New Music Reviews
Jaminaround, Ancient Technology Centre, Dorset review - music in the round that delightsTuesday, 30 May 2023
The circular form of the large turf-roofed round house at the Ancient Technology Centre in Cranborne, Dorset, is tailor-made for music in the round. The latest in the series of Jaminaround concerts made the most of the intimacy that the venue provides, with music that engaged the audience in a way that conventional staging makes difficult. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Folk, Funk & Beyond - The Arrangements Of John CameronSunday, 28 May 2023
Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” was the UK’s first explicitly psychedelic record. Although there were delays with it hitting shops, it was recorded in December 1965. A large part of its impact came through the instrumentation and arrangement. Jazz players were on board, playing in a folky way without abandoning their core musical sensibilities. The ground-breaking arranger responsible was John Cameron. Read more... |
Gretchen Peters, Cadogan Hall review - writer and performer of exquisite gemsSaturday, 27 May 2023
It’s 27 years since Gretchen Peters released her debut album, The Secret of Life, championed by Bob Harris and the late Terry Wogan, whose morning-tide enthusiasms also helped propel Eva Cassidy and Beth Neilsen Chapman to success - the term “Americana” hadn’t yet been invented! Read more... |
Jim Jones Allstars, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - veteran garage punkers turn up the soulFriday, 26 May 2023
Jim Jones has been around the block a few times, plying his garage/punk/rock’n’roll schtick – most notably with his last couple of outfits, the Jim Jones Revue and Jim Jones and the Righteous Mind. Back in the ring with his new crew, the Jim Jones Allstars, however, he’s subtly changed the template to bring some serious old school rhythm and blues to the party as well. Read more... |
Father John Misty sings Scott Walker, Barbican review - edging towards the supernaturalTuesday, 23 May 2023
A standing ovation part-way through a concert is unusual. Conductor Jules Buckley gestures to the members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus that they should rise. Beside Buckley, Father John Misty stands looking from the conductor to everyone else on the stage, to the audience. Seemingly, in the midst of this, he’s thrown. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Cock Sparrer - The Decca YearsSunday, 21 May 2023
“This is a record company’s idea of new wave. Clichéd heavy metal riffs and someone shouting in a cockney voice. This is a con and I hate it”. Read more... |
Songlines Encounters, Kings Place review - moments of magicFriday, 19 May 2023
These encounters are ones that may lead to lifelong relationships, with the halls at Kings Place this coming weekend filled with music from Mali, Colombia, Turkey, Georgia, Estonia, Tibet and a woodland in Sussex. Read more... |
Tallinn Music Week 2023 review - when music is unavoidably the language of freedomThursday, 18 May 2023
Estonia’s Mart Avi styles himself as “the twilight samurai of alternative pop”. He creates “nowhere-somewhere music, mapping uncharted territories between avant-pop and timeless grandeur”. The characterisations are issued via AVICORP, his internet presence. Read more... |
The Great Escape Festival 2023, Brighton review - a long, hot, messy Day ThreeTuesday, 16 May 2023
“stay with the beer. beer is continuous blood. a continuous lover.” So said Charles Bukowski in his poem “how to be a great writer”. Who am I to argue. It’s a bright day and 11.50 AM. The sun isn’t past the yard-arm but the beer is cold and good. IPA. Finetime and I stand with Vanessa, her 18-year-old son Cody and her mate Jodie. Vanessa has a short blond crop which glows. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Cherry Stars Collide, Waves of DistortionSunday, 14 May 2023
In July 2007, an article in The Guardian expressed surprise that shoegazing was influencing a series of current musicians, Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, Maps and Ulrich Schnauss amongst them. “You could hear the heady, woozy influence of a style of music that had been a byword for naffness and overindulgence for the past 15 years,” said the article’s opening paragraph. “A type of music that Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers had said he ‘hated more than Hitler’". Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Music Reissues Weekly: Hawkwind - X In Search Of Space, Dore...
One of last year’s major joys was the box set version of Hawkwind's Space Ritual, an 11-disc extravaganza which made the great live album...
Twelfth Night, Royal Shakespeare Theatre review - comic ener...
It is not just Twelfth Night, it’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will in The Folio,...
Blu-ray: Hitchcock - The Beginning
There's a tension in Alfred Hitchcock’s early films between misogyny and condemnation of...
Albums of the Year 2024: Samara Joy - Portrait
From placing first in the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Jazz Competition in 2019 to being a triple Grammy winner, Samara Joy’s rise has been...
Nutcracker, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - Tchai...
No new production of a beloved old ballet can please everyone, and there is none more beloved, or more frequently produced, than ...
You Me Bum Bum Train, secret location review - a joyful mult...
This feels like the theatrical equivalent of being in a centrifuge – a wild, spinning ride...
The Tempest, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane review - Sigourney We...
Shakespeare must have relished the opportunities brought by the indoor...
Albums of the Year 2024: Mercury Rev - Born Horses
Born Horses remains as inscrutable as it was when it was issued in the summer. While it is about the search for enlightenment through...