fri 16/05/2025

New Music Reviews

Chase & Status, Brighton Centre

Thomas H Green

“Show Me Love” by Robin S was a monster pop-rave crossover hit in 1990. Most of the crowd at Chase & Status’s Brighton date would have either not been born or in nappies gnawing Duplo bricks when it had its moment in the sun, yet they sing along en masse and roar approval as the band’s female diva, Moko, belts it out, jumping around in precariously stacked heels.

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Jazz Voice 2013, Barbican

peter Quinn

Harp glissandos, trilling flutes, the heft of a swinging brass section. Yes, last night's Jazz Voice once again kick-started the EFG London Jazz Festival in typically exuberant fashion. Arranged, scored and conducted by the indefatigable Guy Barker, its epoch-spanning celebration of jazz-related anniversaries, birthdays and milestones was hosted for the second time by Victoria Wood.

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Philip Glass/Steve Reich, Royal Festival Hall

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

The Southbank’s artistic director Jude Kelly was out in force at this penultimate weekend of The Rest is Noise festival, delivering little triumphalist, Ryan Air-like fanfares, reminding us how pioneering they had been to programme composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten and Philip Glass - composers who no one had ever heard of before they'd bravely decided to put them on.

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Volcano Choir, O2 Academy Bristol

mark Kidel

It’s surprising how a singer with as little obvious presence or charisma as Justin Vernon can carry a live show, but he does. The power is in the otherworldly voice, and haunting songs with mysterious lyrics, carried on a wall of sound in the tradition of those “little symphonies for the kids” that Phil Spector pioneered half a century ago.

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Scenes in the City, CBSO Centre, Birmingham

Guy Oddy

This year 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of two landmark albums, both of which were composed and recorded by bassist, pianist and all-round jazz colossus, Charles Mingus. Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus is a reimagining of some of Mingus’s tunes from the 1950s in a way that has influenced acclaimed jazz-rock amalgamates such as Get The Blessing.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Brenda Holloway, Era Records Northern Soul, Damon

Kieron Tyler


The Artistry of Brenda HollowayBrenda Holloway: The Artistry of Brenda Holloway / Various Artists: ERA Records Northern Soul

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The Radiophonic Workshop, Shoreditch Electric Light Station

Kieron Tyler

No preparation is sufficient for hearing the theme to Doctor Who live. It’s obviously going to be on the menu, yet as the familiar “dung-a, dung-a, dung-a” refrain kicks off something deep and unexpected stirs within. The emotional bond with this sound and this melody is so strong it’s akin to being transported to one of the Doctor’s exotic destinations. Recreated on stage, the familiar suddenly becomes thrillingly fresh.

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Brother Face, The Vortex, Dalston

Matthew Wright

Liam Noble has kept his fans waiting so long for some new music, they were beginning to wonder if he’d turned into David Bowie. The British jazz pianist’s last album of originals, Romance among the Fishes, was released in 2004. Since then he’s recorded the highly regarded Brubeck, which Brubeck himself declared "an inspiration and a challenge for me to carry on”, and collaborated with distinguished players on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: William Onyeabor, Tears For Fears

Kieron Tyler

 

World Psychedelic Classics 5 – Who is William Onyeabor?William Onyeabor: World Psychedelic Classics 5 – Who is William Onyeabor?

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Deap Vally, Concorde 2, Brighton

Thomas H Green

It’s a condition of certain music journalists – myself very much included – that we can be blindsided by originality to the detriment of much else. Thus I might rate a chunk of electronic weirdness that blows my mind on the first couple of listens over a more derivative piece of song-writing. Later on I sometimes find that the sonic weirdness wears thin, sucked dry of its original sparkle, while the more derivative music slowly reveals itself as something rather brilliant.

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