The Editors

The Editors, live at the Brixton Academy, October 8, 2007

The Editors' second album, An End Has A Start, is the best CD I've bought this year (of course, you haven't seen what else I've bought....). A mix of The Smiths, Radiohead, Coldplay and U2, the Birmingham band nonetheless has its own distinct sound and style. There's not a bad song in the whole album, which gets better with every listen.

Their sold-out gig at the Brixton Academy was a manic, awesome affair, with Tom Smith climbing all over his piano and running around the stage like a crazed man until he eventually managed to rip out his leads and threw his guitar on the ground in contempt. But he has a compelling voice and delivers lyrics with a punch ("How can you know what things are worth if your hands won't move to do a day's work?"). The songs are full of fantastic guitar riffs and original drums sections. Escape The Nest is my personal favourite. We were deaf for about two hours afterwards, but it was well worth it!

funkynewwords

So I was described by AR yesterday as a "superachievingnerdybutloveablemonkey". I don't have an official definition for this new term, but it's sort of self-explanatory. I like this great potential to develop new words by stringing lots of adjectives together. It's almost germanic. AR also coined this new term: "ninjafoodtennismusicetc". I can give you an official definition for this: "A class of recreational activity that comprises watching a movie followed by a meal of a complementary cuisine. Tennis and/or music, with particular reference to 20th Century Soviet composers, may be directly or indirectly involved. The term is particularly associated with Japanese films and cuisine."

Miso Soup

Miso Soup, Live at the Purcell Room, 17 July 2007

OK, how could I resist going to see a band called Miso Soup? This London-based Japanese quartet of guitar, bass, synths/trumpet/percussion/whatever and drums played in the South Bank's World London series. Words rather fail to describe this crazy avant-garde, improv, fusion, funk, jazz, drum 'n bass, rock get-up. But damn, they're pretty cool.... check 'em out on MySpace.

The Gotan Project Live at the Barbican, London

On the tail-end of their Lunático tour, The Gotan Project performed at the Barbican a day after winning at the Radio 3 World Music Awards in the Club Global category, which sounds more like something you might want your airline to upgrade you to. The set was a slightly toned down version of their Paris gig and suffered from being in a seating venue and an audience that had probably never heard the band live before. Row K was particularly boring. Despite this, the performance was a typically cool Gotan Project affair, with the white suits and silk gowns, slightly bizarre visuals and irrepressible mix of crazy DJing, virtuosic playing and tango.

The band finished with an encore of Libertango played over the backtrack of Diferente, which was, well, different. The extended Lunático album with three bonus tracks and two videos is now available. Everyone go out and grab a copy!

Yui: Can't Buy My Love

Let me confess now that I'm new to the whole J-Pop phenomenon, but I picked up this CD in Hong Kong and I'm hooked. Yoshioka Yui is a 20 year-old singer-songwriter from Fukuoka. Her second album, Can't Buy My Love, made it to the number 1 spot on the Japanese Oricon charts back in April and has so far sold more than half a million copies worldwide. Yui is like Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson and No Doubt mashed together and sung in Japanese (and let me apologize now for mashing No Doubt and the other two together). I know this doesn't sound particularly appealing, but the album is great, full of catchy riffs, catchy lyrics (I imagine, if you speak Japanese), hummable tunes and songs that could win the Eurovision song contest. Rolling Star, It's Alright, CHE.R.RY, and Winding Road are my favourite songs (why are the titles in English, you ask? I dunno.....). You can catch I Remember You and Goodbye Days on YouTube.

Feist

Feist, Shepherds Bush Empire, London, 17 February 2007

First of all, a piece of advice. If you're collecting money for charity at the line for a Feist concert and you hear someone speaking in a vaguely North American accent, chances are they're Canadian. Just as a general matter of course, it's not good to start conversation by asking: "So, which part of the US are you from, then?" There's a good chance abuse will be hurled at you and your name will be cursed forever.

There was an opening act to this. I vaguely remember it. It was a one-man band. Some guy called Dr. something. It must have offended something, for my mind seems to have blocked the details from memory.

Feist played material from her new album, The Reminder. I'd say Feist is the right side of quirky. I liked all the rhythm lines and riffs, but I kinda got the feeling that, despite her instantly recognizable voice, she doesn't really have a distinctive style of her own, so I kept being reminded of bits of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the White Stripes, the Zutons, Alison Goldfrapp and Eva Cassidy, among others. Her mellow stuff is better than her more upbeat, rocky songs. And, of course, we always welcome a new rendition of Mushaboom to end the evening.

Murray Perahia

Murray Perahia in recital, Barbican Hall, London, 23 April 2007

Right, so need I say that Murray Perahia is awesome..... Monday saw his return to the Barbican, following last year's cancelled recital due to recurrent problems with a hand injury. An inflammation in the hand during the 1990s forced him away from the piano for a number of years, during which he supposedly drew great inspiration from listening to Bach. True or not, he has subsequently given us some of the most sublime recordings of Bach's keyboard works.

It was thus unsurprising that he should choose to start the evening with Bach's C minor Partita which, although marred by a few mistakes, was remarkable for its clarity. Watching someone play Bach is always nerve-racking, because it requires mathematical precision and there's simply no room for error. Under Perahia's hands, you can hear every single note of every single voice, no matter what finger, what tempo or what dynamic.

He was nevertheless far more comfortable with Beethoven's Pastoral Sonata, his best piece of the evening. This was followed by Schumann's Fantasiestück, a piece I'm not so keen on. But Chopin's Ballade No. 2 was amazing, and followed by a breathtaking Chopin as an encore.

On a completely random note (no pun intended), Murray Perahia kinda reminds me of Jacques Pepin. I can imagine he might make a good chef, although he seems a bit too mild-mannered. I wonder how Jacques Pepin would do at the piano......

Eva Yerbabuena

Eva Yerbabuena and her Ballet Flamenco company opened the London Flamenco Festival at Sadler's Wells with three performances of her latest production, El Huso de la Memoria (The Spindle of Memory). A native of Granada, despite having been born in Frankfurt, La Yerbabuena is one of the leading flamenco dancers of her generation. Her new production blends traditional flamenco with modern dance styles to create a rather abstract, but captivating performance. It consists of a number of precisely choreographed numbers with different combinations of male and female dancers, with a focus on time, symmetry and rhythmic repetition subtly inspired by West Side Story. These numbers are interspersed with more free-flowing interludes from dancer Aida Badía, performing to saetas, unaccompanied prayers originating in the Easter processions. Eva Yerbabuena dances four numbers, the third of which is by far the highlight of the show, and danced to a soleá (an improvised combination of three- or four-verse stanzas over a 12-beat metre). The musical accompaniment is provided by four male singers, two guitars, flute/soprano saxophone, and percussion.

This type of more artsy, large-production performance will probably not appeal so much to those preferring the more intimate, low-key setting of traditional flamenco haunts, but it's a fair compromise to see the more established dancers who have graduated from the tablao. Of course, I wanted to see Isabel Bayón on Wednesday, but it's sold out already. The clip below is from one of Yerbabuena's performances at the 2006 Bienal de Flamenco in Seville, with singer Miguel Poveda, courtesy of traza