2000s
Album: Nia Archives - Silence is LoudMonday, 08 April 2024
At 24, Bradfordian Nia Archives has already clearly marked out her musical territory.While many of her Gen Z contemporaries have embraced the rave, jungle and drum’n’bass sounds of the early-mid 1990s, she’s done it more wholeheartedly than most:... Read more... |
Cargill, Kantos Chamber Choir, Manchester Camerata, Menezes, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - imagination and star qualitySaturday, 06 April 2024
Brazil-born conductor Simone Menezes, known for imaginative and pioneering concert presentation, presided over a striking and illuminating programme shared by Manchester’s Kantos Chamber Choir and Manchester Camerata, with the star quality of Karen... Read more... |
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, Tate Modern review - a fitting celebration of the early yearsFriday, 16 February 2024
At last Yoko Ono is being acknowledged in Britain as a major avant garde artist in her own right. It has been a long wait; last year was her 90th birthday! The problem, of course, was her relationship with John Lennon and perceptions of her as the... Read more... |
Album: Chromeo - Adult ContemporaryWednesday, 14 February 2024
A decade ago Canadian duo Chromeo had their biggest success with the single “Jealous (I Ain’t With It)” and its parent album, White Women. However, it didn’t presage a move into the mainstream.For over 20 years, Chromeo’s wry-sexy, wordy electro-... Read more... |
Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, Disney+ review - classic underdog tale of the little team that couldThursday, 16 November 2023
When they read the roll-call of British Formula One champions, the likes of Jackie Stewart, Graham and Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell tend to grab the spotlight, but Jenson Button’s dramatic and totally unexpected win in 2009 is every bit as worthy of... Read more... |
The SpongeBob Musical, QEH review - musical based on popular kids' animation sinks for lack of focusSaturday, 12 August 2023
There are many things that you are not told about being a parent, a vast landscape of details that batter you with unwelcome difference from that comfortable life of Friday night prosecco and pizza. One is a whole new palette of garish colours... Read more... |
Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors, National Theatre review - verbatim theatre delivered to wrenching effectSaturday, 22 July 2023
The shadow of Grenfell Tower has already produced Nick Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor’s dispassionately forensic but devastating documentary plays based on transcripts from the Grenfell Inquiry. Now comes a companion piece, the National’s Grenfell,... Read more... |
Album: Mahalia - IRLThursday, 13 July 2023
Ever since she broke through in her teens, Leicestershire singer Mahalia Burkmar’s music has often been referred to as retro or revivalist R&B. But that framing is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the genre operates for young 21st... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Inland EmpireTuesday, 11 July 2023
Searching for a coherent narrative thread in David Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006) is probably futile, so it’s best to begin with the movie’s nervy central performance by Laura Dern in multiple, overlapping roles as “a woman in trouble”... Read more... |
Album: McFly - Power to PlayFriday, 09 June 2023
When McFly returned to our loudspeakers in the summer of 2020 with Young Dumb Thrills, the record marked their first in a decade. The foursome, comprised of guitarist/vocalist Tom Fletcher, bassist/vocalist Dougie Poynter, guitarist/vocalist Danny... Read more... |
The Shape of Things, Park Theatre review - the shape of what, exactly?Wednesday, 07 June 2023
It’s been more than 20 years since the premiere of The Shape of Things, Neil LaBute’s prickly drama about couples and friends and the ways we change each other. And boy, does it show. Director Nicky Allpress and a talented young cast try their best... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Cherry Stars Collide, Waves of DistortionSunday, 14 May 2023
In July 2007, an article in The Guardian expressed surprise that shoegazing was influencing a series of current musicians, Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, Maps and Ulrich Schnauss amongst them.“You could hear the heady, woozy influence of a style of... Read more... |
