New Music Reviews
theartsdesk at Forgotten Fields 2015Tuesday, 11 August 2015
A person with any sense of outdoor adventure can enjoy a camping trip with friends, especially when the skies are clear blue and blazing, the booze is decent and flowing, and the barbecue is tasty and sauced. Thus was the case with my trip to Eridge Park, in the northern reaches of Sussex, for a new festival from the team behind the Lake District’s successful, decade-old Kendal Calling. How much the festival itself contributed to the good times, however, is debatable. Read more...
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Reissue CDs Weekly: AmericaSunday, 09 August 2015
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theartsdesk at Camp Bestival 2015Wednesday, 05 August 2015
Camp Bestival 2015 was bathed in four days of glorious sun, a rare window of idyllic weather in this most cantankerous of summers. It took place, as it has since it began in 2008, amid the hilly, verdant and well-kept grounds of Lulworth Castle in Dorset. Run by DJ Rob da Bank, his wife Josie and their team, it remains the country’s premier family festival, attended by some 30,000. Those are the facts, yet Camp Bestival is a curious creature, tricky to encapsulate. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Cocteau TwinsSunday, 02 August 2015
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Prom 16: Late Night with Radio 1, Pete TongThursday, 30 July 2015
After years of pussyfooting around pop, hoping the Pet Shop Boys will write something in a passable classical idiom, the Proms has embraced the most euphoric popular genre of all - dance - to its bosom. Read more... |
WOMAD 2015, Charlton ParkWednesday, 29 July 2015
Now was the summer of our disco tent. The disco tent in question backstage was not jumping as much as in previous years – somehow strutting your Travolta moves in wellies doesn’t quite cut it. A glam tribute band at Molly’s Bar on Thursday night, knocking out Bolan and Bowie numbers dressed in cheap sci-fi tat were hugely entertaining though. Read more... |
WOMAD 2, Charlton ParkWednesday, 29 July 2015
Trudging through the mud at last weekend’s WOMAD provided fleeting moments of random entertainment, as if surfing old-style across the bandwidths of a short-wave radio, you’d stumble unexpectedly on snatches of exotic sounds from around the globe: an eerie double-bass Mongolian throat-song one minute, and a horror-dark wisp of electronically enhanced tango the next. The food was taste-bogglingly varied too, from Algerian-flavoured steak wraps to a mysterious array of Tibetan treats. Read more... |
Tom Jones / The Shires, Greenwich Music Time FestivalTuesday, 28 July 2015
With its time and observatory, Greenwich is a fitting venue for record-breakers, and Sir Tom Jones, who sang at the Greenwich Music Time Festival last night, has some impressive vital statistics. The still-slim, still-dynamic figure in a black suit has sold 100 million records in a career of over 50 years, and on a good day, he can be Elvis Presley with a touch of Bryn Terfel. Read more... |
Peter Perrett, The GarageTuesday, 28 July 2015
Peter Perrett reappears for his third encore. This time his band doesn’t play with him. He attacks the guitar alone, “No Peace for the Wicked” and “It’s the Truth”, both songs from his days in The Only Ones, 35 years ago. His distinctive cracked voice is strong. In any case, the crowd assist him, even though these are not sing-along songs so much as perfectly constructed mini-melodramas of the heart. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Tennessee Ernie FordSunday, 26 July 2015
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America: The Warner Bros. Years 1971–1977
Cocteau Twins: The Pink Opaque, Tiny Dynamine/Echoes in a Shallow Bay
Tennessee Ernie Ford: Portrait of an American SingerPages
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