New Music Reviews

Soul Sister, Savoy Theatre

Kieron Tyler Saturday, 25 August 2012

The fright wig is instantly recognisable. Even with her back turned, it’s obviously Tina Turner on stage. Except it isn’t. It’s actress Emi Wokoma playing the singer in a performance virtually guaranteed to turn her into a star. Casualty and EastEnders will soon be distant memories for Wokoma. Good for her, maybe, but she’s the best thing about the otherwise wafer-thin Soul Sister.

Mittwoch aus Licht, Birmingham Opera Company

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Thursday, 23 August 2012

Singing camels, paddling trombonists, airborne string quartets and a libretto so barmy it makes David Icke sound like Richard Dawkins. Birmingham, welcome to the world of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The German composer devoted 25 years of his life composing his giant, seven-day, operatic cycle Licht. We in Britain have only ever had the chance to see one segment when in 1984 Donnerstag aus Licht was premiered at the Royal Opera House.

Comment

London Mela, Gunnersbury Park

Thomas H Green Tuesday, 21 August 2012

The look for many young Asian guys in deepest west London appears to focus on how thin they can sculpt their goatees. Well-muscled, chiselled even, sporting either a bowl-crop or one of those spiky, gelled, junior estate agent haircuts, and clad in the ubiquitous sports casual that hip hop has wrought, it’s still their beards that draw the attention. These are pencil-thin lines from the ear to chin, interconnected by another over the mouth, part Errol Flynn, part Armand Van Helden.

Comment

Reissue CDs Weekly: Ride, Juliette Gréco, Krzysztof Komeda, Priscilla Paris

Kieron Tyler Sunday, 19 August 2012

Ride: Going Blank Again

Kieron Tyler

Bloodstock Open Air 2012, Catton Hall, Derbyshire

Thomas H Green Wednesday, 15 August 2012

It’s Sunday lunchtime and Swiss thrash metallers Battalion are hammering out jagged, smashed up riffage with gleeful ferocity. Indeed, every one of Bloodstock Open Air’s four stages contains bands playing the hardest metal. To aficionados this music breaks down into multiple sub-genres – death metal, power metal, prog metal, and on and on, ad infinitum - but to the rest of us it’s simply a fearsomely tough, ear-searing pummelling.

Edinburgh Fringe: Flap!, The Famous Spiegeltent

graeme Thomson Tuesday, 14 August 2012

Towards the end of a ridiculously easy and enjoyable hour spent in their company, Flap!’s singer and ukulele player Jess Guille described “Rock in Space” as “jazz-folk-disco” – and, you know, it kind of was. A bawdy, slap-happy five-piece from Melbourne, their root note is pre-war American jazz, but to that foundation they add ska, gypsy music, blues, folk and flickers of more contemporary styles, mixing them all together with deceptive ease.

Hal Willner's Freedom Rides, Royal Festival Hall

Peter Culshaw Monday, 13 August 2012

This was an odd duck of a concert for the final night of the Olympics. Elsewhere in London were the reformed Spice Girls and Blur and general partying, whereas this was at times a sombre show, curated by Hal Willner as part of Antony’s Meltdown Festival. It was inspired by the Freedom Rides, a turning point in the American Civil Rights movement.

Comment

Blur, Hyde Park

Dylan Moore Monday, 13 August 2012

Even as London partied, the talk was already about legacy. And as Blur took the stage on a Best of British bill that impressively included New Order and The Specials, the open secret that this may have been their last ever gig – “certainly in this country, for a long, long time” – gave a chance to assess the question of what the legacy might be of the band that unquestionably inspired a generation.

Comment

Edinburgh Fringe: Rosie Wilby

graeme Thomson Sunday, 12 August 2012

Rosie Wilby: How (Not) to Make it in Britpop, Bongo Club ***

In the 1990s Rosie Wilby was lurking on the outer edges of Britpop with her band Wilby, whose giddy career highlights included opening for Tony Hadley (he evacuated the entire room for the soundcheck), being clamped outside the venue while supporting Bob Geldof, and getting their own plastic name tag in the racks of Virgin Megastore.

Reissue CDs Weekly: The Kinks

Kieron Tyler Sunday, 12 August 2012

The Kinks: The Kinks at the BBC

Kieron Tyler

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