Brighton 2 June 2019 The Albert‘s one of those venues that feels really empty up to a certain point, when it suddenly becomes a sweatbox. Luckily, Frank And Beans are only playing to gaps where people should be for a song or two. Fall fans (and by God did the crowd look like Fall fans) obviously need to get their time in at the bar to whinge about […]
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London 3-5 May 2019 Friday: Gary The May bank holiday is normally a time for the revival of pagan customs in Britain. These can be found from local village morris dancers to the crowning of the May Queen in Glastonbury. For a few days, Britain takes on the stance of people being an extra in The Wicker Man while also drowning their innards in vast quantities of booze.
London 19 April 2019 Ten years is a long time in music. Well, I mean, it’s quite a long time in anything, really. And if you adjust for inflation, ten years in the nineteenth century is actually AGES. Especially for a punk band. So it’s quite a thing that The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing are celebrating a whole decade of their anachronistic anarchy of […]
London 12 April 2019 Ah, an evening of pure Detroit electronica some thirty-five years or more after it first happened is a must-see. The atmosphere of The Barbican’s post apocalyptic Logan’s Run architectural design just added to the palpable excitement as I made my way towards the venue. This is Juan Atkins and Rik Davis’s Cybotron, not to be confused with the seventies Australian Berlin School artists with […]
London 6 April 2019 The faded Tudor grandeur of the venue, set in the urban sprawl of Hackney, was a fitting place for tonight’s entertainment, and its small performance area just added to the night’s intimacy. The second night of celebration for Daniel O’Sullivan‘s Folly LP release (part of The New Arts and Music Programme at Sutton House)
London 2 April 2019 Italian producer and songwriter Giorgio Moroder is basically a legend. After discovering a certain sound in the mid-seventies, he reinvented disco music overnight. The sound was full of synthesizers pulsing to a pounding beat, but also never forgetting that key ingredient, melody. Moroder then won three Oscars for his soundtrack work and during the 1980s, he was pretty much everywhere working with many top […]
Demiurg / London 3 March 2019 This is a story of two enigmas. One is an inscrutable totalitarian art-rock collective, and the other is the most secretive state on Earth. And this is all about what happened when the two collided to the strains of a much-loved feel-good musical with Nazis in it. Laibach have been defying musical and artistic conventions and outraging public decency for nearly forty […]
London 2 March 2019 PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi) were one of the earliest progressive rock bands to emerge from Italy in the early 1970s. They were certainly one of the best known Italian bands of that era, mainly thanks to being signed by Greg Lake to Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s then fledgling Manticore label in the UK and USA, giving the band a much wider profile than they […]
London 29 January 2019 A couple of months ago, the world lost perhaps its greatest showman, the driving force behind the creation of an entire universe: Stan Lee. Today, his creations and co-creations are everywhere — on our TV screens, at the cinema, in book stores and adorning all types of clothing, from socks to baseball caps. His influence on the world of popular culture was massive. As […]
London 26 January 2019 It’s a wet and cold January night as I edge my way past the throngs that inhabit the high street in Brixton to make my way towards the venue. The weather seems rather apt to witness two of doom’s finest bands, as well as Rise Above records stablemates.
London 26 January 2019 After having previously reviewed The Radiophonic Workshop as my first outing for Freq, I this time had the honour of seeing live someone whom you could refer to as a true musical pioneer – I humbly bore witness to the innovative genius of Michael Rother on stage.
VMS Columbine are a group of rappers from Rennes who have captured the spirit of French adolescence. They have recently released their third album, Adieu Bientôt, and are blooming into a rather well-known band. They describe themselves as “absurd, naive and deep” and their music mixes synths and guitars to create their own universe.
Brighton 18 October 2018 After Iglooghost’s live show I was sat up in bed, unable to sleep, furiously making notes and trying to find out exactly why I found this show so brilliant, significant and ground breaking. I still haven’t got to the bottom of it, and I have a strong suspicion if the artist himself read this review he would conclude that I had totally overthought the […]
London 5 December 2018 The good people at Upset The Rhythm have been trading for fifteen years now and the calibre of artists that they have to play seems to improve with every year. It feels as though they made their home at The Islington and tonight’s treats for the ears teamed UTR friend and recording artiste Robert Sotelo with Canadian guitar legend and Constellation label stalwart Eric Chenaux.
London 1 December 2018 It’s Saturday night. It’s Oxford Street. It’s nearly Christmas. It’s fucking horrible, is what it is. And what a relief to get into The 100 Club which, while packed, is still somehow less claustrophobic than the street outside. And the reason it’s packed is because everyone’s hear to see The Heads, the elusive Bristolian psych-rock combo
Cavaillon 28 November 2018 Theatrical ensemble BOT have been presenting their Ramkoers (Collision Course) production around Europe for the last few years, frequently performing in disused factories and other spaces that allow them to bring their post-industrial cabaret to venues appropriate to their subject matter.
London 17 November 2018 My, what a strange day. Going to an afternoon concert is a rare enough event these days anyway, but when the bill of fare involves a jazz ensemble led by a bona fide Hollywood film star, who then proceeds to spend at least half the show doing trivia quizzes, it really is quite something to behold.
Bristol 13 November 2018 Deep in the building’s basement, illuminated by flashing red strobes, Copper Sounds totally seduced with their ritualistic roast of belt-driven bicycle wheels and contact mic(ed) boulders. The undulating mechanism murmured like an arthritic after-shadow in the PA as the calcium rub of the stoney surfaces was effect-fed, bent across grainy percussives in a parade of pendulum-painting pennies