wed 11/06/2025

New Music Reviews

Park Jiha, Stone Nest, K-Music - timeless evocative East-West soundscapes

Peter Culshaw

Even those with the most tangential connection to pop music will be aware that K-Pop is all conquering, and the likes of BTS and BlackPink are on some metrics the most successful of recent acts anywhere. But at the same time, there is also a growing awareness that there is a burgeoning Korean indie and art music scene, the flames of which have been fanned by what has become one of London’s most interesting and enterprising annual festivals, K-Music.

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Album: Stormzy - This Is What I Mean

Barney Harsent

“All of this music, it’s nothing to do with the listener,” Stormzy announced to Louis Theroux in a recent TV interview. “All I can do is feel what I feel and document that, and whatever that is, that’s what it’s going to be.”

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Mary Gauthier, Union Chapel review - a living room concert in all but name

Liz Thomson

Mary Gauthier’s first tour in more than three years landed at London’s Union Chapel on Saturday, concluding with another sold-out gig. The venue is perfect for unplugged acts – intimate, architecturally pleasing and acoustically spot on. But cold, on this windswept November night.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Love - Expressions Tell Everything

Kieron Tyler

Any reminder of the greatness of Love is welcome, and Expressions Tell Everything does this in fine style. A box set, it contains eight picture-sleeve seven-inch singles, a book and a couple of postcards. It’s very stylish.

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Wet Leg, O2 Forum Kentish Town review - eclectic glee from an emerging band

India Lewis

Arriving to the second night of two shows in the same venue, you would expect it to be a little quieter. But Wet Leg’s second outing at the O2 in Kentish Town was anything but – their burgeoning reputation (they are supporting Harry Styles next year) ensuring an excellent and enthusiastic turnout.

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Hewitt, Hallé, Schuldt, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - lightening the gloom

Robert Beale

If there was a certain doom-laden dimension to Clemens Schuldt’s Bridgewater Hall programme with the Hallé ( … Requiem … Mozart in D minor … Strauss describing Death and …), it was easily lightened by the conductor’s own approach and personality.

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Working Men's Club, Chalk, Brighton review - untrammelled, noisy and grim-faced

Thomas H Green

The chorus to Working Men’s Club’s song “Money is Mine” usually runs, “Endless depression, it’s time/Suicide is yours when the money is mine.” Presented as the penultimate song of their set, frontman Syd Minksy-Sargeant distils this.

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Nu Civilisation Orchestra & ESKA: 'Hejira' and 'Mingus', Poole Lighthouse review - redistributing the future

joe Muggs

I had high hopes for this show. After all, Eska Mtungwazi is pretty much the only singer on earth I’d go out of my way to hear sing Joni Mitchell songs.

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EFG London Jazz Festival round-up review - great moments in London's tiny clubs

Sebastian Scotney

There are moments when a very great jazz musician makes her or his ideas flow naturally, unstoppably and with complete conviction. And when one is in a tiny venue and can feel the joyous intensity with which every single person in the room is listening… there are few if any musical experiences that can match it.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Goin' Round In My Mind - The Merrell Fankhauser Anthology

Kieron Tyler

Merrell Fankhauser's first outing on record was with Californian instrumental surf band The Impacts, who issued their sole album in 1963. Thereafter, he was the prime mover in an unbroken succession of pop, psychedelic and freak-rock bands. His first solo album arrived in 1976.

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