New Music Reviews
Susheela Raman, Islington Assembly HallSunday, 13 November 2011
Over the past decade I’ve always been more an admirer than a fan of Susheela Raman, wanting to like her music more than I did. But her latest album Vel has changed all that. It’s an uncompromisingly dark and powerful statement that makes no concessions to what one might call “world music” tastefulness. Read more... |
Jazz Voice, London Jazz Festival, BarbicanSaturday, 12 November 2011
It would be difficult to imagine a more impressive curtain-raiser to the London Jazz Festival than Jazz Voice, and this year's vintage was the finest yet. One sensed from the very opening bars of Gregory Porter and Ian Shaw's a cappella duet, “Feelin' Good”, that something remarkable was about to unfold, and so it proved. Read more... |
Ane Brun, ScalaSaturday, 12 November 2011
She grew up in Norway, lives in Sweden and has been recording since 2003. Her new album, It All Starts with One, is her most assured, her most vital. But Ane Brun’s recent work with Peter Gabriel has attracted attention outside Scandinavia. Her vocal contribution to his remake of “Don’t Give Up” claimed it as her own. Last night erased Gabriel from her CV. This fabulous show was a new beginning. Read more... |
The Good, The Bad & The Queen, The CoronetFriday, 11 November 2011
Some successful rock stars accumulate wives, others accumulate houses, cars or drug habits. Damon Albarn seems to accumulate bands. As well as his on-off relationship with Blur, there is the semi-regular Gorillaz. And he has been seeing even more musicians on the side, too. Read more... |
Amy LaVere, Voodoo Rooms, EdinburghThursday, 10 November 2011
From Bill Haley’s frantic clock-rocking to Sting’s po-faced plucking, the double bass has written itself a pretty meaty book in the rock‘n‘roll bible. It’s strictly Old Testament, though, far more closely identified with the composers of rock’s creation story than to those tasked with mapping out its future. But hang on. Louisiana-born, Memphis-based singer-songwriter Amy LaVere might just be changing all that. Read more... |
Imagine: Simon and Garfunkel - The Harmony Game, BBC OneWednesday, 09 November 2011
“It’s very deep, very private and full of love,” said Art Garfunkel of his relationship with Paul Simon. So private that for this examination of their swansong 1970 album Bridge Over Troubled Water the pair were interviewed apart, despite both being credited as executive producers. Whatever the nature of the love, 40-plus years on, bridges weren’t being built. Read more... |
Mara Carlyle, Green NoteWednesday, 09 November 2011
It’s commonly accepted that a song’s true worth can be tested by stripping it down to its bare bones: if it still has wings when played on just an acoustic guitar, then you’re in business. Read more... |
Agnes Obel, Union ChapelTuesday, 08 November 2011
It’s easy to get lost in the music of Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel. As she ended with "On Powdered Ground" singing “don’t break your back on the track”, her piano meshed with a cello and a Scottish harp, making what was already an affecting album track into a requiem. Obel’s Philharmonics album collects a series of similarly autumnal reflections. A rain-spattered evening was just right. Read more... |
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, 229 ClubSaturday, 05 November 2011
Where’s the African car? Seun Kuti wanted to know. There are German cars, Chinese cars (he grimaced) even Brazilian cars. At least, anyway, there is “original African music”, not traditional but something new. Actually, not entirely new, as some of the music and some of his band, Egypt 80, were that of his father, that visionary genius, subversive and sex maniac Fela. Read more... |
The Specials, Alexandra PalaceFriday, 04 November 2011
“Rude boy! Rude boy! Ruuuude boooyyyy!!” The chanting from the crowd began soon after the booing subsided. The boos were in response to a picture of Margaret Thatcher which was flashed on a big screen as part of a short filmed history lesson about the late-Seventies malcontent that gave birth to the joyfully irreverent early British ska bands of which The Specials are surely kings. Read more... |
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