Fleet Foxes, London
Now that Mumford & Sons have come along and ruined it for everyone, you'd be forgiven for never wanting to see another gang of earnest, fiddly folkies in cheesecloth shirts ever again. But it would be churlish to throw Fleet Foxes out with the nu-folk bathwater; despite looking like they've come to remove a dead tree stump from your garden, the Seattle six-piece cast a dizzying spell the moment they open their mouths. When those massed harmonies get going, it's like walking into a room with Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, and the entire vocal cast of Alan Lomax's folk field recordings. Even if new album Helplessness Blues seems a little more solipsistic than their rousing debut, Fleet Foxes are unlikely to leave you unmoved.
Hammersmith Apollo, W6, Tue to Thu
Sam Richards
London Sinfonietta & Matthew Bourne/Nils �kland
The unflinching iconoclasm, total-music openness and jazz erudition of pianist-composer Matthew Bourne can make him anything from a British John Zorn to a 21st-century Thelonious Monk, but even for him this is a rare departure. Innovative classical ensemble the London Sinfonietta and promoters SoundUK are staging a three-day Kings Place festival called Written/Unwritten, harnessing collaborations between improvisers and score-based musicians. The partnership presents new music nurtured in Sinfonietta workshops, a solo Bourne improv set, and works by Berio and others. Folk fiddle star Nils �kland explores the same format on Thursday night.
Kings Place, N1, Thu & Fri, to 4 Jun
John Fordham
Dot To Dot, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester
Much like the now incredibly popular Camden Crawl in London or Brighton's Great Escape, Dot To Dot is one of those sprawling urban multivenue festivals for which careful planning is required to maximise the value of your ticket. Get it wrong, and you could end up wasting your evening in front of Hurts or We Are Scientists (Dot To Dot's uninspiring "name" headliners) while the real fun and memorable shows go on elsewhere. Plot a discerning path through the programme and you could end up instead enjoying the probing art rock of Foals affiliates Fixers and Trophy Wife, the exhilarating indie pop of US visitors Dom and Braids, the foppish songcraft of Wolf Gang, and the distinctly quirky contemporary takes on dubstep and garage proffered by SBTRKT, Hyetal and Becoming Real.
Various venues, Bristol, Sat; Nottingham, Sun; Manchester, Mon; dottodotfestival.co.uk
Sam Richards
Bath International Music Festival
Since pianist Joanna MacGregor became artistic director at Bath five years ago, she's broadened the festival's appeal, extending the programming to work in jazz, folk and world music. The process continues this year with everything from medieval hymns to the Virgin (Sun) to cult Australian band the Necks (Sun), postbop to hip-hop from British saxist Soweto Kinch (Mon), via tributes to Paul Robeson (5 Jun) and Nina Simone (Mon). Classical highlights include Stravinsky's masterpiece Les Noces (Wed), while Berlin between the world wars is evoked with Ute Lemper (Sat) and a celebration of Kurt Weill's collaboration with Bertolt Brecht (5 Jun). More conventionally there are appearances by the Tokyo String Quartet (Thu) and violinist Alina Ibragimova (Sat), plus a whole day devoted to the great Cornelius Cardew (4 Jun).
Various venues, to 5 Jun, bathmusicfest.org.uk
Andrew Clements
Hebrides Ensemble, On tour
Gy�rgy Kurt�g's longest work, Kafka Fragments ? an hour-long song cycle for soprano and violin ? has suddenly become hip. It was only last year that Peter Sellars's staging was performed at London's Barbican Hall, and now the Hebrides Ensemble has built a programme around the piece. Like so many of Kurt�g's works Kafka Fragments is far more than the sum of its parts, a series of settings of scraps of Franz Kafka's writings assembled into a single arc. The Hebrides Ensemble preface the cycle with a version for cello and piano of a song from Schumann's Op 39 Liederkreis, and Jan�cek's First String Quartet for a piano trio.
The Arches, Glasgow, Tue; Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Wed; CBSO Centre, Birmingham, Fri
Andrew Clements
James Blake, Edinburgh, Glasgow
James Blake is the Harold Pinter of post-dubstep balladry, renowned for his pregnant pauses almost as much as the notes. When his breathtaking cover of Feist's Limit To Your Love snuck on to the Radio 1 playlist late last year, its starkness was a revelation among all that ultra-compressed pop. What you won't have heard properly were the teeth-rattling peals of sub-bass that punctuate the song. Blake's mix of bass drops and unashamed crooning has been mocked as "blubstep", but those who accuse Blake of watering down edgy club sounds are wide of the mark; his lovely, fractured songs can be as confounding as they are comforting. Live, Blake is backed by two college mates and, for the tour's London date at Koko (14 Jun), there's also a specially designed lightshow from United Visual Artists, who have previously worked with U2 and Massive Attack.
Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh, Wed; Oran Mor, Glasgow, Thu; touring to 16 Jun
Sam Richards
Leslie Bega Maria Sharapova Lindsay Price Zoe Saldana Rachel Perry
No comments:
Post a Comment