avant-garde
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer, chansonnier and conductor HK Gruber at 75Thursday, 04 January 2018
You haven't lived until you've witnessed Viennese maverick H(einz) K(arl) Gruber – 75 today (3 January, publication day) – speech-singing, conducting and kazooing his way through his self-styled "pandemonium" Frankenstein!!. Composed for chansonnier... Read more... |
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival review - new generation throws down the gauntletTuesday, 28 November 2017
Reading the line-up for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival can be a bit of a //+DiGit<ijjjjjjjjjjjjj.ggiiigggggH1-RMXn4000// experience (and no, I haven’t invented those). There are flashing light warnings. Ear defenders are routinely... Read more... |
CD: Scanner - FibolaeMonday, 27 November 2017
Robin Rimbaud, AKA Scanner, has been releasing music for over two decades. There was a point in the mid-Nineties when he was a media “thing” due to the way he sampled sounds plucked from the airwaves. Shockingly, this included phone calls because... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Montparnasse 19Friday, 24 November 2017
The myth of Modigliani, the archetypal tortured artist, was set in train while he was still alive and remains potent almost a century after his death. Every so often a few game academics try to put things straight, and now Tate Modern’s exhibition... Read more... |
CD: Angel Olsen - PhasesMonday, 06 November 2017
An underground American star since 2010’s Strange Cacti EP, Angel Olsen’s distinctive brand of indie folk-rock was propelled to new heights in both Burn Your Fire For No Witness (2014) and then last year with MY WOMAN. After years of touring,... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Homer Flynn, spokesman for The ResidentsSaturday, 28 October 2017
An encounter with Homer Flynn is disconcerting as the extent of his involvement in The Residents is unclear. He acknowledges that he speaks for the eyeball-headed quartet whose identities are unknown. As he talks, it's clear he has intimate... Read more... |
Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell Collection review - guilty pleasures at the National GalleryMonday, 18 September 2017
If only a modest fuss is being made about the rare and prestigious loan currently residing in Trafalgar Square, it could be that the National Gallery is keen to forget the role of its former director, Dr Nicholas Penny, in a row about art... Read more... |
CD: Dälek - Endangered PhilosophiesTuesday, 22 August 2017
One of the stranger things about popular music is how unwilling most are to crossbreed and experiment. Surely that’s where the real kicks are? Most seem to prefer ploughing ruts that were overfamiliar 10, 20, 30, even 40 years ago. Either that or... Read more... |
CD: ZGTO - A Piece of the GetoMonday, 07 August 2017
The term “hip hop” has become a catch-all that now includes a multitude of autotuned chart-pop rubbish which bears no relation to the genre’s origins, central tenets or recognised sonic imprint. Is Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen” hip hop? Many would... Read more... |
CD: The Fall - New Facts EmergeMonday, 24 July 2017
Mark E Smith’s wit and the ever-changing, ever-suffering line-up behind him have established The Fall as one of the most seminal post-punk bands in Britain. From their classic 1976 debut Live at the Witch Trials to 2015’s acclaimed Sub-Lingual... Read more... |
The Discovery of Mondrian review - the most comprehensive survey everMonday, 05 June 2017
Standing inside the Gemeentemuseum’s life-size reconstruction of Mondrian’s Paris studio, the painter’s reputation as an austere recluse seems well-deserved. Returning from Holland to France after the First World War, he lived and worked in what... Read more... |
Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, Green Door Store, BrightonSaturday, 15 April 2017
Perhaps most famous as the singer in seminal Nineties art-pop band Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier has worked hard in recent years to establish herself as a solo artist in her own right through a series of well-received avant-muzak albums, including this... Read more... |
