New Music Reviews
Album: The Innocence Mission - Midwinter SwimmersWednesday, 27 November 2024
A sycamore tree is described to an appaloosa horse before it is mounted to ride off to visit a friend. The thread used for sewing evokes a map where each street has a doorway which, once opened, reveals memories of those who are missed. Read more... |
EFG London Jazz Festival round-up review - youth, age, and the greatness in betweenTuesday, 26 November 2024
Jazz music crosses, mixes and unites generations, and the 10 concerts I’ve seen at this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival (out of more than 300 in total) have really brought that home. Read more... |
EFG London Jazz Festival 2024 round-up review - from Korean noise to Carnatic soulMonday, 25 November 2024
November can be a month to hunker down for the onset of winter and its weather, and where better to do that than in one of the myriad venues across the capital hosting the annual London Jazz Festival and its hundreds of concerts, from cosy clubs like Ronnie Scott’s and Pizza Express Dean Street to the big stages of the Barbican and South Bank. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Stefan Gnyś - HorizoningSunday, 24 November 2024
For most of Canada’s listening public, their country-man Stefan Gnyś – pronounced G'neesh – wasn’t a concern. The 300 copies of his 1969 single didn’t make it to shops. There was little promotion and limited radio play. Gnyś had paid RCA Limited Recording Services to press the seven-incher. Beyond this transaction, there was no record company involvement. Read more... |
Hannah Scott, Worthing Pavilion Theatre Atrium review - filling an arctic venue with human warmthFriday, 22 November 2024
London-based singer-songwriter Hannah Scott has warned her next song may reduce us to tears. It is, she says, inspired by events following the death of beloved father. The undertaker advised her, and her sister, that it wasn’t really done for women to bear the coffin. They considered this and ignored it. The resulting song, over a simply repeating piano motif played on her Roland keyboard, is called “Carry You Out” (“You carried me into this world/I will carry you out”). Read more... |
English Teacher, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - Mercury winners step up in size with styleWednesday, 20 November 2024
Props designed like flowers were scattered across the QMU stage for English Teacher's performance. A fitting choice given the Leeds group are evidently in full bloom these days, with an upgraded venue in Glasgow due to demand and, of course, a Mercury Music Prize collected along the way for debut album “This Could Be Texas”. Read more... |
Album: Father John Misty - MahashmashanaWednesday, 20 November 2024
The word “mahashmashana” – महामशान in Sanskrit – translates as “great burying ground.” Co-opted as the title of Josh Tillman’s sixth album as Father John Misty, its use might reflect a concern that the contemporary world is facing its demise. Or it may be due to its onomatopoeic quality. Perhaps both. Read more... |
Kenny Barron Trio, Ronnie Scott's review - a master of the coolMonday, 18 November 2024
Kenny Barron, revered as the best jazz pianist around, is a perfect gentleman and a master of “cool” – a quality once described in great depth by the American Africanist Robert Farris Thompson, in an article originally published in African Arts in 1973. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Magazine - Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use of SoapSunday, 17 November 2024
“Let's walk down memory lane the Magazine way. Let's regurgitate fifth-rate Low [the David Bowie album] period pieces. Let's plonk plonk plonk with ponderous sub-Pink Floydery. Let's do the wallpaper waltz. This is not pushing back the barriers. It's frighteningly bland conservatism.” Read more... |
Bob Dylan, Royal Albert Hall review - cracked ritual from rock elderSaturday, 16 November 2024
Will Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour ever come to an end? Two years on from the last UK tour, he’s returned, with substantially the same band, once again mostly featuring material from his brilliant album Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). He’s a little less steady on his feet, but remains as present as ever, clearly enjoying being on stage and contact with an audience that welcomes him with love as well as uncritical adulation. Read more... |
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