New Music Reviews
Ennio Morricone, O2 ArenaSunday, 08 February 2015
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. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Martin Hannett & Steve HopkinsSunday, 08 February 2015
|
Tutuguri, BBCSO, Nagano, BarbicanSunday, 01 February 2015
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. Read more... |
Konono Nº1, Café OtoSunday, 01 February 2015
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. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: MotorpsychoSunday, 01 February 2015
|
Alice Russell, Jazz CaféSaturday, 31 January 2015
You know what really grinds my gears? Bands that only have one. One gear, one level of intensity. For a good hour of last night’s set, diminutive diva Alice Russell, the voice behind countless Quantic hits and that cover of “Seven Nation Army” that no one would shut up about back in 2005, was guilty of just that. Read more... |
Nicola Conte, Ronnie Scott'sSaturday, 31 January 2015
Gloriously feel-good, unashamedly retro, uniformly urbane, the Nicola Conte Combo presented a set that was bursting with fantastic melodies last night at Ronnie Scott's. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 2Saturday, 31 January 2015
Did you know that Jack White’s Lazaretto album sold nearly 87,000 copies on vinyl last year? Sales continue to rise all over with European manufacturing facilities running at full tilt. Given the demand for vinyl has risen 800% in the last decade, that’s not so surprising. Dance music, as ever, lauds the format, with the massive Tomorrowland rave/festival in Belgium this July announcing a vinyl-only stage to be headed up by long time aficionado, Sven Väth. Read more... |
Jessie J, Eventim ApolloFriday, 30 January 2015
The echoes of last summer’s number one hit “Bang Bang” had hardly faded when Jessie J’s third album Sweet Talker was released to a largely positive reception last October. She’s been on the road on and off ever since, and though her act never seems short of either energy or self-belief, you might expect to see some signs of flagging after such a relentless display of girl power. Not a bit of it: her all-action show hit Hammersmith last night. Read more... |
Ghostpoet, Village UndergroundTuesday, 27 January 2015
Ghostpoet – aka Obaro Ejimiwe – released his first album Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam in 2010. He has since been named as The Guardian’s New Band of the Day, nominated for a Mercury Prize and toured the festival circuit with the likes of Metronomy. His third album Shedding Skin, due to be released on March 2nd, was the focus of Pias Nites at Shoreditch’s Village Underground. Read more... |
Martin Hannett & Steve Hopkins: The Invisible Girls
Motorpsycho: Demon BoxPages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Flight Risk review - the sky's the limit for Michelle D...
Director Mel Gibson probably made Flight...
Presence review – Soderbergh’s haunted camera
The camera is the ghost in Steven Soderbergh’s 35th feature, waiting in a vacant house for its buyers, ambitious Rebecca (Lucy Liu, ...
Cymbeline, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - pagan women figh...
There’s not much point in having three hours worth of Shakespearean text to craft and the gorgeous Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as a...
An Interrogation, Hampstead Theatre review - police procedur...
In a dingy room with dilapidated furniture on a dismal Sunday evening, two detectives prepare for an interview. The old hand walks...
Album: ALT BLK ERA - Rave Immortal
The utopian messiness of 1990s dance music culture is now so far...
The Lonely Londoners, Kiln Theatre review - Windrush Generat...
As something of an immigrant to the capital myself in the long hot summer of 1984, I gobbled up Absolute Beginners, Colin...
Gigashvili, Hallé, Cox, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review...
There was excellent music making in the Hallé concert in Manchester last night, and there was self-admitted “noise”. Briefly, the two coincided in...
Album: Ludovico Einaudi - The Summer Portraits
Nine billion streams a year. That’s the sheer scale on which the music of Ludovico Einaudi reaches audiences. The Italian, who will be 70 this...
Prime Target, Apple TV+ review - the appliance of science
An opening sequence of a drone flying over a busy street in Baghdad, followed by a huge explosion that leaves many casualties and a gaping hole...