This startling, life-affirming record somehow manages a feat that has otherwise eluded science so far: time travel. Stef Conner has composed a suite of songs that demonstrate how, through the arts, the past is all there, all at once, running parallel to our present. What are its secrets? A bit of background (although Conner’s liner…
Tag: Adrian Ainsworth
Yes, surprises: Rick Simpson, ‘Everything All of the Time: Kid A Revisited’
This album is an extraordinary achievement – certainly no ordinary ‘covers project’. Rick Simpson and his ensemble wilfully tackle head-on perhaps the original writers’ most elusive set of tracks and, fittingly, bring the same sense of adventure to the material as Radiohead might recognise from recording much of their music first time around. It’s impossible…
Concrete jungle: ‘Among the Trees’, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
At a time when the outside world desperately needs to recognise the importance of the arts, it’s fitting to see an entire exhibition of art on a mission to engage directly with the outside world. ‘Among the Trees’ includes pieces from 37 artists (based worldwide), working in a range of media: as we wander through…
Across time and space: Carolyn Sampson & Matthew Wadsworth at Wigmore Hall
Even if there had been no lockdown, and no live music drought to go with it, I think I would have been excited about this concert to borderline-unmanageable levels. Carolyn Sampson is one of my very favourite singers, and – to my delight – has shown a strong focus on art song in recent years,…
Promentum..!
Many of you reading this will be aware that the pandemically-adjusted 2020 Proms season has just shifted up a gear. Since mid-July, the BBC has raided its archives and broadcast selected performances from past years. Now, however, there is an all-too-brief fortnight of live performances from an audience-free Royal Albert Hall, available on various platforms…
Striking a harpsichord: Mahan Esfahani, ‘Musique?’
It’s impossible to resist writing about this tour-de-force of an album, a CD I’ve lived with now for a few weeks and keep feeling drawn back to, certain in the knowledge there’s always more to hear, more to appreciate. I would be happy to recommend any of Mahan Esfahani’s recordings, but my true favourites are…
Window to the inner world: Heather Leigh, ‘Glory Days’
Heather Leigh’s previous release, ‘Throne’, was one of my favourite albums of 2018. Picking up the record unawares, you might expect country rock – Leigh sings, and her chief instrument is pedal steel guitar – but that would be a mistake. On first listen, you might wonder just what it is you’ve let yourself in…
Body and soul: Anakronos, ‘The Red Book of Ossory’
This brilliant suite of songs practises its own apparent witchcraft, seducing you more or less straightaway with its beauty – which doesn’t fade after repeated listens. But as the debut album from Anakronos grows more familiar, it reveals and revels in layer after layer of sinister chills and thought-provoking arrangements and effects. Anakronos are a…
Sound travels: Xuefei Yang, Melbourne Guitar Festival
Xuefei Yang had prepared a globe-trotting programme that had the happy effect of demonstrating her breathtaking versatility across so many styles
Virtual reality
I think experience has now told us – if we needed convincing – that these communal events are worth having. Not because they’re a substitute for live events, but because they ‘top us up’ culturally and emotionally, while reminding us to never lose sight of the irreplaceable power of the real thing.
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