New Music Reviews
Gwilym Simcock, The Forge, CamdenWednesday, 02 February 2011
As star pianist Gwilym Simcock amusingly recalled during his solo set last night, German efficiency almost scuppered the making of his latest and universally acclaimed release, Good Days at Schloss Elmau. Recorded at the deluxe Alpine spa in just a single day last September, the pianist's Herculean keyboard feats were made against a subliminal backing track of meadows being mown and kitchen deliveries being made. Read more... |
The Irrepressibles, Gabby Young & Other Animals, BarbicanSunday, 30 January 2011
A midwinter night’s dream at the Barbican. Those who like their pop music performed by chaps with jeans, preferably gazing at their shoes, and are attached to certain ideas of authenticity would have run screaming for the exit. The Irrepressibles were pop as icy spectacle, as dizzying melodrama, while Gabby Young & Other Animals were raiding the musical dressing-up box and emerging with bits of French chanson, German cabaret and slinky tangos, and having a ball doing it. Read more... |
Teddy Thompson, Queen's Hall, EdinburghSunday, 30 January 2011
When the spotlight caught Teddy Thompson in profile last night it seemed to capture the physiology of an old-school country icon: tall and lean, his pale, angular face appeared all the more classically archetypal jutting out from his jet-black clothes. He certainly looked the part. By the end he had proved – to a degree far beyond any evidence presented on his recorded work - that he could sing it, too. Read more... |
Singles & Downloads 9Tuesday, 25 January 2011
This month we have some unjustly hyped rubbish electro-pop, some unjustly ignored brilliant eletcro-pop, some postmodern retro-disco, some dubstep, some grime, some sampledelic New York punk, and, at the top of the pile, one of Britain's brightest young actors proves he's equally adept on the microphone. Thomas H Green and Joe Muggs plough loudly through the lot with glee and the odd barbed word. Read more... |
Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards 2011, KokoMonday, 24 January 2011
Club music has always been hard to keep track of, and never more so than in the current climate of constant genre meltdown and cross-fertilisation. Which is why the DJ's art is more important than ever, particularly in the case of scene figureheads like the indefatigable Gilles Peterson – known for over 20 years as a patron of all things jazzy, but lately proving brilliantly adept at reaching all corners of what he refers to as “left-field dance music”. Shows like his are ideal –... Read more... |
Manic Street Preachers, Brixton AcademySaturday, 22 January 2011
The annals of rock’n’roll are littered with complacency, fading stars, and acts who’ve had it and then lost it, forever. So, after 20 years, what makes the Manics different? How come they’re still turning out hit albums? Possibly it’s their hand-on-heart, Welsh-valley principles. Maybe it’s the way they find libraries as interesting a subject as love. Or perhaps it’s the way that they keep recovering from the brink of near self-destruction. Read more... |
Luke Haines, The Hoxton PonyThursday, 20 January 2011
Luke Haines holds a small cassette player to the microphone, switches it on and the sounds of birds are heard. It’s “Me and the Birds”, one of his new Outsider Music songs. His old Britpop-era band The Auteurs were guitar pop. His next outfit, Baader Meinhof, were edgier, noisier. After that, Black Box Recorder were artier. But this is beyond any of that. He sings of drinking cocktails in the lounge of a Travelodge with the birds he’s heard outside his window. The Suede reunion wasn... Read more... |
BBC Diverse Orchestras 2011: The Music of North Africa, The TabernacleThursday, 20 January 2011
Now I know why the BBC Symphony Orchestra slunk so easily into Piazzolla tango mode last Friday: they'd danced it under Latin American instruction four years ago. It's all part of their education department's annual Diverse Orchestras week, where performers from another culture come to open the players'... Read more... |
The Burns Unit, Jazz CaféTuesday, 18 January 2011
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