New Music Reviews
Elbow and New Order, Lucca Summer Festival review – a meeting of Mancunian minds?Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Thirty-three years ago, at Manchester's Festival of the Tenth Summer, I fumed that New Order had been given top billing over The Smiths, much to the mirth of a couple of reviewers of this very parish. History has proved me wrong, obviously. So, to Italy, and a modest-sized and relatively modern piazza (Napoleonic) in beguiling, ancient Lucca. Read more... |
Django Bates Belovèd Trio, Evan Parker, Wigmore Hall review – a one-off or a premiere?Monday, 15 July 2019
"Genius" is a word to be used sparingly, but Django Bates surely is one. “A musical polymath and prodigiously gifted composer” went the citation for his Ivor Award a few weeks ago. “Joyful, insouciant and insanely clever,” wrote Evan Parker in a sleeve-note describing his re-workings of Charlie Parker in Confirmation (2011), the second album with his Belovèd Trio. Read more... |
Bob Dylan and Neil Young, BST Hyde Park review - flat-out brilliant and strangely compellingMonday, 15 July 2019
It was billed as a moment of musical history: two of the great icons of rock'n'roll sharing a double-headline. A dream ticket. Except, of course, everyone knows that only one of the two acts is still a conventional performer. And it's not Bob Dylan. Throughout the afternoon men in old tour t-shirts discussed concerts they'd seen and wondered what might be in store today. The sun was shining and a... Read more... |
Florence + the Machine, BST Hyde Park review - mastering the matriarchyMonday, 15 July 2019
It’s a rare thing that musicians sound better live than they do on Spotify. But Florence Welch sings a note perfect set – even when jumping up and down like a pogo stick, whirling and spinning, or sprinting along the front of the stage to meet fans. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: John RenbournSunday, 14 July 2019
Although British folk-jazz stylists Pentangle played their first official concert in May 1967, their name is borrowed for the title of Unpentangled, a box set of their guitarist John Renbourn’s work on album which kicks off two years earlier. Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Montreal International Jazz Festival - fabulous at 40Wednesday, 10 July 2019
The Montreal Jazz Festival is vast. It attracts an audience of between 1.5 and 2 million people over its 12 nights. It has been estimated to bring the city more revenue than the Canadian Grand Prix. Read more... |
Public Service Broadcasting, Caerphilly Castle review - rising to the occasionTuesday, 09 July 2019
Among the summer gigs being held in Caerphilly this summer, it seemed a tall order for electronic/math rock instrumentalists Public Service Broadcasting to pack out a castle. They may be more current, but the others (The Stranglers, Groove Armada, The Zutons et al) at least had notable commercial periods. Read more... |
Frank Turner, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow review - songs about love, friendship and putting the world to rightsMonday, 08 July 2019
“When I was a small boy growing up in the south of England,” says Frank Turner - pausing just long enough for the anticipated good-natured jeering from the Scottish crowd - “I dreamed of playing the legendary King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut.” Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jon Savage's 1965–1968, Modern & Kent Northern SoulSunday, 07 July 2019
Last month, this column pondered a vinyl-only R.E.M. reissue. Despite the mystifyingly high sales price of original pressings, reissuing a best-of mostly collecting easily available tracks seemed a tad unnecessary. Moreover, it lacked imagination. Read more... |
Stevie Wonder, BST Hyde Park review - the Master Blaster steps outSunday, 07 July 2019
Day two of the seventh BST Hyde Park concert series, and despite darkening skies the rain held off until the last hour or so, at which point anything else would have seemed inappropriate – for Stevie Wonder was about to tell us that in September he is to have a kidney transplant. Read more... |
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