New Music Reviews
Liane Carroll, Pizza Express Jazz ClubSaturday, 27 April 2013
Some vocal jazz can be so anodyne that it barely registers on your consciousness, as anyone who's ever heard a jazz wannabe dusting down “My Funny Valentine” will know. A Liane Carroll gig, on the other hand, offers a roller coaster ride of emotions: joy, pain, hope, loss. With the ability to make every song sound like a personal experience, Carroll is one of the few singers who can make your spine tingle for an entire set. Read more... |
Karl Hyde, Union Chapel IslingtonFriday, 26 April 2013
I have to admit I was That Hipster with Underworld: loved them circa 1991, stopped being intensely interested around the first album, diverged almost completely after “Born Slippy” went supernova circa 1995. Read more... |
Pink, O2 ArenaThursday, 25 April 2013
On Monday, Pink shocked Twitter followers by announcing she was pulling out of a gig at Birmingham’s LG Arena. A lung infection had confined her to the hotel. “She better get well soon,” said one fan. “I’d die if she cancelled at the O2.” She didn’t, of course. Whether due to an awful lot of oranges or sheer guts she arrived on stage last night, catapulted by giant bungee cords. Read more... |
CD: Kit Downes - Light From Old StarsThursday, 25 April 2013
The CD booklet note by NASA astrobiologist Daniella Scalice is just the first of many striking features on this third Basho CD by the Mercury Prize-nominated pianist Kit Downes. Joined by his core trio of bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer James Maddren (both fellow alumni of the Royal Academy of Music), plus reeds player James Allsopp and cellist Lucy Railton, Light From Old Stars sees Downes really getting into his compositional stride. Read more... |
Orpheus, Battersea Arts CentreTuesday, 23 April 2013
Orpheus, set in an imaginary Paris in the 1930s, delivers an unashamedly escapist and a quite delightful evening's entertainment. The Orpheus myth is often a pretext for fantasy or fun. Maybe the original, tragic tale is just too unremittingly dark and poignant. Read more... |
Buika and London Lucumi Choir, Union ChapelMonday, 22 April 2013
The choir sing off stage at first, under the wide arch to the side before filling the platform and singing the praises of Cuba’s Orisha spirits. Those Orisha guys must be shining like beads on a necklace. Lucumi were finalists in the 2008 BBC Choir of the Year, and they’re a multicultural London choir putting their voices at the service of Afro-Cuban music traditions, where it all begins with the hands and mouth. Read more... |
Wiley, The ForumSunday, 21 April 2013
It was a full house in Kentish Town for a homecoming show for grime pioneers Wiley, Skepta and JME. A far cry from the Sidewinder and Eskimo Dance parties that spawned so many of the scene’s main players, instead this was a night that carried an air of triumph, a "we made it" moment that inspired explosive performances and a fantastically receptive audience. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Art Ensemble of Chicago, Nathan Abshire, Nick Drake, DonovanSunday, 21 April 2013
|
James, O2 Academy, BrixtonSaturday, 20 April 2013
If one thing unites James and last night's support act, Echo & the Bunnymen, it’s that they both tend to be underrated. James’s big college rock songs can overshadow the true splendour of their weird, poetic and off-kilter worldview. The Bunnymen’s problem is that, outside their fanbase, too many simply know them for their song “The Killing Moon”, which featured in the film Donnie Darko. Last night, they didn't seem to want to do much to change that. Read more... |
The South Bank Show: Tim Minchin, Sky Arts 1Friday, 19 April 2013
The new South Bank Show has glided into its second season with a seemingly effortless profile of multi-hyphenate Tim Minchin. In case we’ve forgotten what exactly we admire him for these days – so varied has been his decade-long career been, through satire, rock, musical comedy, stage performance, to co-creator of the RSC transfer-spectacular Matilda that's now storming Broadway – then this was a good reminder. Read more... |
Art Ensemble of Chicago: A Jackson in Your House/Message to Our Folks/Reese and the Smooth OnesPages
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...
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review - can this...
Whether it is or isn’t the final Mission: Impossible film, there’s a distinct fin-de-siècle feel about this eighth instalment, and not...
Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality...
In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV...
Pixies, O2 Academy, Birmingham review – indie veterans pack...
Pixies might just be the ultimate Radio 6 Dad band. They’ve been around (on-and-off) for around 40 years; they’ve got a fine back catalogue of...
Album: Sports Team - Boys These Days
How do you solve a problem like Sports Team? Taking them at face value, they’re a living metaphor for the slow music biz relegation of the working...
Pygmalion, Early Opera Company, Curnyn, Middle Temple Hall r...
With French baroque opera all but banished from the UK’s major...
Album: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Stereolab always walked a knife edge between deadly serious and dead silly. Their sound was constructed around the sort of reference points –...
The Fifth Step, Soho Place review - wickedly funny two-hande...
The plays of David Ireland have a tendency to build to an explosion, after long stretches of caustic dialogue and very funny banter....
Josefowicz, LSO, Mälkki, Barbican review - two old favourite...
Every now and then a concert programme comes along that fits like a bespoke suit, and this one could have been specially designed for me. Two...
Mr Swallow: Show Pony, Richmond Theatre review - magic trick...
Nick Mohammed invented his Mr Swallow character – camp, lisping, with an inflated ego and the mistaken belief that he has creative...