sat 02/08/2025

New Music Reviews

Reissue CDs Weekly: 94 Baker Street Revisited, Buzzcocks, Tim Hardin, Julian Cope

Kieron Tyler


94 Baker Street RevisitedVarious Artists: 94 Baker Street Revisited

Read more...

Matthew Halsall/Zara McFarlane, Ronnie Scott's

Tim Cumming

Fronting her four piece band - pianist Peter Edwards and saxophonist Binker Golding among them - the young jazz/soul singer Zara McFarlane performs a mix of new songs and tunes from her album, Until Tomorrow. Among the former, “Woman in the Olive Groves” is inspired by a midnight taxi ride through southern Italy, passing an African woman by the highway, among the olive groves, trading her sex.

Read more...

Hammer & Tongue + Slipjam:B - 10th Annual Poets vs MCs, Concorde 2, Brighton

Thomas H Green

For a decade these two outfits, the Hammer & Tongue poetry collective and the Slipjam:B crew of hip hop MCs, have been taking each other on. They both run their own successful nights but this evening is their yearly face-off. As it reaches its climax, after a series of rounds, the two units are onstage together, MCs stage right, poets stage left, taking turns to front up, laying into each other, riding a thin line between affable digs and bawdy insult.

Read more...

RBMA presents LFO, XOYO

joe Muggs

Of all the major acts from the the acid house/rave explosion, Leeds's LFO seem least interested in becoming a “heritage act”. Perhaps it's because Mark Bell (the sole member of LFO since the early departure of Gez Varley) has no need to cash in on the brand, thanks to his lucrative “day job” as producer of choice for the likes of Björk and Depeche Mode.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Hawkwind, Dual Form, The Children’s Hour, Buddy Guy

Kieron Tyler


Hawkwind Space RitualHawkwind: Space Ritual

Read more...

Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy, BBC Four

Kieron Tyler

Although there was no shortage of interview clips with Glen Campbell [who has died at the age of 81] in this fine overview of his career, the tragedy was that archives were so heavily drawn on. Tragic because pop-country stylist Campbell has Alzheimer’s and is limited in what he can contribute.

Read more...

Sinéad O'Connor, LSO St Lukes, London

Thomas H Green

The manner and the speed with which Sinéad O’Connor veers between impishly poking fun at herself and her material, and delivering it with scorching force, is bewildering.

Read more...

Dropkick Murphys, Barrowlands, Glasgow

Lisa-Marie Ferla

Was there ever a band to generate such passionate fan adulation as Dropkick Murphys? Keeping up a chant of "Let's Go Murphys" for a good 10 minutes before there was any sign of the Boston seven-piece on the city's most famous stage, the Glasgow punks were in fine voice even before the raucous singalongs began.

Read more...

CD: José James - No Beginning No End

peter Quinn

On this debut album for Blue Note, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter José James effortlessly blends the beat-driven mien of hip-hop, the surprising transitions of jazz and the raw emotion of classic R&B to produce his strongest statement to date. Following three critically acclaimed albums for the Brownswood and Verve labels, James seems to have discovered the key to making the simple resonate.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Marianne Faithfull, Françoise Hardy, Pia Fraus

Kieron Tyler

 

Marianne Faithfull Broken EnglishMarianne Faithfull: Broken English

Read more...

Pages

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - Passion in the Ca...

“Powerful, Timeless, Inspiring” it says on the front cover of the programme-book for this year’s supposedly 297th Three Choirs Festival at...

Album: Mansur Brown - Rihla

I like to think I’m open to most things, but even so I never thought that I’d be getting an education in prog metal in the summer of 20205. Let...

Natalia Ginzburg: The City and the House review - a dying ar...

Many readers and writers think of epistolary novels as old-fashioned, just as letter writing itself can seem a bit quaint nowadays. The genre...

BBC Proms: Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Kaljuste rev...

Arvo Pärt was into his 40s before he made had his Big Musical Idea: simplicity. He has spent the subsequent half-century pursuing this ideal,...

Top Hat, Chichester Festival Theatre review - top spectacle...

After 76 years, you’d have thought they could’ve come up with a better story! Okay, that’s a cheap jibe and, given the elusive...

Late Shift review - life and death in an understaffed Swiss...

Floria (the superb Leonie Benesch: The Crown; The Teachers’ Lounge; September 5) is a nurse, working the severely understaffed...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Alright Sunshine / K Mak at t...

Alright Sunshine, Pleasance Dome ...

The Naked Gun review - farce, slapstick and crass stupidity

The original Naked Gun series (spun off from the Police Squad! TV show) brought reliable belly-laughs to the Eighties and...

Album: Reneé Rapp - Bite Me

The stage musical update of Mean Girls, and the film adaptation, pushed Reneé Rapp into the public eye. She played queen bitch Regina...