New Music Reviews
Martin Simpson, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 17 September 2009
Folk singers travel well. And it’s often as ex-pats that they best appreciate their own culture. Martin Simpson, born in Scunthorpe, lived the life of a professional English folkie for 15 years before relocating to America. Although working the clubs as a bluesman he never lost his keen ear for his own roots music. Read more... |
theartsdesk at Bestival 2009Monday, 14 September 2009
Bestival was the first festival to embrace fancy dress and, five years into its career, still does it best. This year the theme was "Out of Space" and with the weather delivering gorgeous Indian summer sunshine, a welcome contrast to Bestival 2008’s deluge of wind-blown sleet, a contagious carnival of intergalactic characters extended across the site. Read more... |
Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra, Purcell RoomMonday, 14 September 2009
OK, let’s start with a bit of icon-bashing. In some circles, to say that a current Afrobeat band might actually be better than what the originator of the style, Fela Kuti, produced in the 1970s, would be as outrageous and absurd as proclaiming that the Ruttles were better than the Beatles. Fela Kuti is untouchable and beyond criticism, just as John Lennon and Bob Marley are. But Fela’s mythological status is fed by an incongruous mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. Read more... |
Thank You for the Music, Hyde ParkSunday, 13 September 2009What an absolute joy. Two and a half hours of Abba songs performed by a (mostly) stellar line-up with Kylie Minogue topping the bill, and the songwriting duo Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus appearing on stage to take the tumultuous applause of a 35,000 crowd gathered in Hyde Park in London. Only the surprise appearance of their erstwhile musical and marital partners Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog could have turned this memorable evening into a perfect one. Read more... |
The 2009 Mercury Music Prize: And the winner is...Wednesday, 09 September 2009
Speech Debelle – and she for one is not surprised. In a feisty speech accepting her nomination for the £20,000 prize, given annually to the best British album of the year, the 25-year-old rapper from South London warned the other 11 acts on the shortlist ahead of last night’s judgment that she planned “to take this one home”. By 10.20 last night the panel of judges agreed that she should, making Debelle the third female solo artist to win the Mercury in this century, following PJ Harvey in 2001... Read more... |
Pastels-Tenniscoats, Bush HallTuesday, 08 September 2009
Artists who are naturally awkward in their own skin can go in a number of directions. Many, including a good number of The Pastels' 1980s “C86” indie contemporaries, are content to simply be musically awkward, shambolic and ultimately rather pathetic and self-defeating. Others like, say, Talking Heads' David Byrne, charged with hyperactivity, take their awkwardness to the Nth degree and used it as a drive towards diverse creative explorations. |
Proms 70 and 71: Sir Peter Maxwell DaviesTuesday, 08 September 2009
What exactly is the point of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies? I don't ask this with any malice or hostility, just in a tone of inquiry. It is a question that I think his new Violin Concerto, Fiddler on the Shore, raises. That is, is Davies still here to shock and annoy, or to assuage? The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Davies's baton presented the British premiere of the work last night, with Daniel Hope as the soloist, in the first of two proms that...
Read more...
|
Dot Allison, Rough Trade EastTuesday, 08 September 2009
Dot Allison was one of the true idols of my late teens. Read more... |
Beatles For (Multiplatform) SaleMonday, 07 September 2009
Oasis have split up, but The Beatles keep getting bigger. This week, in a synchronised splurge of Beatle product of almost D-Day like proportions, their complete remastered albums are being reissued, the group appear in virtual form in the computer game The Beatles: Rock Band, and the BBC continues the Beatles Week which kicked off in a blaze of Kleenex-moistening nostalgia on Saturday. Read more... |
Fol Chen, Brixton WindmillMonday, 07 September 2009
Why do Fol Chen make me feel so happy? To begin with it was just a smile that crept across my face when I stumbled across their barmy animated video for "No Wedding Cake". This mini-epic features a lip-synching fish, some lion-headed dancing girls, and an owl that ends up stealing the bleeding heart of a goat-horned man. Another promo, for the sprightly "... 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: Liverpool Sunset - The City After Mer...
What happens after the spotlight is directed towards another target? In the case of Liverpool and the Merseybeat boom – which, in terms of chart...
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov, Barbican re...
Exactly half a century ago, Semyon Bychkov fled the USSR for the United States as he sought to swap tyranny for liberty. Last night, in a world...
Drive to Survive, Season 7, Netflix review - speed, scandal...
Last year’s sixth season of Drive to Survive radiated an air of diminishing returns. It was as though the novelty of its spy-in-the-...
Bonhoeffer review - flawed biopic of a saintly man of courag...
The German theologian, pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a saintly, courageous figure, of major historical...
Matt Forde, Touring review - politics, poo and Viagra
Matt Forde gives a warning: “Don’t heckle the disabled – that’s a hate crime.” What an opener for his latest touring show, The End...
Twiggy review - portrait of a supermodel who branched out
When Twiggy burst on to the scene in 1966, she was a beacon of hope for all flat-chested, short-haired, skinny girls. Of course we couldn’t look...
Album: Lady Gaga - Mayhem
Just the other day I overheard one of my kids watching a YouTuber called Nathan Zed and was instantly gripped. It was called ...
On Falling review - human cogs in a merciless machine
Alienation, isolation, and instability are the fruits of working as a “picker” in the chilling labour drama On Falling. The first feature...