New Music Reviews
Drake, O2 ArenaWednesday, 28 March 2012
Drake’s routine is divisive; he’s attracted hip-hop’s most loyal following in a somewhat unconventional way. By using self-doubt as his signature complex, he’s taken something traditionally uninteresting and made it his calling card. The cringe factor in his lyrics seem, from the outside, best suited to an album at the tail-end of a career, but that’s without considering his charm, his astute ear for a chorus, and how unashamedly, loveably contrived and cheesy his whole shtick is. Read more...
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Ambrose Akinmusire, Colston Hall, BristolWednesday, 28 March 2012
Ambrose Akinmusire is the new jazz sensation, the messiah of the post-bop trumpet. With his hyper-talented and youthful quintet, the 29-year-old Californian delivered a set in Bristol that rang all the changes from the soft and lyrical to high-energy heat. Read more... |
Roberto Fonseca, BarbicanTuesday, 27 March 2012
The dazzling Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca delighted a packed Barbican last night – but part of the fun was seeing him negotiate the balance between more soulful, minimal playing and sheer technically brilliant extravagance. Is he more an heir to Chucho Valdez, the consummate sophisticated Havana Jazzer, or to Ruben Gonzalez, the more lyrical pianist of the Buena Vista Social Club, into whose shoes he had the tricky task of stepping for their live tours? Read more... |
Korn, Brixton AcademyTuesday, 27 March 2012
To dubstep or not to dubstep, that was the question perplexing the nearly 5000 metalheads jammed into the Brixton Academy to see Korn. Read more... |
JLS, O2 ArenaSaturday, 24 March 2012
The X Factor has made it far easier for fans to connect with artists from the get-go - as far as the viewer is concerned, the life story of each auditionee starts at episode one. Following JLS from that first audition to a third sold-out arena tour in the space of just four years has instilled a sense of pride in even the youngest of fans. Read more... |
AUKSO Chamber Orchestra, Penderecki, Barbican HallFriday, 23 March 2012
I don't much like aspirational music-making. I like my classical classical and my pop pop. Give me Boulez over Bernstein, Britney over Radiohead, any day. Having said that, I'd heard a piece by Jonny Greenwood at Reverb last month that had gone some way to winning me over. For a brief moment, Greenwood dropped the avant-garde pose that he's adopted for most of his other classical compositions and indulged in a bit of tender-hearted Romanticism that was nothing if not charming. Read more... |
Jessie Ware, The NaveFriday, 23 March 2012
It’s sometimes difficult to imagine that a new pop star can ever live up to even the most optimistic fan’s expectations. Spiralling hype and contagious squeals over mp3s are one thing, but with the subject standing before them to perform a full live set it’s all too often a different story - the cloak is removed and hark, there’s a human being behind it. A human being who talks, sings and performs songs we’ve never heard before! Read more... |
The Civil Wars, Shepherd's Bush EmpireWednesday, 21 March 2012
The Civil Wars are one of those bands rendered suddenly white hot in the UK by a classy performance on Later with Jools Holland. They’re a photogenic country-ish acoustic singer-songwriter pairing whose style is just un-country enough to fit neatly alongside James Morrison on Home Counties i-players, but whose very, very faint tint of Deep South gothic also has the hipsters intrigued. Read more... |
Paul Weller, RoundhouseMonday, 19 March 2012
I had a terrible fright last week. While listening to BBC London DJ Robert Elms introduce a track from the new Paul Weller album, Sonik Kicks. What I heard sounded remarkably like Oasis. It seemed that the man who once influenced Noel Gallagher was now so bereft of ideas he was reduced to ripping off Noel Gallagher. To my relief Robert Elms followed the track with an apology. He had pressed the wrong button and had played a Noel Gallagher track by mistake. Read more... |
Tony Benn & Roy Bailey, The Komedia, BrightonThursday, 15 March 2012
In the age of Mumford & Sons we should recall that half a century ago, folk music wasn’t so much acoustic pop as agitprop, staunch leftwing propaganda. Singers such as Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger toured songs rife with witty, angry social discontent, incidentally setting in place the UK’s early gig and festival circuit. Read more... |
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