New music
Live_Transmission: Joy Division Reworked, Royal Festival HallSunday, 22 September 2013
From no visible source, the instantly recognisable voice of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis croons the words of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. But the lyrics aren’t in their familiar setting. Alone, he’s stripped from the band, naked and vulnerable. He’s been... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: NirvanaSunday, 22 September 2013
Nirvana: In UteroNext April marks 20 years since Kurt Cobain took his own life. Paving the way for that tragic anniversary is a reissue of 1993’s In Utero, the album which unintentionally became the band’s musical epitaph. Their third, it was... Read more... |
CD: Kings Of Leon - Mechanical BullSaturday, 21 September 2013
I once got quite excited by Kings Of Leon. Way back in 2007 I saw them play at the Astoria, and witnessed a band who appeared to be ready to parlay indie credibility and southern-states rocker charm into a genuinely interesting kind of mainstream... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Yoko OnoSaturday, 21 September 2013
Normally we introduce these interviews with a few biographical details about the subject. With Yoko Ono, however, there hardly seems any point: she’s as much a part of late 20th-century history as an musician. But if the whole world knows who she is... Read more... |
CD: Moby - InnocentsSaturday, 21 September 2013
It’s one of the delightful incongruities of pop that Moby continues to be a presence. This 5’7”, bespectacled, bald, 48-year-old New York intellectual hardly seems frontline material in a world where One Direction and Jessie J rule the roost. Even... Read more... |
Darbar Festival: The ancient art of DhrupadFriday, 20 September 2013
This is a key weekend for lovers of Indian classical music or the merely sonically adventurous – the Darbar Festival in the Southbank has some of the most extraordinary practioners of the art from both the Carnatic (South Indian) and Hindustani (... Read more... |
CD: Mazzy Star - Seasons of Your DayThursday, 19 September 2013
Some people are lucky enough to have the sort of friends that, no matter how rarely you see them, you can call them up and instantly pick up right back where you left off. Some people are even luckier, and have the sort of friends that they see even... Read more... |
CD: Elton John - The Diving BoardWednesday, 18 September 2013
A new album from Elton John is also a window into the world of Bernie Taupin. For four decades the lyricist, like a golfer who has always just won the previous hole, has had the honour of going first. It’s easy to forget that with songs from Elton’s... Read more... |
Kings Place FestivalTuesday, 17 September 2013
Hungarian composer Bela Bartók’s analytical rigour and folk-inspired voice have established his position as one of the most original voices of the twentieth century, but he still represented a bold choice for the opening event of the 2013 Kings... Read more... |
Listed: The 20 best movie songsSunday, 15 September 2013
Seeing and hearing A Field in England's Richard Glover sing "Baloo, My Boy" while in bedraggled character reminded me of the power often exerted by songs explicitly or implicitly germane to a movie's narrative. They tend to have far greater... Read more... |
John Etheridge and the Soft Machine Legacy with Keith Tippett, Pizza ExpressSunday, 15 September 2013
Some people have all the luck. Listening to John Etheridge’s self-deprecating description of how his career has progressed (in interviews such as Radio 3‘s Jazz Library, or at a gig, when he is a disarmingly open host), you would think he had... Read more... |
CD: Manic Street Preachers - Rewind the FilmSunday, 15 September 2013
The punchline about angry upstarts journeying to po-faced middle-aged is an easy enough one for a band to make, but over the past few years the Manic Street Preachers have managed something far harder: they’ve started to make good records again.... Read more... |
