Review: Time Out Best of Rising Stars

Time Out con­tin­ued their Ris­ing Stars series with a bumper Xmas spe­cial ‘Best of Ris­ing Stars’ – six acts with a foothold in the music indus­try who are being reward­ed by see­ing their tal­ent and per­sis­tence start to pay off. Hold­ing the Ris­ing Stars series is a good move for The Jazz Cafe too, as it helps spread the word about the…

Read More

Review: Django Django at The Roundhouse

There are two Djan­go Djan­gos. There’s what you hear on their albums, a fat slam of addic­tive, uptem­po, feel-good melody, laced with dis­tinc­tive har­monies with a sweet-sour bal­ance. Then there’s live Djan­go, which is an alto­geth­er more dance-dri­ven, stripped, souped up ver­sion of the above, with a rock­et up its arse. Art house rock­ers Djan­go Djan­go are one of the bands…

Read More

Blue Zoo, Matt Backer plus 80s clubnight

This Sat­ur­day 5th Decem­ber is time to par­ty 80s style. Blue Zoo are play­ing at Nam­buc­ca, near Arch­way at 8pm, with a set list which includes those hits Cry Boy Cry, Ivory Tow­ers, I Shoot Sheep and more. Sup­port acts are: Matt Backer who has played with bands includ­ing Rumer, ABC, Julian Lennon, Sis­ter Sledge, Jamelia, Mark King,…

Read More

Nadine Khouri, Romeo Stodart, Bernard Butler: The End Festival

Not con­tent with pre­sent­ing us with a mere week­end of music, this year pro­mot­er Howard Monk and the team behind The End Fes­ti­val, set in Crouch End, extend­ed the event over 11 days. Heady and ambi­tious stuff. There’s no point pre­tend­ing it’s all gone like clock­work but that’s not what The End is all about.…

Read More

The End Festival 2015: opening weekend

The End Fes­ti­val is at the half-way mark, and so far it’s been an enjoy­able, if slight­ly chaot­ic, expe­ri­ence, with a dai­ly ros­ter of bands appear­ing at venues around Crouch End. Open­ing night at Earl Haig fea­tured Ice­landic out­fit YLJA (they are appear­ing twice more over the fes­ti­val’s dura­tion) and are notable for their crystalline…

Read More

Review: Richard Hawley at The Roundhouse

Richard Haw­ley is on his best form yet, and deliv­ers a storm­ing crowd-pleas­er set: dense gui­tar dri­ven sound com­bined with beau­ti­ful bal­lads. I imag­ine that many oth­ers in last night’s audi­ence at The Round­house had, like me, put the final episode of Down­ton Abbey on ‘Record’. I’m indeed thank­ful for such tech­no­log­i­cal won­ders, because I would­n’t have missed this incredible…

Read More

Review: Jane Weaver at Oslo

Set against a mus­cu­lar, dri­ving bassline and wall of dense synth/guitar, Weaver’s voice adds a spacey, ethe­re­al light­ness, the two ele­ments bal­anc­ing each oth­er, cre­at­ing almost vis­i­ble layers. 

Read More

Review: Aidan Connell, Grio album launch

For blues gui­tarist Aidan Con­nell, the launch of his debut album Grio may be an impor­tant occa­sion, but his music career has­n’t exact­ly been short on sem­i­nal moments. Sea­sick Steve hailed him as “the only rock ’n’ roller in town”; he’s played with ven­er­at­ed Cal­i­for­nia band Mazzy Star after Dave Roback took note of the tal­ent­ed young­ster, and praise…

Read More

Review: Festival Number 6 2015

Fes­ti­val Num­ber 6 feels as if it has ful­ly got into its stride. It offers a dizzy­ing array of intel­li­gent­ly-curat­ed events, from bands and DJs to com­e­dy, night­time pro­ces­sions, work­shops and talks, plus some­thing this fes­ti­val has come to excel in – inter­views and inti­mate per­for­mances by a hand­ful of the main-stage artists.

Read More