2017
theartsdesk
With forelock-tugging celebrations of a choreographer who died 25 years ago and a summer visit by the Mariinsky the highest-profile events in the calendar, 2017 may not be remembered as a vintage year for British dance. But there were striking moments aplenty if you knew where to look for them, and companies, directors and dancers making magic even in ordinary circumstances. As the year ends, theartsdesk correspondents cast their minds back and pick out the best of those magical moments. As always, the criterion is memorability: this is not a comprehensive review of who was worthy or Read more ...
Matthew Wright
All things considered, there aren’t many criteria by which this album, however cosmopolitan its influences, sensitive and precise its vocals and supple its rhythms, is really the best of the year. I’ve had a few sleepless nights recently over the growing suspicion that, for example, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN, and several contemporary jazz recordings – to mention only what I’ve been following closely – do more that’s landmark-constructingly novel. It’s unlikely, come 2042, that Cubafonia will feature in one of those vox-pop retrospectives that populate the BBC Two schedules with such Read more ...
theartsdesk
It was the night Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, those old robbers on the run, will want to forget. Thanks to a clerical error, the Oscar for Best Picture briefly ended up in the clutch of the overwhelming favourite. Then the mistake was spotted and La La Land had to cede ground to Moonlight. This was a sweet moment for the considerable choir behind the backlash against Damien Chazelle's film. There's room for both, and plenty more, in theartsdesk film writers' picks of their favourite films. We also nominate a few stinkers because bad films deserve to be called out, too. Feel free to Read more ...
joe.muggs
From his days as a session musician in mid-Seventies Tokyo through global mega fame in Yellow Magic Orchestra and on, Ryuichi Sakamoto has always had a Stakhanovite work ethic. And that's still the case, even at the age of 65, and despite the fact he was not long ago given the all-clear from throat cancer. This year, Sakamoto has released the soundtracks to two South Korean movies, The Fortress and Rage, and performed two live commissions: one for Oslo's Ultima festival with dancer Min Tanaka and “fog sculptor” Fujiko Nakaya, and a live improvisation with long-time collaborator Alva Noto at Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Punk-blues veteran Jim Jones has been around since the mid 80s, but this year brought the debut album release by his newest combo, the Righteous Mind, and a record that may come to be regarded as Jones’ defining moment. Super Natural is shot through with gritty rock’n’roll, fuelled with fire and brimstone. Swaggering and sleazy tunes like “Aldecide” and “Boil Yer Blood” are urged on by Jones’ yelps and howls, Malcolm Toon’s screaming guitar, and Phil Martini’s voodoo beat. It’s incendiary stuff that goes straight for the guts with its raw and giddy ambience.2017 was generally a good year for Read more ...
David Nice
Did Simon Rattle's return to the UK as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra live up to the hype? Mostly, and when it did, the music-making was superbly alive. But it's vital to observe that another orchestra and chief conductor have been carrying on equally important and sometimes groundbreaking work in the same hall. The two other main London orchestras over at the Southbank, and the rest around the UK, all in excellent hands, have continued to deliver at the highest level. We're currently living in the strongest times, artistically speaking, for classical music across the Read more ...
Tim Cumming
I’ve only seen Olivia Chaney perform live a handful of times – once at a Copper Family celebration at Cecil Sharp House, 10,000 Times Adieu, singing unaccompanied with Lisa Knapp and Nancy Wallace, and at the nestcollective’s Unamplifire festival at the Master Shipwright’s Palace in Deptford one chilly St George’s Day. There, she performed solo, at the piano, and her voice and her music was sensational.She sang from her debut album of original songs, The Longest River, but I wish she’d chosen a few from the album she released this year with Portland, Oregon indie rockers the Decembrists. Read more ...
David Nice
It may not have been the best year for eye-popping productions; even visionary director Richard Jones fell a bit short with a tame-ish Royal Opera Bohème, though his non-operatic The Twilight Zone is something else. Instead there's been time to reflect on what makes a true company. While English National Opera, after the end of Mark Wigglesworth's short but unsurpassable tenure, showed what a shortened season looks like – the London Coliseum no longer "the home of ENO", Bat out of Hell taking over from June to August – others continued to blaze a trail forward.Top prize for showing Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
While perhaps not a vintage, 2017 was certainly an interesting and entertaining year in the world of videogames. A clutch of fresh ideas, combined with a few beautifully crafted sequels and franchise follow-ups made sure the quality still floated to the surface of a genre that was, at times, saturated with distracting titles.Let’s cut straight to the chase: as far as this reviewer is concerned, the game of the year goes to Sony’s PS4-exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn. An original title that took the mainstream by surprise, it tells the tale of a young girl growing up in a post-apocalyptic world Read more ...
Russ Coffey
2017 was the year I began to feel my age. It started with mild fatigue and soon progressed to general world-weariness. I wasn't the only one feeling worn-out. This year everyone seemed tired and angsty. From Brexit to Harvey Weinstein, hardly a week went by without some section of society becoming upset. The world was in dire need of some old-fashioned peace, love and understanding. I got my dose from Yusuf's The Laughing Apple.I first heard the songs at the album's launch party in London where Yusuf was playing live. On the walls were a selection of photos from the Cat Stevens Read more ...
mark.kidel
“Passion! You gotta have passion!” I still feel the full force of Tricky’s conviction, as I was filming him in 1997, for my film Naked and Famous. He’s right: music works better than words when expressing the deepest emotions.This year has been a passionate one for me – for all kinds of reasons – and music has been a constant companion, from the start of my year in Vienna, writing a review of Eno’s brilliant album Reflection: waves of subtle electronic sound, bound in near-stillness. A subtly condensed passion, evoking – paradoxically – his deep love of the gospel shout.In tracks Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
At two minutes and 39 seconds, Music For People in Trouble’s “Good Luck Bad Luck” executes an abrupt shift. An examination of whether a liaison would end up as “an empty cup” suddenly stops and the sound of a smoky jazz combo takes over with a melody bearing no relation to what preceded it. The composition unexpectedly passes into entirely different territory after Norway's Susanne Sundfør had been singing to her piano accompaniment, .“Good Luck Bad Luck” was, in part, inspired by Elizabeth Strout’s short story The Piano Player and the music forming the surprising coda conceptualises what Read more ...