New music
Brighton Festival: Laurie Anderson's Concert for Dogs, Open Air TheatreWednesday, 11 May 2016
"Wouldn't it be great if you were playing a concert and you looked out and everyone is a dog?" Laurie Anderson mused, almost a decade ago, waiting backstage with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Anderson has realised her outlandish dream, creating a most unusual... Read more... |
2016 Parliamentary Jazz AwardsWednesday, 11 May 2016
Compered by Jazzwise magazine’s gregarious editor-in-chief, Jon Newey, the winners of this year's Parliamentary Jazz Awards were announced last night in the Terrace Pavilion at the House of Commons.Now in their twelfth year, the Awards, organised by... Read more... |
CD: Karl Blau - Introducing Karl BlauWednesday, 11 May 2016
The first reaction to Introducing Karl Blau is to wonder whether it’s an overlooked album from the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. It opens with a creamy smooth voice that’s close to cracking with emotion. The song being sung is a version of country singer... Read more... |
Album Special: Radiohead - A Moon Shaped PoolTuesday, 10 May 2016
In the whole of Britain there are only seven music journalists who are officially designated, card-carrying “Non-Fans of Radiohead”. In 2007 three of them were banished by the National Council of Music Writers to a small Crofting community in... Read more... |
Lush, The RoundhouseMonday, 09 May 2016
It's peculiar seeing any band come back together after a serious length of time, but when that band were part of your adolescence the cognitive dissonance is exponentially increased. Along with the likes of Ride and Slowdive, Lush were a band linked... Read more... |
CD: James Blake - The Colour in Anything / Skepta - KonnichiwaMonday, 09 May 2016
Skepta (aka Joseph Adenuga Jr) and James Blake provide a fascinating parallel as voices of the UK's “generation bass”. Both are from north London, and both have come from a grounding in the subsonic undercurrents of London's early 21st century ... Read more... |
Brighton Festival: Tindersticks, Brighton DomeSunday, 08 May 2016
Tindersticks certainly know how to instill a mood. Outside the Dome Concert Hall the start of the Brighton Festival is in full swing, with a proliferation of tents, parades and shiny happy tourists drinking in the sun. Inside, Stuart Staples is... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The AssociatesSunday, 08 May 2016
Any appreciation of Scotland’s The Associates is coloured by the knowledge that Billy MacKenzie took his own life at age 39 in January 1997. More than his band’s voice, he personified their unique approach to music. Between 1979 and 1982, with... Read more... |
CD: Corinne Bailey Rae - The Heart Speaks in WhispersSunday, 08 May 2016
Corinne Bailey Rae’s heart may speak in whispers, but it dreams in glorious technicolour. The title of the Leeds-born songwriter’s new album is an echoey chorus line that swims among the layers of its opening track – a song with the bridge of a... Read more... |
Donovan, London PalladiumSaturday, 07 May 2016
"Sunshine came softly through my window today..." How fortuitous that veteran Scottish tunestrel Donovan should have picked London's glorious first day of summer to stage his "Beat Cafe" event at the Palladium. The plan was to rove across his back... Read more... |
CD: Meghan Trainor - Thank YouSaturday, 07 May 2016
When US singer Meghan Trainor broke through a couple of years back with the massive hit “All About That Bass”, it seemed a clear-cut case of a woman’s response to lollipop-headed, bulimic mainstream media images of her sex. No argument, right? But... Read more... |
Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, BarbicanThursday, 05 May 2016
In which two of the biggest beasts of Brazilian music played in tandem (and it was often playful) sparred with each other and revealed despite being rivals, how close they have been and remain. The equivalent might be something like the Sting/Paul... Read more... |
