New Music Reviews
Nile Rodgers and Chic, Royal Festival Hall review – great band, shame about the soundMonday, 05 August 2019
There is every reason to celebrate Nile Rodgers. For his contribution to music as arranger, producer and performer over more than four decades. And also not least because he’s still around and still performing: he has, after all, pulled through after two bouts of serious cancer in 2010 and 2017. Read more...
|
Reissue CDs Weekly: Fernando Falcão - Memória das ÁguasSunday, 04 August 2019
Memória das Águas hasn’t figured in lists of great Brazilian albums. Its creator Fernando Falcão isn’t as celebrated as fellow countryman and musical maverick Tom Zé. The reissue of this arresting yet previously obscure album should help change these oversights. Read more... |
Black Sabbath: 50 years, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery review – not heavy goingFriday, 02 August 2019
The well-spring of certain musical genres and hometowns of certain influential musicians have long been a source of civic pride – and a boost to the tourist industry – in many clued-in parts of the world. One only has to think of the co-opting of Bob Marley’s life and influence in attracting tourist dollars to Jamaica or the raising of the Beatles to mythic status – bus tours and all – in Liverpool. Read more... |
Ludovico Einaudi, Barbican review - a long road to nowhereThursday, 01 August 2019
There is a video, part of Greenpeace’s laudable Save The Arctic Campaign, in which Ludovico Einaudi sits at a Steinway atop a small ice flow performing his Elegy for the Arctic. As he plays a descending scale, the camera pans slightly to the right just in time to see a chunk of glacier break away and crash into the sea. Perfect timing! Read more... |
WOMAD, Charlton Park review - a gloriously defiant global music celebrationThursday, 01 August 2019
This was a year of superb musical standards, smooth organisation and a real sense of celebration. In the last couple of years, WOMAD being more liberal and internationalist than nearly anywhere else, there was a sense in the air of a collective political shock - maybe the future wasn’t with our tribe of happy cultural globalists after all. Read more... |
Liam Gallagher, Valletta, Malta review - underperformed but rapturously receivedTuesday, 30 July 2019
Rock ‘n’ roll. That’s what was promised. It was emblazoned on the organ for all to see. And if that visual guarantee was too subtle, the set began with “Rock 'n’ Roll Star”. Only, despite the swagger, Liam Gallagher doesn’t really live up to the promise live. It’s loud enough, and the songs talk the talk, but this balmy night in Malta appeared to be just another day in the office for the former Oasis frontman. Read more... |
Lucinda Williams, Barbican review - memories, heartache and Southern secretsMonday, 29 July 2019
“I’m talking about these songs in more depth than I usually do, revealing a few secrets along the way,” says a black–jeaned, cowboy-booted Lucinda Williams after singing “Right in Time”, the achingly erotic first song on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, her breakthrough, Grammy-winning, never-bettered ... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: 1977 The Year Punk Broke, Optimism / RejectSunday, 28 July 2019
Britain’s musical eruption of 1977 wasn’t just about the now. As the new box set 1977 – The Year Punk Broke amply demonstrates, the flux allowed more than first-timers through the door. Seasoned gig-circuit regulars Stranglers got a leg up. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 51: Suicide, Soundgarden, Soft Cell, Stax, Spice Girls and moreWednesday, 24 July 2019
As this month’s edition of theartsdesk on Vinyl appears the sun is blazing outside, a heatwave hits, and our record collections must hide in the shadows or warp. Yet still we want more to join them in their sheltered rows and where better to seek the greatest new releases than the longest, most complete monthly round-up of new vinyl releases. As ever, we run the gamut. Read more... |
Supersonic Festival 2019, Birmingham review - the weird and the curious get togetherWednesday, 24 July 2019
Friday 19 July 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 10,000 pieces, we're asking for £3.95 per month or £30 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take an annual 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
CD: Liam Gallagher - Why Me? Why Not.
Liam Gallagher's 2017 solo debut, As You Were, took everybody by surprise. Not only did it show...
City on a Hill, Sky Atlantic review - power, corruption and...
Connoisseurs of gnarly Boston-based crime sagas like The Town, The Departed and Black Mass will quickly find themselves...
Werther, Royal Opera review - shadows and sunsets from an un...
Goethe’s Die Leiden des junges Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther) was a vital spark in the ignition of the German romantic...
The Kitchen review – more gangsters' molls taking over...
Three women decide to take over their husbands’ criminal...
Big the Musical - sweet if wildly overstretched
The work isn't finished on Big, if this stage musical...
Defending the Guilty, BBC Two review - trials and tribulatio...
This new legal comedy is based on a well-received book...
Faith, Hope & Charity, National Theatre review - a grim...
Alexander Zeldin continues his devastating analysis of modern Britain in this culminating play of a (very loose) trilogy that started with...
Love in the Countryside, BBC Two review - reaping a harvest...
If you’re a farmer who works round the clock to feed sheep, milk cows and so forth, how on earth do you make time to find a partner and reap a...
Don Giovanni, Royal Opera review - laid-back Lothario
Kasper Holten left a mixed bag of productions behind at...