2000s
Music Reissues Weekly: The Hit Parade - Pick Of The Pops Vol.1Sunday, 31 July 2022
On the cover of The Hit Parade’s Pick Of The Pops Vol.1 it says “London’s No.1 Pop Group.” Underneath, a strapline states “File under: C86 twee Sarah Sixties pop.” Obviously, irony is at play with some of this – from the band name to the album title... Read more... |
Album: Arcade Fire -WEThursday, 05 May 2022
When the pandemic closed in, Canadian experimental indie rock troupe Arcade Fire were on the cusp of heading into the studio to record their new album. COVID had other plans. But rather than pause, the husband and wife duo of Win and Regine... Read more... |
After the End, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - suddenly relevant two-handerMonday, 07 March 2022
Mark was teased about the fallout shelter at the bottom of his garden by his co-workers (that wasn’t the only thing – every friendship group has a target for micro-aggressions) but his foresight pays off when terrorists explode a suitcase bomb on a... Read more... |
The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, Royal Exchange, Manchester review - a spooky study in balladryFriday, 10 December 2021
This is a story of an innocent who finds herself unexpectedly in a strange, unknown world. The same could be true for those in its audience.Scottish academia sets great store by the significance of folk tradition, and many are the books and papers... Read more... |
Van der Heijden, Hallé, New, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - rising to challengesFriday, 22 October 2021
The youthful New Zealand-born conductor Gemma New and British cellist Laura van der Heijden between them set the Hallé quite a challenge at this concert.The music was all written in the past 75 years or so – by classical measures that’s pretty... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space; Super Furry Animals - Rings Around the WorldSunday, 26 September 2021
Looking for answers to what qualifies an album for a makeover and its attendant return to record shop racks can cause heads to spin. Multiple variables are at play but, still, it merits pondering. Market factors come into consideration, including... Read more... |
The Last Five Years, Garrick Theatre review - bittersweet musical treat gets West End upgradeSaturday, 25 September 2021
Much has happened in the five years since your reviewer braved the steep rake at The Other Palace and saw The Last Five Years (not least my now getting its “Nobody needs to know” nod in Hamilton – worth a fistful of Tonys in prestige, I guess) so it... Read more... |
Album: Kurupt FM - The Greatest Hits (Part 1)Thursday, 19 August 2021
People Just Do Nothing is a mockumentary BBC TV series, now ended, about fictional Brentford pirate radio crew Kurupt FM. It’s also a comedy based entirely on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, in that the humour derives from the worldview of all the key... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Dungen - StadsvandringarSunday, 20 June 2021
Dungen’s October 2005 appearance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien was incongruous. Here was a Swedish band on an independent label, singing in their native language, playing live on coast-to-coast mainstream US TV. The show’s host making a great... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The World of Wong Kar WaiSunday, 06 June 2021
There is an irony in the fact that the most celebrated of auteurs to emerge during Hong Kong’s "Second Wave" of directors in the 1980s did not originate from within the bounds of the administrative region. Born in Shanghai, Wong Kar Wai was the son... Read more... |
Psappha, Phillips, Hallé St Peter’s, Manchester online review - Turnage world premiereFriday, 30 April 2021
Manchester’s Psappha have been proudly flying the flag of new and radical music right through the year of lockdown, and last night’s livestream, with two-and-a-half world premieres, one of them by Mark-Anthony Turnage, showed they haven’t given up... Read more... |
Andrea Bajani: If You Kept a Record of Sins review - where blame, grief and discovery meetWednesday, 07 April 2021
“I think it happened to you, too, the first time you arrived.” So begins Andrea Bajani’s second novel (Se consideri le colpe, 2007), recently translated from Italian by Elizabeth Harris, with the narrator’s characteristic reserve. “You”, that... Read more... |
