sun 15/06/2025

New music

Camp Bestival 2017 review - family festival drenched but exuberant

Camp Bestival 2017 was defined by the weather and how everyone reacted to it. DJ-impresario Rob Da Bank’s family festival, which reached its tenth edition this year, took place, as ever, on the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. However, where the previous...

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CD: James Heather - Stories From Far Away on Piano

The blossoming of modern classical into a serious commercial contender has been an unexpected recent development. Then again, it should come as no surprise that in a world raddled by stuff to hear and look at 24/7, people are turning to music that...

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WOMAD 2017, Charlton Park review 2 - utopian globalist festival dances through the rain

Arriving on Thursday for the opening act Orchestra Baobab’s instantly recognisable mellifluous tones spreading out from the main stage over the Wiltshire countryside, it was clear that a high standard had been set for the rest of WOMAD. Whether it's...

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Kendal Calling, Lowther Deer Park review - a mini-Glastonbury of the border lands

Kendal Calling is a lovely festival. Charmingly misnamed – it’s set 30 miles from Kendal in Lowther Deer Park, a couple of miles from Penrith, in the northern Lakes – it takes place over four days in spectacularly beautiful Cumbrian countryside. It...

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Indigo Girls, Islington Assembly Hall review - exhilarating and generous

For an act that hasn't visited the UK since 2009, the Indigo Girls might have been surprised at the audience's familiarity with their work. It’s now a given that artists have to tour to sell records, but judging by the vigour with which the audience...

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WOMAD 2017, Charlton Park review - multicultural nirvana transcends mud-bath conditions

Now in its 35 year, Womad is embedded into British festival culture, flying the flags of a musical multiculturalism that is about breaking down barriers and building new relationships. It’s not something you want to lose.Aside from pleasurable...

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Silver Birch, Garsington Opera review - gritty drama in the Chilterns

"Everyone suddenly burst out singing"’ wrote Siegfried Sassoon in his paean to humanity amidst the horror of war, "Everyone Sang". And sing they did, all 180 of them, crammed onto Garsington’s modest stage for its new community opera Silver Birch by...

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CD: Girl Ray - Earl Grey

Girl Ray. Man Ray. Geddit? Earl Grey, the debut album from London female three-piece Girl Ray isn’t as freewheeling as the art of the man whose name they rework, but it is strikingly reminiscent of a particular strand of introspective 1980’s British...

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Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cadogan Hall review - peace, love and harmonies

On a dreary evening in what passes for summer, the news unutterably grim, an evening in the company of South Africa’s greatest export can’t help but lift the spirits. The nine singers that comprise Ladysmith Black Mambazo are mostly blood family,...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Marylebone Beat Girls, Milk of the Tree

Between them, Marylebone Beat Girls and Milk of the Tree cover the years 1964 to 1973. Each collects tracks recorded by female singers: whether credited as solo acts, fronting a band or singer-songwriters performing self-penned material. That the...

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CD: Randy Newman - Dark Matter

Think of Randy Newman and the image conjured up may be of a lugubrious piano man with a sardonic streak. Or perhaps the composer responsible for countless Pixar soundtracks. But there is more to the bespectacled songsmith than just his witty...

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theartsdesk at Førdefestivalen - fado, tango and desert blues among the Norwegian fjords

This year’s Førdefestivalen was gabled by an opening Nordic Sound Folk Orchestra showcase and a spectacular closing gala, live-streamed and broadcast Europe-wide. It featured a dizzyingly eclectic range of world and Nordic folk bands, as well as the...

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