It is an under-explored truism that in a relationship the thing that brings you together is the same thing that will ultimately drive you apart. Thus, we find that with the re-release for the first time on vinyl of Polar [...]
I was in the Büro des Bürgermeisters, the Mayor’s Office upstairs at the Rathaus of the town of Moers, for a solo performance by saxophonist and all-round musical maniac Hayden Chisholm, when a man randomly offered me single malt whisky [...]
The first fruit of a new partnership between Moers Festival and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival was the fascinating and mutually enriching XN concert series at Moers 2025—XN for eXperimental eNcounters—with more concerts to come in the future as each alternately [...]
We have also covered: James Brandon Lewis – Byron Wallen (Jon Turney)Flight Call – Jazz Concert for Schools (John WatsonConservatoire Exchange Concert – Parabola Arts Centre Programme (Peter Slavid)Lady Nade sings Nina Simone – Kokoroko – Nubya Garcia (AJ Dehany) [...]
Nubya Garcia’s return to the UK at Cheltenham after a two-month American tour supporting her new album Osyssey saw her at the top of her game in a set that was both uncompromisingly visceral and a deeply personal appeal to [...]
London seven-piece Kokoroko seem to be on the verge of a massive breakthrough. Envisaged in 2019 as a fusion of jazz and afrobeat, their sound is and was emblematic of the Londonist Britjazz movement that seems to retain vitality as [...]
Lady Nade’s crowd-pleasing tribute to Nina Simone is achieving an unprecedented level of success for a resolutely independent artist, a success which you can only feel is as deserved as it is convincing. Since Lady Nade’s Cheltenham debut six years [...]
London-born pianist of Barbadian and Vincentian descent Sultan Stevenson’s second album El Roi is styled as an artistic statement, musically conveying the estimable twenty-four-year-old’s thoughts and emotions around concepts of faith and identity. ‘El Roi’ means ‘God of Sight’, one [...]
It’s Postmodern Monk, but so is Monk. Xhosa Cole Quartet’s third album and tribute to legendary composer and pianist Thelonious Monk, FreeMonk, freely reworks the legendary composer and pianist with giddy virtuosity. Even so, the album feels comparatively restrained compared [...]
The world premiere of a collaboration between alto saxophonist and composer Cassie Kinoshi with her boundary-pushing group seed. (formerly SEED Ensemble, formed in 2016) and the full might of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) under Ben Gernon, met with great [...]
