New Music Reviews
Portico Quartet, The Komedia, BrightonSaturday, 03 March 2012
I do not envy the Portico Quartet’s stage manager. The Komedia stage is not very big and most of it is covered in wire, effects boxes, electronic gizmos and other units. Amidst this carnage of cables, before the band arrives on stage, stands laptop DJ, Flying White Dots (aka Bryan Whellams), DJ Rob Da Bank’s “favourite bootleg mashup artist” (so Whellams' business card later tells me). Read more... |
The Speech Project, Purcell RoomFriday, 02 March 2012
Released last month on One Fine Day Records to excellent reviews, last night saw the first of an 11-date UK tour for Gerry Diver's remarkable multimedia work, The Speech Project. Read more... |
Sbtrkt, KokoFriday, 02 March 2012
A mea culpa from me: I never gave Sbtrkt's records the attention they deserved. I always thought they were a capitulation, a softening of the radical developments of the post grime and dubstep generation with more traditional musicality and indie affectations to reach out to a more generalist, NME reading audience... and in a way they are – but, I came to realise, that's not a bad thing, and certainly not cynically done. Read more... |
St Vincent, Shepherds Bush EmpireTuesday, 28 February 2012
It ended with Annie Clark on her back, being passed around the audience like a volleyball. Scrubbing at her guitar, the squall didn’t stop. As encores go it was pretty memorable, the confirmation that Clark – as St Vincent – has arrived. Earlier in the set she’d remarked that she was last at the Empire four years ago, playing in The National. Now she’s selling it out. Read more... |
Ana Silvera, Imogen Heap, Estonian Television Girls Choir, Holst Singers, Reverb 2012Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Freud would have loved the final night of Reverb 2012's opening weekend. First came a screening of a mad early Surrealist film from Germaine Dulac and Antonin Artaud, in which a priest chases a woman's breasts that have turned into two seashells. Read more... |
Kathleen Edwards, Oran Mor, GlasgowSunday, 26 February 2012
Accompanying herself with the violin she hung from the mic stand, the Canadian songwriter Kathleen Edwards performed “Goodnight, California” - the last track from her 2008 album Asking For Flowers - in the sensual rasp of the late night gin-drunk. The song is a sprawling, beautifully-realised portrait of loneliness, and the tightness of Edwards’ backing band only increased its eerie claustrophobia. Read more... |
Gerry Rafferty: Right Down the Line, BBC FourSaturday, 25 February 2012
“Baker Street” and “Stuck in the Middle With You” will live forever. Once heard, each is never forgotten. Both are perfect. Both were written and sung by Gerry Rafferty, the subject of Right Down the Line, an affectionate David Tennant-narrated tribute to this stubborn Scotsman, who died in January last year. The story was told with warmth and his songwriting celebrated, but evidence for Rafferty’s troubled nature was never far. Read more... |
Kaiser Chiefs, Hammersmith ApolloFriday, 24 February 2012
The first time I ever saw Kaiser Chiefs was on Saturday morning children's television. While the musicians performed onstage, vocalist Ricky Wilson went walkabout, continuing to belt out "I Predict a Riot" while lurking out of view. Halfway through last night's gig I thought he was about to pull the same stunt when he bolted off shortly after a blinding live rendition of "...Riot". I was sitting in the front row of the balcony at the time. Read more... |
Oh Land, HeavenFriday, 24 February 2012
Oh Land is Nanna Øland Fabricius. A proper pop star in her native Denmark, based on last night's show there’s no reason why she can’t be one here too. She’s been living in Brooklyn and the international market is clearly in her sights. The highlights from her packed gig at Heaven - "Sun of a Gun", "Wolf & I", "White Nights" and "We Turn it Up” - are sweet confections that ought to prove irresistible. Providing, that is, they’re served up correctly. But more on that later. Read more... |
Rebecca Ferguson, Clyde Auditorium, GlasgowThursday, 23 February 2012
Ever since that first Saturday night when Simon Cowell pulled back the curtain on mainstream pop music's most underhand dealings, there has been a certain type of artiste that a certain type of person struggles to take seriously. Read more... |
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