fri 08/12/2023

New Music Reviews

Music Reissues Weekly: High Tide - The Complete Liberty Recordings

Kieron Tyler

High Tide were one of many late Sixties and early Seventies British bands unearthed in the early Eighties by record collectors digging into what came after psychedelia. The bands didn’t have similar musical styles but were united by their obscurity and having sold barely any copies of their albums. All were largely forgotten until their rediscovery. Ben, Gracious!, Pussy, Red Dirt, T2, more. Who were these bands? Who were High Tide?

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Christine Tobin, EFG London Jazz Festival, World Heart Beat review - an enchanting ode to home

peter Quinn

This UK premiere of the award-winning, Dublin-born vocalist and composer Christine Tobin’s latest project, Returning Weather, presented an otherworldly ode to finding home – casting multiple perspectives on our yearning for connection and human warmth.

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Sisters of Mercy, KK's Steel Mill, Wolverhampton review - Goth veterans return to the fray

Guy Oddy

Andrew Eldritch, vocalist and convent leader of the Sisters of Mercy, is a famously obtuse character. This may have made him seem somewhat mysterious over the years, but it has also meant that he has missed a few open goals too.

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Les Égarés, London Jazz Festival, Cadogan Hall review - a wondrous musical conversation

mark Kidel

Combine four super-talents, masters of their instrument, and you might well expect a battle of egos or a clash of modi operandi.  Not least, as in the case of Les Égarés, a quartet made up from two seasoned duos – the virtuoso jazzers Vincent Peirani (accordeon) and  Émile Parisien (soprano sax) on the one hand, and the entrancing creative partnership of Ballaké Sissoko (kora) and Vincent Ségal (cello) on the other.  And yet…

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Death Cult, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - The Cult revisit their post-punk roots

Guy Oddy

The Cult may have only really hit paydirt in the late Eighties when they started worshipping at the altar of the Rawk Gods of more than a decade before and welcomed Rick Rubin and Bob Rock to toughen up their sound on albums like Electric and Sonic Temple.

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Le Guess Who? 2023, Utrecht - deep listening and deft dancing

Cheri Amour

On a Friday morning under the Dom Tower, the tallest church spire in the Netherlands, our enthusiastic guide explains that we’re standing on 2000 years of history. Formed on the frontier of the Roman Empire, Utrecht originally bordered the river Rhine.

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Album: Lucidvox - That's What Remained

Kieron Tyler

That's What Remained is the aural equivalent of being pulled into a maelstrom and then surrendering to this powerful natural force. Initially, it does not seem safe. But it soon becomes apparent that submission isn’t a problem. It will be fine. Emerging from this experience is accompanied by a shakiness. But that’s OK too.

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Ben Folds, Royal Albert Hall review - piano pyrotechnics and modern musings

Bernard Hughes

When Ben Folds emerged in the mid-90s he was like Billy Joel’s snot-nosed little brother: another virtuoso pianist and songwriter but one whose style was sarcastic, subversive and a little bit punky.

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Hiromi's Sonicwonder, EFG London Jazz Festival, Barbican review - keyboard fireworks from a brilliantly versatile jazz pianist

Rachel Halliburton

To watch virtuoso jazz pianist Hiromi perform is to experience a vast weather system of sound; at some moments exuberant hailstorms of notes alternate with thunderous chords, at others, sombre atonal passages resolve into a burst of sunshine.

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 80: Nanci Griffith, Scuba, Dope Lemon, Aerosmith, Bob Marley, Pharoah Sanders and more

Thomas H Green

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Being Dead When Horses Would Run (Bayonet)

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