New Music Reviews
Villagers, Village UndergroundThursday, 21 February 2013
These days not all sensitive folk-rockers with trembling voices can bank on easy audiences. Villagers main man Conor O’Brien is one who can – he’s been selling out concerts like nobody's business. This gig was no exception. O’Brien may be plaintive but he also has the reputation for being one of the smartest, artiest writers around. One critic has described his new LP {Awayland} as the first great album of 2013. Like its strange brackets, it can also be quite challenging. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Family, Latin Noir, Arve Henriksen, WidowmakerSunday, 17 February 2013
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Salif Keita, Royal Festival HallThursday, 14 February 2013
The only time the great Malian singer spoke at any length to last night’s audience was when he said, “I don’t know my birthday. I don’t know the day or the year. So any day can be my birthday. So can you please stand up and dance for my birthday.” So either Wikipedia is wrong about it being 25 August 1949, or Keita has a strange sense of humour. Anyway, his presumably oft-repeated line gets a warm chuckle of appreciation and a third of the audience dutifully get to their feet. Read more... |
Fairport Convention, St George's Church, BrightonTuesday, 12 February 2013
Fairport Convention bassist and longest-serving member Dave Pegg is a genial raconteur. He is relating how he presented the band with the song “The Eynsham Poacher”, pretending it was his when really he had purloined it by taping it off someone, thus cheating them “out of £13.50 in royalties”. A light ripple of laughter rolls across this early 19th century church deep in Brighton’s Kemp Town district. Read more... |
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Her Majesty's TheatreMonday, 11 February 2013
“You grow up. You really do. You mellow out…Your rage ceases to need a name,” Thus wrote Cave at 40, while moving out of his post-punk years. Ten years later the Australian goth returned to the wilder sounds of his youth. He started playing with the hard-rocking Grinderman. Fast forward to the present day and Grinderman is on pause. The Bad Seeds are back. Last night they launched Push the Sky Away, their first album for five years. So, what was it to be? Tender or tormented? Read more... |
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine, Tate ModernSunday, 10 February 2013
A giant arm sweeps across the rapt audience. The newly anointed onlookers all wear the same, white-framed, glasses. A chant is heard:“We are the robots.” Those congregating in the over-sized shoebox of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall could be at a cult meeting. In gathering to pay respect, the audience share more than a passion for Kraftwerk. They also all wear the same 3D glasses. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Conny Plank, Pied Piper, Jean-Luc Ponty, Cliff RichardSunday, 10 February 2013
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When Albums Ruled the World, BBC FourSaturday, 09 February 2013
The BBC has suddenly noticed that there used to be these really brilliant things called "albums", and now they're going out of style and out of date. Hence they're holding an Albums Season in all media (Danny Baker's Great Album Showdown, Steve Wright's Album Factoids, Johnny Walker's Long Players and many, many more). Read more... |
Rolf Harris, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 09 February 2013
Two very different Antipodeans are performing in London over the weekend. Having seen Nick Cave more times than you can shake a didgeridoo at, the time has come for this reviewer to scrutinise Rolf Harris – pop star, painter of the Queen, sentimental presenter of cuddly animal shows. Read more... |
Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity, Tate ModernFriday, 08 February 2013
“Tschernobyl… Harrisburg... Sellafield… Fukushima” reads the display above the four figures standing impassively below like toys, suddenly turning these harbingers of the computer age into proselytisers for an anti-nuclear energy policy. Read more... |
Family: Once Upon a Time
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