New Music Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Rodriguez, Benny Spellman, Rupert's PeopleSunday, 29 July 2012
Howard Male Read more... |
Swing Symphony, BarbicanThursday, 26 July 2012
The UK premiere of Wynton Marsalis's Swing Symphony (Symphony No 3) last night was extraordinary on several counts. We heard, first and foremost, a real dialogue between jazz band and orchestra. Not one of those fist-bitingly cornball jazz arrangements where the jazz players get to stretch out and the orchestral players sit back and contribute the sustained, saccharine harmonies. Read more... |
Scissor Sisters and Carlinhos Brown, Tower of LondonMonday, 23 July 2012
“It’s the oldest building in England,” Ana Matronic said breathlessly. “We’re probably going to behead someone.” The Tower of London is an unlikely venue for the fizzy pop monster that is Scissor Sisters, who dedicated one song to Anne Boleyn. In the end, no executions, or drawing or quartering, but they did have a couple of oversized beefeaters (pictured below) flanking the stage and dancing. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Blur, Blancmange, The Smashing Pumpkins, Strange PassionSunday, 22 July 2012
Bruce Dessau Read more... |
Ondatrópica and Konkoma, Hackney EmpireSunday, 22 July 2012
What function does a critic even serve at an event like this? Some of the best Colombian musicians across several generations are playing some of the best music Colombia has ever produced to an audience that largely consists of blissfully happy Colombians on Colombian Independence Day. But before the party got into its stride there’s a non-Colombian support band to consider. Read more... |
Desdemona, Barbican HallSaturday, 21 July 2012
Peter Sellars has a talent for controversy, from his early days when he was the director who brought you Così fan tutte set in a diner on Cape Cod, Don Giovanni as a cocaine-snorting, Big Mac-eating slum thug, and Figaro getting married in Trump Tower. Read more... |
Dr John, Under The Bridge, LondonFriday, 20 July 2012
The omens did not augur well for this one. Under The Bridge, a venue beneath Chelsea Football Stadium, used to be an iffy nightclub called Purple but has been redesigned by the man behind America’s House of Blues chain into a shiny visual fusion of TGI Friday's and the Hard Rock Café. Read more... |
Madonna, Hyde ParkWednesday, 18 July 2012
Madonna earned her place in the pop elite many years ago, and there are many reasons for this, which needn't be reduced into a list. Certainly though, a big reason will be the obvious - how much better her fans' lives are with her songs in them. Read more... |
Paloma Faith, Somerset HouseWednesday, 18 July 2012
Paloma Faith has always struck me as a few cuts above your average conveyor belt post-Winehouse soul sister. A recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show in which she gave Russell Brand as good as she got in the verbals department suggests that there's more to this former magician's assistant than meets the eye. Read more... |
Neneh Cherry and the Thing, Village UndergroundMonday, 16 July 2012
In the grim windowless warehouse that is the Village Underground, Eighties hip-hop-pop princess Neneh Cherry told us that her current return to all things jazzy and experiment was born just down the road in Acton. This is only interesting in the sense that her three collaborators, The Thing, actually come from Sweden where Cherry herself is also based. Read more... |
Blur: 21Pages
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