mon 17/02/2025

book reviews and features

Sally Adee: We Are Electric review - currents that run through us all

Jon Turney

All the things going on with me as I type this – fingers moving keys, eye and brain registering characters on my screen, thoughts that will (I hope) generate the next lot of characters – rely on...

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Extract: The Northern Silence - Journeys in Nordic Music and Culture by Andrew Mellor

Andrew Mellor

“Silence,” Andrew Mellor contends, “is more prominent in the northernmost reaches of Europe.” Yet it is more like a texture or an apprehension of vacancy than a state of true soundlessness:...

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'I let it emerge': an interview with Fiona Benson on the cusp of the TS Eliot Prize announcement

Jack Barron

Fiona Benson’s new collection of poems, Ephemeron (Jonathan Cape, 2022), tries to capture those things that are always moving out of grasp. It does this through four sections: the first...

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Jaan Kross: A Book of Falsehoods review - plague, power and deception in 16th century Tallinn

David Nice

When the first volume of Estonian master Jaan Kross’s peerless historical trilogy first appeared in an English...

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Best of 2022: Books

theartsdesk

From Kafka’s spry sketches to Derek Owusu’s novel-poem, and Jaan Kross’s Estonian Wolf Hall to Katherine Rundell’s spirited biography of John Donne, our reviewers take the time to share...

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10 Questions for writer and translator Saskia Vogel

Hannah Hutching

Johanne Lykke Holm’s spellbinding novel Strega recounts one teen’s journey into womanhood....

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Bob Dylan: The Philosophy of Modern Song review - a book that contains multitudes

mark Kidel

Some years after Chronicles (2004) a book that broke moulds and delighted with its originality, and as with albums...

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Kelefa Sanneh: Major Labels review - diary of an omnivorous musicophile

India Lewis

Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres is American critic Kelefa Sanneh’s ambitious survey of musical history. As such, it risks remaining only a...

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10 Questions for Bruce Lindsay, biographer of Ivor Cutler

Sebastian Scotney

Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room by Bruce Lindsay, is the first full-length...

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Patrick Duff: The Singer review - agony and ecstasy of a rock'n'roll life

mark Kidel

As our favourite rock stars become elders, there has been a steady flow of autobiographies, some ghosted, some...

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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic...

Genius doesn't always tally with equal opportunities, to paraphrase Doris Lessing. Opera houses have a duty to put on new works by women composers...

Unicorn, Garrick Theatre review - wordy and emotionless desi...

Since when has new writing become so passionless? Mike Bartlett is one of the country’s premiere playwrights and his new play, Unicorn,...

Josienne Clarke, Across The Evening Sky, Kings Place review...

On the first date of a 17-concert tour that had its preview at Celtic Connections in January, Across the Evening Sky begins with the...

Vollmond, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris...

Imagine: you take your seat at the best restaurant in town, the waiter arrives with a flourish to fill your water glass, you hold it out and he...

Patrick Duff, The Mount Without, Bristol review - sacred mus...

There is an atmosphere of otherworldly stillness within the stony womb of a large dilapidated church in...

Album: Tim Hecker - Shards

The question of personality in abstract and ambient music has always been a fascinating one. Without conventional signifiers of expressiveness,...

Music Reissues Weekly: Sharks - Car Crash Supergroup

Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the...

Fat Dog, Chalk, Brighton review - a frenetic techno-rock jug...

Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people. Their manic energy blew...

Sidorova, Philharmonia, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall review -...

George Gershwin called one of his early classic songs, first created by Fred and Adele Astaire, “Fascinating Rhythm”. It was that mesmeric pull...

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