New Music Reviews
BaianaSystem, Village Underground - the new Brazilian contendersMonday, 06 August 2018
The post-modernists have taken over the asylum. At least, that's what I thought twice this week. Once when I saw Vlad Putin on YouTube doing karaoke to an adoring audience. The other was seeing Brazil’s latest contenders BaianaSystem, who played to a sweaty packed-out house at the Village Underground. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Gary McFarlandSunday, 05 August 2018
Although Gary McFarland’s 1965 album The In Sound had the Samba and Bossa Nova influences which were colouring the sound of American jazzers from around 1962, it was on the button for the year it was released. Read more... |
WOMAD 2, Charlton Park review - rainbows and rumbaThursday, 02 August 2018
In the days around WOMAD there have been plenty of media about how the “hostile environment” towards migrants has created all sorts of problems for artists attempting to get here from around the world. Read more... |
WOMAD, Charlton Park review – drawing the world a little closerMonday, 30 July 2018
Even seasoned veterans can suffer from programme amnesia over the four days and nights of rock, pop, dance and traditional music from around the world to be found at WOMAD, such is the array of choices across its 10 stages, ranging from the main arena through to the Ecotricity stage in Charlton Park’s leafy... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Gathered From CoincidenceSunday, 29 July 2018
It might have begun with The Beatles espousal of Bob Dylan in 1964. There was also The Animals whose first two singles, issued the same year, repurposed tracks from Bob Dylan’s 1962 debut album. Before The Byrds hit big with their version of his “Mr. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Max RichterSunday, 22 July 2018
When The Blue Notebooks was originally released in February 2004, it did not seem to be an album which would have the afterlife it has enjoyed. It had little context. Max Richter’s second album was his first for the 130701 label which, at that point, had not yet set out its stall. Read more... |
Gary Numan, Assembly Hall, Worthing review - hot and hammeringFriday, 20 July 2018
Arriving back onstage for an encore a broadly smiling Gary Numan bathes in roared football chants of “Numan! Numan!”. He tells us it’s just over 40 years since he released his first single, “That’s Too Bad”, but that he and his tight four-piece band are going to make a “bad attempt” at playing it. He’s wrong. It’s one of the best-delivered songs of the night, sounding Seventies punky to the delight of the crowd, many of whom clearly recall the era. Read more... |
theartsdesk at Cornbury: Pixie Lott, Amy MacDonald and Alanis MorissetteThursday, 19 July 2018
Cornbury Festival holds a very special place in my heart. When the babies were young, we realised that if we were going to be up all night without sleep we might as well be sat in a field listening to music rather than staring out of the window at a dreary North London street. Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 41: Kali Uchis, Orange Goblin, Kirsty MacColl, Walton, Miss Red and moreWednesday, 18 July 2018
Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street. To vinyl. Only theartsdesk on Vinyl doesn’t just cover music for dancing, it covers every style of music imaginable (with a good showing for pop this month). Read more... |
Paul Simon, BST Hyde Park review - still sprightly after 76 yearsMonday, 16 July 2018
"Homeward Bound – the Farewell Tour", they were calling it. But with a show this strong, nobody would complain if that farewell were to turn out at some point not to be absolutely final. Read more... |
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