New Music Reviews
Kate Tempest, The Haunt, BrightonFriday, 14 November 2014
Even before Kate Tempest appears, it’s clear this isn’t going to be an evening of slam poetry jamming. Her band walk on, three guys who attack a line-up of electronic kit with vigour, one wielding drumsticks, alongside Anth Clarke, a striking black female MC, who looks like a 2007 nu-raver in baseball cap, white sunglasses and a crop top. They whip up a hammering electro racket before cutting out abruptly when Tempest walks on, all smiles, flowing blonde locks and a low-key black T-shirt. Read more... |
Susheela Raman, Jazz CafeWednesday, 12 November 2014
If a band gets up and says “We are only going to be playing songs from our new album, not actually released here yet” normally most audiences would groan mightily. But somehow Susheela Raman has educated her audience to expect the unexpected. Her somewhat wayward musical path has included Indo-jazz, rock covers, Tamil voodoo music and introspective songs. It has not been one that a manager or record company would have recommended. They tend to like more of the same. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Cyril Davies, Girls With GuitarsSunday, 09 November 2014
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Just in From Scandinavia: Nordic Music Round-Up 12Friday, 07 November 2014
The voice is unmistakably Icelandic. Fluting and dancing around the notes, the words it carries are broken into segments which don’t respect syllables. Although singing in English, Hildur Kristín Stefánsdóttir hasn’t sacrificed her Icelandic intonation. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Love, The Red CrayolaSunday, 02 November 2014
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Sheryl Crow, Royal Albert HallSaturday, 01 November 2014
Sheryl Crow doesn’t do genres. She may have recorded her first authentically country album, Feels Like Home, in Nashville recently, but for her, the tag seems to mean little. “It’s country, but it just sounds like a Sheryl Crow record,” she told the BluesFest audience last night, and whenever the subject came up afterwards, she put finger-wiggling inverted commas around the term “country”. Read more... |
Elvis Costello, Royal Albert HallThursday, 30 October 2014
Georgie Fame opened the evening with a five-piece band, including the singer on his old Hammond organ. Favourites such as “Yeh, Yeh” were belted out to pleasing effect, as well as covers that included Van Morrison’s “Moondance” (Morrison played the packed-out BluesFest the previous evening). It was a strange, “extended” version that paid homage to a Paul Robeson number – Fame boomed out an African chant that bookended the song. Read more... |
Fuse ODG, Under the BridgeSunday, 26 October 2014
The Afrobeats scene is coming to a venue near you. Anglo-Ghanaian artist Fuse ODG, who won the best African Act MOBO last week for the second year running, launched his first album T.I.N.A. last night with a relentless, exuberant performance that brought out the African party flavour to these songs. His album release and tour, on the back of the MOBO success, marks a significant moment in his progression from niche internet popularity to the mainstream. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Minny Pops, The Pop GroupSunday, 26 October 2014
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Lady Gaga, O2 Arena, LondonFriday, 24 October 2014
Gaga’s relationship with her fanbase, her “Little Monsters”, is quite a thing. I’ve not seen the O2 so permanently on its feet. Large swathes of her capacity crowd are up and dancing right from the opening number. They adore her and are dressed to show it, from middle-aged ladies to gay men to teenage girls to many multitudes of humanity in between. Read more... |
The Cyril Davies' All-Stars: Radio Sounds of Cyril Davies Various Artists: Girls With Guitars
Love: Love Songs The Red Crayola: The Parable of the Arable Land
Minny Pops: Drastic Measures, Drastic Movement The Pop Group: Cabinet of Curiosities, We are TimePages
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