avant-garde
CD: Lucas Santtana - Sem NostalgiaWednesday, 17 August 2011
I first heard Bahia-born Lucas Santtana on the best compilation of contemporary Brazilian music of the past couple of years, Oi! A nova musica Brasileira. His track “Hold Me In”, an acoustic slice of bossa nova, was a quiet interlude amonst all the... Read more... |
Rain Dogs Revisited, BarbicanThursday, 14 July 2011
So how did you survive the 1980s? I don’t mean money-wise; I’m sure you had plenty of that. I mean musically and therefore spiritually. It was a diet of Thomas Mapfumo and old Nina Simone albums that got me through the first half, until the Red... Read more... |
Last Year in MarienbadSunday, 10 July 2011
It is resonantly famous, picking up plaudits from the off, with one Sight & Sound commentator claiming in 1962 that it was the "greatest film ever made", for which he'd been waiting "during the last 30 years". That now seems slightly hysterical... Read more... |
Colin Currie, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, CBSO, BCMG, Oliver Knussen, Aldeburgh FestivalMonday, 27 June 2011
Yesterday afternoon's final concert at the Aldeburgh Festival saw an astonishing world premiere. A major new double concerto from a 102-year-old Elliott Carter. Imagine Schubert premiering a song cycle in 1900, or Van Gogh unveiling a self... Read more... |
Sónar 2011: Day 3 and Round-upTuesday, 21 June 2011
This is where the delirium kicks in. Tired but happy, the attendees started the third day of Sónar festival slightly boggled by how to pick and choose from the strange delights on offer. Saturday was when the true musical variety of the festival was... Read more... |
The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World, Tate BritainWednesday, 15 June 2011
Who were the Vorticists? Were they significant? Were they any good? And does this little-known British avant-garde movement – if it can be called anything as cohesive - really deserve a major survey at Tate Britain? Many of the group’s paintings... Read more... |
tUnE-yArDs, ScalaThursday, 09 June 2011
Sometimes you hear something new and your perspective on music shifts seismically, making everything you were listening to previously sound safe and predictable by comparison. Inevitably, as one gets older and more musically knowledgeable, such... Read more... |
European Festivals 2011 Round-UpMonday, 23 May 2011
Be different - take a festival break in Europe instead of the UK, and catch a different landscape. While artists in both new music and classical are constantly circling the world in search of more picturesque settings, you can find your alternative... Read more... |
CD: tUnE-yArDs - whokillSunday, 24 April 2011
Even the cover artwork refuses to conform, breaking the first rule of graphic design by utilising a dozen different typefaces and alternating upper and lower-case lettering for maximum optical anarchy. In fact, the inference is that we should play... Read more... |
DVD: Two in the WaveThursday, 21 April 2011
At the heart of the creative orgy that was the Nouvelle Vague was one key love affair. A love affair so passionate it wasn't long before it turned into a full-blown hate affair. The friendship and fallout of directors Jean-Luc Godard and François... Read more... |
Out Hear: Exaudi play John Cage Song Books, Kings PlaceTuesday, 29 March 2011
At its best, and most preposterous, John Cage's work can be a mind-cleanser. The overwhelmingly silly randomised conjunctions and ontological punning of the great Zen master of the 20th-century avant-garde can coax and trick you into letting go of... Read more... |
Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark, Barbican Art GalleryMonday, 21 March 2011
I can still remember the excitement of pounding the pavements of SoHo in the early 1970s. Nowadays, this part of downtown Manhattan is awash with expensive restaurants, boutiques and smart galleries, but then it was a scruffy industrial area of... Read more... |
