New music
A Change is Gonna Come, Brighton Festival review - lively, winning jazz adventureWednesday, 23 May 2018
Watching this band in action is a treat. They gel absolutely and play off one another in a manner that’s easy and mellow, yet also sparks by occasionally teetering on the edge of their virtuosic abilities. The songs played throughout the evening at... Read more... |
CD: Chvrches - Love Is DeadWednesday, 23 May 2018
When bands move to the US, some find themselves drawn into the commercial machine; when Scottish band Chvrches crossed the Atlantic, they were targeting direct assimilation from the start. Recorded with mega-producer Greg Kurstin, the band are... Read more... |
CD: Gretchen Peters - Dancing with the BeastMonday, 21 May 2018
Gretchen Peters arrived in Nashville in the late eighties from Bronxville, New York, where she was born, and Boulder, Colorado, where she grew up. Within a decade she was writing songs for some of the biggest names in country music, among them... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: African Scream Contest 2Sunday, 20 May 2018
African Scream Contest 2 opens with a burst of distorted guitar suggesting a parallel-world response to The Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today”. Then, the song beds in and a James Brown groove plays off against spindly lead-guitar lines also... Read more... |
Robbie Thomson XFRMR, Brighton Festival review - lightning strikes outSunday, 20 May 2018
The welcome to Glasgow audio-visual artist Robbie Thomson’s performance engenders a hefty sense of anticipation. It’s almost nervousness-inducing as we’re handed ear-plugs and warned about how very loud it’s going to be. Then, walking into the main... Read more... |
CD: Caroline Rose - LonerSunday, 20 May 2018
Loner’s opening track “More of the Same” lyrically tracks being at a party where “everyone’s well dressed with a perfect body and they all have alternative haircuts and straight white teeth.” It triggers a flashback to schooldays when it was, indeed... Read more... |
An Audience with Dame Cleo Laine, RFH review - a phenomenon at 90Saturday, 19 May 2018
Yes, she sang, with her trademark artistry from the very first notes – four numbers, including a duet with daughter Jacqui Dankworth, and all in close partnership with her consummate players, including son Alec on double bass. Any worries that this... Read more... |
CD: Judith Owen - redisCOVERedSaturday, 19 May 2018
When a 49-year-old Welsh jazz’n’folk singer decides to make it her business to cover songs ranging from Drake’s “Hotline Bling” to Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling”, most people’s immediate reaction would be to advise her to leave well... Read more... |
CD: Hailey Tuck - JunkThursday, 17 May 2018
Take a first, passing glance at the debut album from Hailey Tuck and she could be mistaken for Katy Perry, done up in florid new image finery. The Texas-born, Paris-living 27 year old, however, on further inspection (and, more to the point, on... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 39: Pink Floyd, Liines, Black Sabbath, Daniel Avery, Elvis and moreThursday, 17 May 2018
There have been reports that as many as 50% of vinyl-buyers don’t actually listen to it. They keep records as a token of affection for the artist in question. This seems curious but, then again, most young people don’t own turntables and the idea is... Read more... |
The Last Poets, Brighton Festival review - black power sets the night alightWednesday, 16 May 2018
The venom with which Abiodun Oyewole spits “America is a terrorist”, the key repeated line to “Rain of Terror”, has startling power. The piece is an unashamed diatribe against his nation. Beside him his partner Umar Bin Hassan rhythmically hisses... Read more... |
Mary Chapin Carpenter, Barbican, review - a three-decade retrospectiveWednesday, 16 May 2018
Mary Chapin Carpenter lives these days in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she sits at the kitchen table in her farmhouse and writes songs. “I have a couple of cats and dogs and I’m the hermit who lives down the road,” she explained to a... Read more... |
