thu 16/10/2025

New Music Reviews

Darbar Festival, Southbank Centre

Tim Cumming

Darbar Festival, now in its eighth year, encompasses four days of talks, yoga, food, and music – swathes of it, morning, afternoon, and night, with each concert featuring two main sets.This year’s focus was on female musicians, and included a talk featuring the great Carnatic singer Sudha Ragunathan discussing her own experiences and the role of women in Indian music.

Read more...

Live_Transmission: Joy Division Reworked, Royal Festival Hall

Kieron Tyler

From no visible source, the instantly recognisable voice of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis croons the words of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. But the lyrics aren’t in their familiar setting. Alone, he’s stripped from the band, naked and vulnerable. He’s been dead for 33 years, but this was as close as he could possibly be.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Nirvana

Kieron Tyler

 

nirvana in utero deluxeNirvana: In Utero

Read more...

Kings Place Festival

Matthew Wright

Hungarian composer Bela Bartók’s analytical rigour and folk-inspired voice have established his position as one of the most original voices of the twentieth century, but he still represented a bold choice for the opening event of the 2013 Kings Place Festival.

Read more...

John Etheridge and the Soft Machine Legacy with Keith Tippett, Pizza Express

Matthew Wright

Some people have all the luck. Listening to John Etheridge’s self-deprecating description of how his career has progressed (in interviews such as Radio 3‘s Jazz Library, or at a gig, when he is a disarmingly open host), you would think he had stumbled upon Stephane Grapelli and Nigel Kennedy (to name merely the most famous of his many stellar collaborators) while out for a pint of milk.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Classroom Projects, Good Vibrations Records, Darrow Fletcher

Kieron Tyler

 

Classroom ProjectsVarious Artists: Classroom Projects

Read more...

Cutty Cargo presents Jessie Ware, Ely's Yard

joe Muggs

It was a bittersweet kind of evening. Walking down Brick Lane, it was striking how Caucasian, tanned and healthy most people we passed were, and we couldn't help wondering if the Bangladeshi locals were starting to get priced out of their own neighbourhood, while the artists and party-weirdos who ironically made the place such a tourist destination are fading away, sloping off to Dalston and Peckham to continue the gentrification process all over again.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Katowice: On tour at Tauron Nowa Muzyka Festival

Caspar Gomez

Day 1

Read more...

Eels, Shepherd's Bush Empire

Russ Coffey

The last time Mr E toured these shores he looked as if he might be heralding the end of the world. Dressed all in white with a Moses beard and gangsta bandana, his songs were about inner struggle and personal redemption. Between songs he remained mute and mysterious. How things have changed. This year the band is touring the much fuzzier Wonderful, Glorious and last night Mark Everett hardly shut up.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Roky Erickson

Kieron Tyler

 

Roky Erickson The Evil OneRoky Erickson & the Aliens: The Evil One

Roky Erickson: Don’t Slander Me, Gremlins Have Pictures

Read more...

Pages

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

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
The Last Dinner Party's 'From the Pyre' is as...

Before we get into it, reader, can you accept that The Last Dinner Party are a band born of privilege and high academic study? Of poshness,...

Kempf, Brno Philharmonic, Davies, Bridgewater Hall, Manchest...

Dennis Russell Davies and his musicians from the Czech...

Moroccan Gnawa comes to Manhattan with 'Saha Gnawa...

A mix of tradition and Afrofuturism, acoustic and electronic, east and west fumigating in a cauldron of rhythms, chants, solo explorations and...

Albert Herring, English National Opera review - a great come...

Britten’s Albert Herring is one of the great 20th century comic operas; only Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Barry’s The...

Iron Ladies review - working-class heroines of the Miners...

The enduring image of the 1984-1985 Miners' Strike is that of men standing arm in arm against police and of mass protests devolving into mayhem –...

Blu-ray: The Man in the White Suit

The best Ealing comedies are surely the three...

Solomon, OAE, Butt, QEH review - daft Biblical whitewashing...

Forty years ago, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was born, and I heard Handel’s Solomon in concert for the first time. Charles...

The Woman in Cabin 10 review - Scandi noir meets Agatha Chri...

A fizzy mystery cocktail with a twist and a splash, The Woman in Cabin 10, based on Ruth Ware’s bestseller, sails along like the sleek...