New Music Reviews
Abel Selaocoe, Bouffes du Nord, Paris review - awakening the ancestorsThursday, 03 November 2022
A tall African man stands alone in a pool of light. He has a cello and an immensely versatile voice. In a matter seconds, he holds the audience enchanted. He inhabits the stage as if it were by a campfire in the bush. Read more... |
Album: Laura Jean - AmateursThursday, 03 November 2022
Much of Amateurs is observational. “Folk Festival” ponders appearing at said event: is the place on the bill right; would fitting in be easier if the lyric’s subject were a different age? During “Market on the Sand”, it’s wondered while browsing whether there is “something here that is meant just for me”. Read more... |
BBC Philharmonic, Kaziboni, Manchester review - music of the future?Tuesday, 01 November 2022
Is Artificial Intelligence pointing the way to musical composition in the future? The BBC Philharmonic, conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni and colleagues at the Royal Northern College of Music made a case for it in this concert. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: For Dancers FortySunday, 30 October 2022
“You Turned my Bitter Into Sweet” sounds like a hit. The 1965 Mary Love single was issued by the Los Angeles-based Kent label and had a Motown flavour and a hint of The Supremes’s “Come See About me”, from the previous year. “You Turned my Bitter Into Sweet” was a killer 45. Read more... |
Album: Aoife Nessa Frances - ProtectorThursday, 27 October 2022
There’s a song by Kevin Ayers called “The Lady Rachel”. It was on his 1969 debut solo LP Joy Of A Toy. Play it alongside “This Still Life”, the second track on the second album from Ireland’s Aoife Nessa Frances and the aesthetic kinship is clear. The differing genders of the singer-composers aside, one could swap with the other and snugly fit onto either release. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Living Daylights - Let's Live For TodaySunday, 23 October 2022
In the third week of April 1967, Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s “Somethin’ Stupid” topped the UK’s single’s chart. Sandie Shaw’s “Puppet on a String” was number two, and The Monkees’ “A Little Bit me a Little Bit You” snapped at her heels. Englebert Humperdinck’s recent number one “Release me” was at number five. All very pop, very mainstream. Read more... |
Bob Dylan, London Palladium - busy painting his masterpieceSaturday, 22 October 2022
It’s the second night of a four-night run at the London Palladium of the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Tour – no other Dylan jaunt has taken an album for its title – and it begins with a blast of symphonic violence from the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. The house lights fade to black, the symphony segues into a modal tune-up on stage, Dylan and his four-piece – second guitarist Bob Britt is not here tonight – barely visible in silhouette. Read more... |
Let's Eat Grandma, Patterns, Brighton review - odd-pop duo remain a contagious one-offSaturday, 22 October 2022
At the start of the song “Two Ribbons” Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth of Let’s Eat Grandma do a brief schoolyard pat-a-cake hand-game. The song is a guileless ode to female friendship, love even, a paean to their own bond, which was strained at one point by the travails of a music career. Read more... |
The Orb, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - ambient house duo celebrate 30 years of UF OrbSaturday, 22 October 2022
Ten minutes before The Orb got on stage at the Hare & Hounds, Alex Paterson was standing in the building’s courtyard with a big old spliff in his hand “clearing his head” and getting ready for action. So, it was good to know that some things don’t change. Read more... |
Angeline Morrison, Cecil Sharp House - a ballad-maker for our timeFriday, 21 October 2022
Among those making her Cambridge Folk Festival on the diminutive Club Stage back in the summer was Angeline Morrison, a Birmingham-born singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who these days makes her home in Cornwall, drawn at least in part by its folk music. Read more... |
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