New Music Reviews
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... |
Sing Inspiration! Festival, Royal Festival HallThursday, 15 March 2012
Bringing together the most talented choirs, vocalists and musicians from across London and the UK, iGospel's two-day Sing Inspiration! Festival came to a close in spectacular fashion. Lurine Cato opened the concluding "Gospel & Soul" concert, showcasing her impressive five-octave range on “You Revive Me”, the first single from her forthcoming debut album. Read more... |
Mark Lanegan, Shepherds Bush EmpireWednesday, 14 March 2012
He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws… Ah wait now, that’s The Gruffalo. Mark Lanegan doesn’t have any of the above (although he does have tattooed fists and a considerable jaw, and past heroin addiction probably hasn’t played too well with the old teeth). Read more... |
Singles & Downloads: March 2012Monday, 12 March 2012
After a nine-month absence, during which Joe Muggs explored the world's largest natural bassbin in the Amazonian rain forest and Thomas H Green waited to receive his passport back from the Bolivian government, Singles & Downloads returns to celebrate the best in new music. From the ambient to the danceable, the glorious to the outright embarassing, we present the juiciest possible representative cross section of modern popular music. Read more... |
Earth, Union ChapelMonday, 12 March 2012
There have been many Earths. Dylan Carlson has been the only constant, using the shifting line-ups as the vehicle for his vision of a music that is all about space, slowness, and repetition. As last night's concert made clear, he no longer needs a heavy metal framework to achieve his goal. Nowadays, understatement achieves heaviness. You could call it maturing. Read more... |
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