tue 11/02/2025

New Music Reviews

Luke Haines, The Hoxton Pony

Kieron Tyler Luke Haines, not taking it easy

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...

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BBC Diverse Orchestras 2011: The Music of North Africa, The Tabernacle

David Nice The Fez Andalusian Orchestra making waves in Notting Hill

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'...

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The Burns Unit, Jazz Café

Russ Coffey The Burns Unit: The hootenanny finally goes on tour