New Music Reviews
Dub Colossus, Bloomsbury BallroomThursday, 11 November 2010
I’d not been to the Bloomsbury Ballroom before, but over the past five years or so the likes of Amy Winehouse and Martha Reeves have played this plush Art Deco space. Somewhat disconcertingly, apart from the stage, the rest of the hall was in virtual darkness which suited Dub Colossus perfectly: this intriguing collective of British and Ethiopian musicians are purveyors of intense, atmospheric dance music who actually benefited from this dramatic lack of lighting which made the stage appear... Read more... |
Hot Chip/ LCD Soundsystem, Alexandra PalaceWednesday, 10 November 2010
Unlikely cool. It’s what unites LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip. They’re the geeks and outsiders who made it to being hip on the dancefloor. These improbable, subversive electro-pop heroes have united this autumn for what for fans has been a dream double-headline tour. Both bands have had albums out this year and both albums have been well received. But for James Murphy the rumours are that this may be the last tour he does as LCD Soundsystem. Read more... |
Odd Future, The Drop, Stoke NewingtonSaturday, 06 November 2010
Given the somewhat viral nature of Odd Future's rapidly flourishing notoriety, it's both appropriate and a little ironic that their debut UK performance should take place in the basement of a pub in a part of north London where the underground doesn't run. Also known as OFWGKTA (or Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), this 10-strong self-contained teenage rap conglomerate from Los Angeles has united hip-hop über-nerds, jaded old-schoolers and regular rap fans alike – a remarkable... Read more... |
Terry Riley Celebration, St George's Bristol & Bristol Old VicSaturday, 06 November 2010
Terry Riley is one of the great unsung heroes of contemporary music, the ur-minimalist who shaped the creative paths of John Adams, Peter Townshend, Mike Oldfield and Philip Glass, to name just a sample of the wide range of musicians who have been inspired by his raga-tinged loops and all-enveloping electronic soundscapes. Read more... |
Wilko Johnson, O2 Academy IslingtonFriday, 05 November 2010
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it an amphetamine-fuelled chicken on rollers? No, it’s the one-time guitarist for Dr Feelgood (during the only period that matters) still doing the moves that made him the main reason to see the band in the mid-1970s. Now bald-headed and bushy-browed but still delivering those electrically charged stares (which he learnt to do during a brief stint as a schoolteacher), he had the air of a benevolent dictator last night as he surveyed the Academy’s crowd for... Read more... |
Magnetic Man, HeavenThursday, 04 November 2010
Rave music, in its many ever-mutating forms, is now more than a generation into its existence. Many, possibly most, of the crowd pushing into Heaven, under Charing Cross station, weren't even born when acid house fully hit the UK in 1988, but none of them are here for some retro experience. It's hard, as a superannuated lover of electronic beats, not to feel cultural vertigo at the fact that what once felt like the most impossibly inhuman of sounds has now become so ubiquitous and so... Read more... |
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, The GarageTuesday, 02 November 2010
Bounding on stage in a purple version of the man dress pioneered by Mick Jagger at The Stones’s 1969 Hyde Park concert, Ariel Pink looks like a mistranslated version of what a late-Sixties rock star should be. His long hair is dyed blonde. The roots show. His make-up is already smudged, as if applied with mittens. Read more... |
Neil Diamond, Radio 2 Electric Proms, RoundhouseSunday, 31 October 2010
At 7.55pm I was tired and grouchy. By 9.30pm I was a happy man, thanks to Neil Diamond. Say what you like about this 69-year-old singer and songwriter: he may be a cheesy old showbiz pro, but personally I am partial to a bit of cheesy showbiz, and an hour and a half in his company on the final night of this year’s Radio 2 Electric Proms was a real tonic. With his Thunderbirds eyebrows and his prowling gait, Diamond was an imposing figure whose voice has lost none of its gritty... Read more... |
Keith Richards: A Culture Show Special, BBC TwoThursday, 28 October 2010
“I was a very good soprano.” Of all the sentences you’d not expect to hear tumbling from the mouth of Keith Richards, that one is up there with "Tap water for me, please, and I do hope this vegan restaurant is non-smoking." He has the addled larynx of a Fag Ash Lil who, when not mopping and dusting, perches on a barstool glugging gin and puffing on Bensons. But once upon a time little Richards did once sing for the Queen. Read more... |
Carl Barât, ScalaWednesday, 27 October 2010
It is not easy to kickstart a fresh musical career after you've been in a painfully fashionable – and intermittently brilliant – band. It is even harder when this is your second bash at starting out again. And harder still when a couple of months ago you trousered enough money to keep you in leather jackets for a lifetime by briefly reforming that original band for a pair of festival cameos. Yet last night erstwhile Libertine and ex-Dirty Pretty Thing Carl Barât did enough to suggest that,... Read more... |
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