New Music Reviews
Berlin Sounds, Ether Festival, Queen Elizabeth HallSunday, 25 April 2010
One of the recurring themes in BBC4's recent documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth Of Germany, was the importance placed by so many of its participants upon transcending Germany's then-recent past. Move on several decades, and you now have a country with a rich, varied and unique musical culture that not only has a global reach and influence, but which can also afford the luxury of being able to look back at itself and even have a little fun at its own expense. Read more...
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Bombay Bicycle Club, The Forum, LondonSunday, 25 April 2010
It's not the bobbies on the beat that are getting younger, it's the bands. Bombay Bicycle Club formed while at school in north London's Crouch End and were already making a name for themselves when they left full-time education in 2008. Rock and roll domination is on the curriculum instead, thanks to the success of last year's debut album, I Had the Blues but I Shook Them Loose. Read more... |
The Metal Machine Trio, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 21 April 2010
A great wall of noise greets the audience as it settles in to the Royal Festival Hall - the sound of some heavy outer planet’s radio frequency, a subtly oscillating drone that recalls NASA’s recordings of radio emissions from Saturn made by the Cassini spacecraft. Read more... |
Dan Arborise, The Roxy Room, EdinburghWednesday, 21 April 2010
Sometimes the back story doesn’t lead you to where you expect it might. Sometimes that turns out to be a good thing. Dan Arborise was born in Borneo to Polish parents, which opens up all sorts of musical possibilities, most of them probably far less exciting than they sound, but in reality his music is as English as sweet summer rain. Read more... |
Laura Marling, Corn Exchange, CambridgeSaturday, 17 April 2010
To call Laura Marling folk rock’s Sylvia Plath for the Pete Doherty generation probably sounds like faint praise. But ever since I heard her described thus I haven’t been able to lose the Plath comparison. Fragile, sensitive, effortlessly talented; Marling’s all these things. Read more... |
Balkan Beat Box, DingwallsThursday, 15 April 2010
“I can’t fucking hear yer!” are not the welcoming words one expects to hear from a world music favourite, it has to be said. But the audience at Dingwalls don’t look like the usual world music crowd either. This Brooklyn trio have clearly crossed over into the more lucrative club global category, and their hyperactive light show is further evidence of this. But good luck to them, because they are certainly the best of the bunch at doing this whole funky, jazzy, ragga, reggae thing, as well as... Read more... |
Laurie Anderson, Barbican TheatreThursday, 15 April 2010
“I want to tell you a story. About a story.” Thus spake Laurie Anderson at the beginning of her new show, Delusion, which is running for four nights as part of the Barbican’s Bite season. Read more... |
Birthdays on the Tube: 10-16 AprilSunday, 11 April 2010
This week's birthday musicians include Dusty Springfield singing “Son of a Preacher Man”, Joel Grey advocating polygamy, Mikhail Pletnev playing Rachmaninov, early hip hop from Herbie Hancock and Afrika Bambaataa, Henry Mancini and Bessie Smith. Videos below. |
Paolo Nutini, Royal Albert HallSunday, 11 April 2010
Earlier this week, when the line-up for Richard Thompson’s Meltdown festival was announced, one name in particular will surely have raised a few eyebrows: Paolo Nutini. Among the appearances by serious old folkies and earnest young Wainwrights and an “evening of political song” that Thompson has planned for his stint as curator of the annual festival on London’s... Read more... |
Birthdays on the Tube: 3-9 AprilSunday, 04 April 2010
This week’s birthdays of musicians include a couple of disturbed geniuses, Billie Holiday and Joe Meek, underrated rock’n‘roller Carl Perkins, country legend Merle Haggard, as well as Doris Day, Pharrell Williams and bluesman Muddy Waters, whose mojo is working overtime. Videos below. |
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