage, and the thunder-rumble of an approaching storm through the speakers. There is another noise too. It is the sound of female voices letting rip. They’re doing a loud, heartfelt approximation of the hysterical teen shriek that’s greeted boy bands from The Beatles to One Direction. Duran Duran, after all, are the top dog poster boys of their youth. However, these are women, not girls, and they are... Read more... |
Madonna - Rebel Heart Tour, The O2Wednesday, 02 December 2015
Last night Rebel Heart began to make sense. For over two hours, performing from the album, her back catalogue, and a couple of well-chosen covers, Madonna sustained both a diversity and intensity in her approach to singing about love and sex that probably no-one else could match. We all knew she could sing “Material Girl” or “Like A Prayer” till the lid came off the O2. Read more... |
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