Music
The Gloaming by The Gloaming
On their debut album, Irish–American five-piece The Gloaming have produced a startling take on Irish traditional music with the addition of minimalist contemporary piano.
All the band members have long pedigrees of music making, with the exception of pianist Thomas…
Morning Phase by Beck
Late one warm Wednesday in February, sitting in the gathering dark with a tart glass of wine, I listened to Beck’s Sea Change in anticipation of its new companion album, Morning Phase. I smiled after just a few bars…
Vagabond by Eddi Reader
Glaswegian Eddi Reader has had a long and varied career: busker, actor, backup singer for some big names, including Gang of Four and Eurythmics, brief pop stardom with Fairground Attraction, and then a series of very well-regarded albums. Vagabond shows…
Mozart Arias by Emma Matthews
In 2009 Australian soprano Emma Matthews released an album simply titled Emma Matthews in Monte Carlo. It was a roaring success so I was excited to hear she was releasing a new recording. Featuring all Mozart arias, this was…
Extended Circle by Tord Gustavsen Quartet
The superstar Norwegian pianist’s sixth album marks the completion of a ‘double circle’ of trilogies: the first with the trio, heard on Changing Places, The Ground and Being There, and the second with the quartet, heard on the…
Concerts Bregenz Munchen by Keith Jarrett
This is 150 minutes of Keith Jarrett at the absolute apex of his solo powers. On the heels of the colossal Sun Bear Concerts, released as a ten-LP set (six CDs in modern parlance) in 1981, Jarrett and his…
No End by Keith Jarrett
No End consists of home recordings Jarrett made in 1986. What makes it (almost) unique, among his vast canon, is that for the most part, Jarrett plays drums, percussion, electric bass and guitar. These are non-composed vamps, very similar in…
Destino Mexicano by La Compañia
In 2012, the Melbourne-based Baroque group La Compañia released their album, Ay Portugal. An homage to fifteenth-century Portuguese music, it was a triumph – and I still enjoy listening to it. So it was with great excitement that I…
Give the People What They Want by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Album number five from the inimitable Ms Jones and her Dap- Kings was slated for release last August, though these plans were put on hold when Jones was diagnosed with cancer in June. With the cancer now thoroughly licked, it’s…
Smashed On A Knee by Powder Monkeys
Drawing on the membership of the equally seminal God and Bored!, the Powder Monkeys embodied the late eighties/early nineties Aussie independent guitar music scene, while tracing a pub-rock spiritual lineage back decades, through Rose Tattoo, Lobby Loyde and Buffalo. On…