New Music Interviews
theartsdesk Q&A: Shakespears SisterThursday, 24 October 2019
When goth-pop duo Shakespears Sister split in 1993, the music press dubbed it the break-up of the decade. Partly it was because at the time they were one of the biggest, and coolest, bands around (their single "Stay" managed a record eight weeks at number one). Read more... |
10 Questions for musician Craig FinnSunday, 20 October 2019
As frontman and lyricist of US rockers The Hold Steady, Craig Finn specialises in vivid storytelling featuring larger than life characters. It’s a writing style that he has carried with him into his solo work too even if, as he says, the stories are “more vulnerable and maybe a little more personal” than fans of his other band may be used to. Read more... |
10 Questions for conductor Charles HazlewoodMonday, 23 September 2019
Charles Hazlewood (b. 1966) has worked across the gamut of orchestral music, his career showcasing the multitude of ways it can be perceived and enjoyed. Read more... |
Bob Dylan Special - theartsdesk Q&A: Scarlet RiveraTuesday, 11 June 2019
As Martin Scorsese’s new feature film, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, hits Netflix and cinemas, and a new 14 CD boxed set enters the official Bootleg Series, ... Read more... |
Chamber Music, Brighton Festival 2019 review - Wu-Tang Clan depths divinedMonday, 20 May 2019
Martial arts mayhem, Shaolin philosophy, a tribe of masked hip hop warriors emerging from the mist of Staten Island, a Funkadelic-Parliament collective sprawling through the music industry in the age of black mass incarceration: the Wu-Tang Clan were all these things, immediately.... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Soumik DattaTuesday, 30 April 2019
“I think we need to get rid of labels, certainly World Music,” insists Soumik Datta, who is both composer and musician, and has lived in the UK since the age of 11. “It is possible to be a musician in the Indian tradition, as well as an electronic musician, as well as a contemporary musician... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: BananaramaThursday, 18 April 2019
Bananarama are one of the most successful girl groups of all time. Consisting of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward, the band’s third original member Siobhan Fahey left in 1988 to form Shakespears Sister. The trio reunited in 2017 for a tour but new album, In Stereo, sees them back as the long-standing duo. The pair have been friends since their school days. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician, writer and performance artist Cosey Fanni TuttiFriday, 08 February 2019
Cosey Fanni Tutti was born Christine Newby in Hull in 1951. She is a musician, performance artist and writer and is best known for her time with COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Chris and Cosey. Her memoir Art Sex Music came out in 2017 and her second solo album, Tutti is released on 8 February. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Robert MacFarlane's Spell SongsWednesday, 06 February 2019
With books including Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways and Landmarks, Robert MacFarlane has established himself as one of the leading writers on landscape in the English language, continuing a literary tradition that contains talents as diverse as John Muir, Robinson Jeffers, Edward Thomas and Laurie Lee. His 2017 collaboration with the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer Michel LegrandSaturday, 26 January 2019
“I want to be a man without any past,” said Michel Legrand, who has died at the age of 86. He had perhaps the longest past in showbiz. Orchestrator, pianist, conductor, composer of countless soundtracks, who else has collaborated as widely - with Miles Davis and Kiri Te Kanawa, Barbra Streisand and Jean-Luc Godard, Gene Kelly, Joseph Losey and Edith Piaf? When I visited him at his house at his splendid classical manoir 100km south of Paris, on the mantelpiece in the large white sitting room... Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Music Reissues Weekly: Stefan Gnyś - Horizoning
For most of Canada’s listening public, their country-man Stefan Gnyś – pronounced G'neesh – wasn’t a concern. The 300 copies of his 1969 single...
Wicked review - overly busy if beautifully sung cliffhanger
"No one mourns the wicked," we're told during the immediately arresting beginning to Wicked, which concludes two hours 40 minutes later...
Akram Khan, GIGENIS, Sadler’s Wells review - now 50, Khan re...
London-born Akram Khan has come a long way in a 35-year career. He performed as a young teen in Peter Brook’s production of The ...
Snow Leopard review - clunky visual effects mar a director...
Pema Tseden's final film Snow Leopard is a Chinese Tibetan-language drama that addresses wild animal preservation. It serves as a kind of...
King James, Hampstead Theatre review - UK premiere drains a...
Cleveland is probably the American city most like the one in which I grew up. Early into the icy embrace of post-industrialisation, not...
Album: Kim Deal - Nobody Loves You More
The progress of Kim Deal has been one of the great delights of modern music. Much as one wishes Pixies well, they have never been the same without...
Kavakos, Philharmonia, Blomstedt, RFH review - a supreme val...
From a privileged position in the Festival Hall stalls, I could see 97-year old Herbert Blomstedt’s near-immobile back as he sat on a piano stool...
Hannah Scott, Worthing Pavilion Theatre Atrium review - fill...
London-based singer-songwriter Hannah Scott has warned her next song may reduce us to tears. It is, she says, inspired by events following the...