Surprising transitions, unusual segues, a myriad of I-wasn't-expecting-that moments. Saluting some of the iconic figures in Caribbean history and paying tribute to the tentacular reach of its culture, with House of Legends Courtney Pine has delivered one of the finest albums in his already well-stuffed discography.
Garland Jeffreys, a 68-year old singer and songwriter, is not simply New York City’s best-kept secret but American’s music’s most consistently underrated and overlooked talent. Garland is a remarkable talent and his latest album, The King of In Between, is musical dynamite. Oddly, he has remained largely invisible in Britain for the past 40-plus years.
A lot has blown in since the last Scandinavian round-up. The most recent releases sifted here include singer-songwriter intimacy, various forms of electropop, several shades of jazz experimenta, joyous dance-pop and some distinctly non-Scandinavian flavours. High points are many. Satisfaction is a certainty.
Being told that Magical Mystery Tour was a home movie is bit tiring. Self-evidently, The Beatles’ filmic response to the psychedelic experience was not that. They tried, and failed, to hire Shepperton Studios. Known artists like Ivor Cutler and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were brought on board. Gavrik Losey, then hot from being an assistant director on Modesty Blaise, worked on it. Masses of extras were employed. Although a self-originated vanity project, none of this points to it being a home movie.
B B King: Ladies & Gentlemen…Mr B.B. King
Kieron Tyler
Midway through their set Gallows are expending a mass of energy, attacking their instruments and jerking about like possessed men in a jam-packed venue yet, unless you are one of their devotees, moshing like Bedlam or hanging from the rafters gesticulating, it’s not especially engaging. It should be, with such energy and dynamism on show but their music attempts nothing so much as to fulfill the expectations of those who already like them, possibly in an ever-diminishing manner.
Manu Chao is “backstage” in a little makeshift tent on the green outside Brixton’s St Matthews Church (that’s the one opposite the Ritzy Cinema) and he’s certainly more at home than in some of the more conventional rock star places I’ve seen him in. Like Glastonbury, where he hated being in the VVIP area of the main stage with Amy Winehouse and Jay Z – all the fences and passes made him think of Palestine and he looked bored and dejected.
The Barbican Centre’s Transcender Festival celebrated its fourth anniversary in 2012 and deserves to be recognised as one of the UK’s most culturally radical and engaging music events. Transcender grew out of the Barbican’s previous festival Ramadan Nights and aims to explore a similarly rich vein of music that is rooted both in Islamic trance music of Asia and the Middle East and Western improvised music that shares a similar sense of free exploration and wonder.
A.R. Kane: Complete Singles Collection
Joe Muggs