New Music Reviews
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...
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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... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jimmy Page, Keith Jarrett, Elton John, Swing Out SisterSunday, 15 July 2012
Kieron Tyler Read more... |
Sharon van Etten, Oran Mor, GlasgowFriday, 13 July 2012
It is sometimes hard to be enthused by midweek gigs. Last night was one of those occasions, at least for the 30 seconds I thought I was going to be watching most of the show on the iPhone screen of the six feet of beard that planked itself in front of me just in time for the music starting. Those are the nights you need, as Sharon van Etten might say, “something that’s hard to describe”. Read more... |
Nova FestivalThursday, 12 July 2012
I have to be honest - I didn’t go to very much of Nova. Suffice to say I’d put my name down to review it and then fate threw a house move into the mix in the same week. Nevertheless, relatively undaunted, I planned to head down to the Pulborough site in West Sussex, only 20 miles from where I live, taking my two daughters along. Then I lost my driving license. And then it started raining and didn’t stop. Read more... |
Christian Wallumrød, Karl Seglem, Garth Knox, LSO St Luke’sWednesday, 11 July 2012
It could have been a cow lowing in the distance, the sound drifting across a barren landscape. Its tone transformed after echoing through hillsides and ravines. Actually, it was Karl Seglem blowing into the horn of a goat. Suddenly, he stopped and began wordlessly chanting. The other two musicians on stage at St Luke's kept their heads down and continued providing the sonic wash knitting together this collaboration between the classical, jazz and uncategorisable. Read more... |
Marc Almond, Shepherd's Bush EmpireTuesday, 10 July 2012
The first time I interviewed Marc Almond back in the late 1980s he had a pet snake with him, just one of the many things that sets him apart from today's stars. These days the only reptiles one sees around chart-toppers are the publicists. Almond has been part of the pop furniture for three decades but it was still something of a surprise to discover that he was celebrating his 55th birthday last night. Tempus fugit and all that. Read more... |
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