New Music Features
theartsdesk in Estonia: Tallinn Music WeekThursday, 05 April 2012
It began with a warning. Opening the fourth Tallinn Music Week, Estonia’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves cautioned, “In a free society, it’s risk-free. In an un-free society, it’s not risk-free. It’s not all fun.” From behind a hotel conference room lectern, he then began rolling a video of Russia’s Pussy Riot being arrested in Moscow a few days earlier. Not everyone can make their point, make their music, choose how they want to get it across. Read more... |
Popcorn and Polymorphia: Jonny Greenwood meets PendereckiThursday, 22 March 2012
Krzysztof Penderecki's Polymorphia for 48 string instruments dates back to 1962, and still stands as one of the grand milestones of the avant-garde. It epitomised the Polish composer's technique of "timbre organisation", in which the plucking and bowing of strings was merely a small part of an astounding array of effects. Read more... |
theASHtray: Homeland, Kings of Leon, and we need to talk about AïdaSaturday, 25 February 2012
So Homeland is here, and mid-ranking-CIA-operative Claire Danes is chasing Marine-Sergeant-and-possible-al-Qaeda-double-agent Damian Lewis all over the shop (but really only in their heads, so far), and neither of them is getting anywhere fast, so Claire goes home for a kip and sticks on some relaxing music, and would you Adam ‘n’ Eve it? – another bloody jazz nerd! Read more... |
theartsdesk in Oslo: by:Larm Festival 2012 and the Nordic Music PrizeWednesday, 22 February 2012
Although the four days of Norway’s 15th by:Larm Festival were dominated by the presentation of the second annual Nordic Music Prize, there were plenty of other distractions: a sobering tour of Norwegian black metal’s infamous sites, a talk by legendary Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, what felt like millions of shows in millions of venues, and weather confounding all expectations of what Oslo ought to be like in February. Read more... |
Carolina Chocolate Drops: Leaving Eden and Moving OnMonday, 20 February 2012
Something falls with a clatter from one of Dom Flemons’s pockets. The Carolina Chocolate Drops’s banjo player, guitarist and all-round picker and plucker has a lot of pockets. Earlier, he’d produced a pipe from one, a tobacco pouch and tuning pipes from others, but what has just dropped on the table are his bones. His musical bones. The ones whose rhythms are rarely far from the heart of his band. “You never know when you’re going to need them,” he says. “Sometimes you just get bored." Read more... |
theASHtray: Whitney, bin men, and the NPG's 'incautious' acquisitionsSaturday, 18 February 2012
Right, out with it: who else had their Valentine’s dinner-out ruined by 36 consecutive requests for Whitney Houston? Not even the entire back-catalogue, either: just “(And I-ee-I-ee-) I…”, over and over. Read more... |
Whitney Houston: The Legacy of an R&B DivaThursday, 16 February 2012
Of the many statements and tributes coming from peers and fans following the death of Whitney Houston last Saturday, perhaps the most unlikely of all was the one from the website of Diamanda Galás. One mightn't have imagined the most fiercely uncompromising singer of her (or any other) generation rushing to the defence of someone widely seen as the patron saint of the just-add-water divas of The X Factor age. Read more... |
theASHtray: Beyoncé, 'Bond', and Eddie Redmayne's lipsSaturday, 04 February 2012
So, Birdsong is over, and for all the arts-crit ink spilled upon it I am still none the wiser vis-à-vis my three main points of concern. First: it is a truth universally acknowledged (I asked around) that the most memorable episode in the Faulks novel was the one about the blowjob. This scene was not so much absent from the TV version as, er... cunningly re-gendered. Why?! Read more... |
John Martyn: Three-Year WakeSunday, 29 January 2012
Exactly three years ago, late in the morning of 29 January, 2009, the news began to circulate that John Martyn had died at the age of 60. I spent the following 24 hours or so talking to many of his cronies to help assemble a tribute feature for a music magazine. Chris Blackwell, the man who had signed him to Island in 1967, had just stepped off a plane in Jamaica. He sounded fuzzy and uncertain. He knew Martyn was dead but needed details. “What happened, I haven’t heard?” he asked. Read more... |
2011: The Rave ReturnsFriday, 30 December 2011
Against all the odds, I find myself going into 2012 with a strong sense of optimism. And the reason? I am a born-again rave zealot. I saw it at Outlook Festival in Croatia, I saw it at Sónar in Barcelona, and I saw it at the Big Chill where I was running a stage; participatory, constructive, creative partying, where the crowds go not just to be entertained but to plug into something bigger, to be part of something. Read more... |
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